Shipwreck Island Waterpark — Attraction in Panama City Beach

It seems as though whoever is in charge of your social media can not take constructive criticism and likes to block followers with opinions other than positive ones so I’ll post my opinions and concerns here. In Facebook comments, I stated that your establishment should strongly consider listing all new RULES AND UPDATES before announcing such a “great deal” for next season. This season has been the worst year In the history of all my years as a long time pass holder. I have enjoyed shipwreck up until now all of my life. Hundreds of locals are disappointed in this new management and the “updates” and the way this place is ran. You have so many inconsistencies in your new rules. The bag check for starters. Look, I get it. For safety measures. Although, you allow some people to bring in their lunchables, then a few bag checks later you make others throw away their PBJ and potato chips. Ultimately the same thing/snack. in the same visit, I’ve seen people unwrapping their white claws and trulys from their towels AFTER entry/bag check. Seriously?! You guys are inspecting and confiscating the wrong things! Some kids can ride the white knuckle river one day and get turned away due to a ridiculous height requirement that is followed one day but not the next. You have small children/toddlers face down down in pools. I’ve personally helped them and seen other customers help them, then I look over and see your lifeguards laughing and gossiping amongst each other! The lazy river is disgusting. Your life guards are lazy, vacant floats are every where (although I don’t/can’t blame them, because from my understanding you pay them less than minimum wage (I heard this out of the mouth of one of YOUR employees) and make them wear polos when it’s 100 degrees outside). Your food is atrocious, always cold or hard and more expensive than it’s ever been. Inflation, yep. Although asking for extra sauce is like pulling teeth. Your employee literally SIGHED when my husband asked. You advertise items you don’t seem to ever have. (Strawberry Dole Whip.) You leave at the end of your visit the first layer of skin off your feet because no one thinks to spray the ground anymore. Life guards are slim to none on your most dangerous ride (the river rapids.) My 14 year old daughter helped a little girl (maybe 6-7) from falling through the tube and getting stuck. She likely would have drowned waiting on help from you all. You have fights breaking out in line waiting for food. Life guards are cussing in front of small children. Women are walking around in thongs. Granted, I am all for self love and body positivity, absolutely no shade on the women BUT its literally stated on your rules that they are prohibited! I guess your brand new corporate outlook is, hey, lets add expensive cabanas, fancy cups, disney like wrist bands for “easy” (far from it, I’ve had to go to customer service 3x time for issues), face paint, hula hoop contests and luaus make up for that. You all need to open your eyes and re-evaluate. You all have spit in locals faces this year. I am disappointed in shipwreck now, like numerous other locals. I have spent many summers with my family here, thousands of dollars but that ends NOW. I hope you all enjoyed this season with your “busiest year yet with local passholders”. Of course your busy! We were used to something totally different. I honestly don’t see it happening for your next season. Locals are beyond upset and your response is to dismiss concerns and be passive aggressive in comments or a child minded like response. Then block them. Whoever runs your social media needs a mental health evaluation. You can’t expect everyone to agree with you. That is not the real world. Such a shame! The local, family vibe/feel of Shipwreck Island is clearly long gone. Must’ve left when the old management did.

Don’t bother responding with a reference number or an email to discuss things further. I’ve said all I needed to say here....

I took my kids here on vacation. Almost saw a little girl frown and the life guard waited like 4 whole minutes to save her. Like I could tell she was drowning from the other side of the park I don't know how he missed that she was the only one on there. Made a couple food purchases as well. I went to 3 different shacks and I have to say the workers in the grill shack were just absolutely void of any personality, short, rude, and quite frankly and my kids uncomfortable. The other guys I got my food from were great. Now about the rides. There are a couple rides that say 48 inches to ride but tbh 48 inch kids just be falling off their floats struggling against the current on the one that's like the lazy river but has rushing water in some places. The life guard even made a comment how he has to keep saving everyone's little kids (mine was included) to which eventually I just jumped off my float grabbed him out the water and we left through the lifeguard routes. We didn't even make it halfway down. I'm not complain about this slide but just warning you that just bc it says 48 inches doesn't mean your kid will be able to hold on it or with how big the float is compared to their bodies. The thicker kids did have a better time staying on their floats but mine is 48 inches and really slim. It was the tiny kids i noticed that were flipping out of them and being pushed under the current of the slide. If you let your kids on it, go behind them instead of staying on the side line while your kids drowning on the slide in case you have to grab them up. The life guard on this one was pretty decent but he did have to watch for other kids and not just mine bc behind us we had kids going under as well he had to grab bc their parents weren't with them which is why Im thankful I rode directly behind my little one and I was able to grab him up before the current snatched him down the rest of the way. I'm not blaming the ride or the park but maybe just be extremely cautious bc just bc it said 48 inches doesn't mean they can hold on well when the water gets rough bc they only have adult sized sized floats for it and 48 inches isn't adult sized. I kind of feel they should change it 52 inches or add a weight requirement. The thicker kids did make it down but their floats didn't move as fast. The skinny ones were definitely being flipped off constantly though. Its my fault mine fell off bc I shouldve used the float less kids as a warning rather than thinking they were just abandoning the float but we had seen so many kids doing it on purpose I didn't think anything of it until mine went under. If you see a kid without a float they probably got knocked off bc it's really rough in there in some areas don't just assume your kid can handle it. They closed the pools on the kids side down an hour early so you don't actually get the whole day like they say you do which is fine but they should definitely tell you they close the pools earlier than the rest of the park when you check in.

The walking tacos from here were really good and they have amazing fries and the funnel cake...

We have been going to shipwreck for years but this will be our last year getting season passes. I understand that with new management, there will be changes…but the amount of negative changes are insane to me. I have never heard of there being any “security issue” in all the years prior to this but suddenly it’s an issue where they need to take the time to do bag checks. Only one of the irritations added. Online they contradict themselves on so many occasions. First they say “no outside food or drink” but then continue on to say “as always, snacks for the kids is allowed”. I packed a ziplock full of different snack choices for my kids because like most kids, what they want differs by the hour. I was stopped at the bag check because “no outside food was allowed”. When I reminded them that online they said we could bring snacks for the kids, I was told that only a “small amount” was allowed. Who determines what a “small amount is”? They grabbed the manager who told me that by “snacks for the kids”, they meant things like cheerios or granola bars. So…what about picky kids who don’t eat things like that? And if that’s the only type thing allowed, why is it not posted somewhere so we know what is allowed or not allowed? Then you go inside where the food prices are DRASTICALLY higher than previous years (I get it, inflation 😒) but all their old menus are still posted EVERYWHERE but if you order something off of it, you’re met with a “sorry we don’t have those options anymore” so why have they not taken down the old signs or at least covered them? Seems kind of ridiculous to not honor posted prices. Got refills in the cups that I’ve had for years and they charged $5 for a refill that used to be $1 and some change. Both times I got refills, the staff literally filled the cup halfway and I had to ask (at 2 different stands) if they could please fill them up the rest of the way. My daughters have ridden the white knuckle with me since they were 1 but suddenly they are enforcing that you can’t ride it if you are under 42”. Hard to explain to your kids why they were allowed to when they were way shorter and now suddenly, they can’t. Seems like they just want the out of town crowds now and don’t care about the locals like they always have before. Don’t plan to get shipwreck passes next year and wish I had known about all the irritations this year so I could have avoided buying passes this year. Seems to be a pretty “across the board” feeling with everyone I know who purchased season...