Water Country Water Park — Attraction in Portsmouth

TLDR: Drawbacks that make it simply not worth the cost, which isn't exactly cheap.

Lets start here, did we have fun here? Yes, we did.

That being said, I was also pretty disappointed in the state of this park. I have many fond memories of Water Country from my childhood, but today's trip really showed me the place seems to be in a poor state of affairs. On the whole, this was a fairly pricey excursion for a family of four that was brought down largely by what seems to be poor operational management practices.

The road into the place is unpaved, and in very desperate need of basic maintenance.This is to the point that those not driving an SUV or truck with some good ground clearance really need to watch their tire placement and take the road at an absoloute crawl. Even doing that we came close to bottoming out our regular sedan multiple times on oir way to the grass field parking lot.

Crowd management was basically non-existent, and this was the biggest problem. We got there at open, and enjoyed ourselves immensely for the first couple hours, even as lines grew. By mid-day though, the lines for attractions were absolutely insane and we found ourselves waiting in line for 20 minutes to get tubes, just to then wait in line for 30-45 minutes more for the actual ride. On several attractions, there was no clear guide to where lines started or diverged, and where there was clearly equipment there to put ropes up and organize the lines they weren't being used.

48" is apparently a very flexible measurement. Tickets are sold based on the height of the guest, and obviously there are minimum heights for some attractions. Part of our motivation for going today was that both our kids measured over 48" in height at their physicals this year (months ago), and I even double checked that measure myself a week ago with two seperate tape measures. Yet despite this, we spent the day being seemingly randomly turned away from some attractions and not others for my son being "too short" despite measuring over 48" even on their own measuring boards around the park. While it didn't ruin his day, I was less than pleased to have paid for a 48"+ pass for him and ending up spending the day frustrated that 48" is seemingly not a standard measure around the park.

The staff was less than impressive, with interactions/observations throughout the day that left me with a sense that the staff was undertrained and lacked any concern for guest experiences. This was not universal though, and there were some stand out folks I saw too.

Overall, my takeaway was that Water Country is not at all worth the price. Between admission, parking, and other expenses (locker rentals/food/etc) this is hardly a cheap excursion. While the park still has fun attractions, the drawbacks were simply too much to justify the cost and i'll be looking to Six Flags or another water park to...

We have not been to water country on five years. Since our oldest child is 9 years old, we thought it would be really fun. Overall, we had a fun day but there were a few things that should/could have been better. First, the issue of available tubes on some of the slides. There was an abundance of people who had rented tubes so when they would come down they would obviously keep their tube and go back in line as we wait for a free tube. After naome time, we noted there were literally only something like six free tubes circulating on one particular slide when we were trying to go on it. To make it worse, when people with the free tubes would come down, they would try to keep the tube and go back in line. There was no employee moderating the use of the tubes on this slide to make sure free tubes were being shared. If you didn't speak up, you wouldn't get a tube. We also noted that some of the free tubes were being taken by patrons and kept with their personal belongings while they had lunch so they would still have it. We were also disappointed with the number of slides that were closed. The lazy river was closed for approx 1.5 hours and the family friendly slides with the huge tubes were also closed for an extended period. My understanding is it was to deal with a staffing shortage, which is not fair to customers. We were made to deal with longer lines and less time on certain attractions all without any kind of an apology or reduction in cost. I cannot tell you how many staff had grumpy or emotionless faces. Perhaps, that's how it goes at the end of the season but I found it sad. Is a young adult making $20/hour really that terrible? And just when we thought it couldn't get worse, it did. We were among some of the last people out and my husband unknowingly left my 5 year olds swimming trunks hung over the door of a bathroom stall. When we realized it 20 minutes later in the parking lot, he went back to collect them. He couldn't find them and they weren't in list and found. When my husband admitted he only looked in one stall, I sent him back to check the general bathroom. He went back in and thankfully looked down as he entered the bathroom because he found them thrown IN THE TRASH in the bathroom. I am certain this was done by an employee because a) we were some of the last customers and b) customers will generally leave things where they are or turn them in. That really was the icing. Only, it...

This is our 12th consecutive here at Water Country and I'm pleased to say that they've done some nice upgrades to the park. The only thing I do hope is they will invest a little bit more in the bathroom areas, and send staff members into clean them more regularly. I also would love to have some healthy snack options for purchasing, but otherwise we are really excited to see a couple of new slides this year and some general updates that have improved the overall appearance. It seems well staffed after a couple of light years during covid. If you're in the area and do you think you'll want to go to or more times and it's definitely worthwhile to get season passes and they can be found at a substantial discount a few days a year, one being black friday. Every month and look for New Deals.

We were very happy to see this year that instead of taking a rental fee for the life jackets, or making you put a deposit that is refunded later in the day, they are just leaving life jacket scattered throughout the park. This is so much easier for families that are coming in with young kids who find it very difficult to wait in line before their family can begin having any fun. Management seems to have changed their policies on this over the years, but we have really had a lot of frustration during years when we had to wait in that line for life jackets and had accidentally left ours at home or in the car, a very lengthy walk away.

If I had one hope for coming years aside from bathroom cleanliness, it would be to have more reflective paint painted on the pavement. It's kind of a pain in the butt to have to bring sandals in when you're coming regularly and collect them after every ride, so they often end up forgotten. It's better if we can not burn our feet while walking on the pavement. We have learned to avoid going on very hot days because the pavement is unbearable on your feet. I think maximum 82° is what we look for.

The other thing we were a little bit sad about this year is they have reduced the closing time to 5:00 p.m. instead of 6:00 p.m. mid-season, and we used to go 4:00 to 6:00 p.m. everyday, so it's been a little bit harder for us to use our season passes due to our kids camps not getting out until 3:00 p.m. but we are finding ways to acclimate and try to make it work for us, as we realize that this probably helps bring ease with the Staffing situation, and we want Water Country to remain open for many...