Water Mine Family Swimmin' Hole — Attraction in Reston

Worst waterpark ever. Having read online review that one should arrive at opening time (11 am) to be sure to get in, we timed our drive to do that and arrived on time there. At that time, the parking lot was filling up already. We then stood in line for 45 minutes with our 6 year old daughter and 1 year old son. Made it past the TSA-style security desk in the middle of the line we then saw a staff apparently carry to the sign "Full capacity" to the back of the line. Lucky us, we thought, since we made it past security and surely the park would not have an estimated 200 persons (most of them families with small to teenage children) stand in line for nothing.

Not so! To our utter dismay, when we were standing one queue turn from the cash registers, a young male lifeguard bluntly yelled (!) at the crowd "we are at capacity" and that no people already in the line would be allowed to buy tickets unless someone left (nobody did - again, this was 45 minutes after the park opened!).

No apologies, no alternatives, nothing. This stunning lack of common sense in crowd management is without comparison. Assuming a similar drive and average wait by the other families, the park managed to waste some 500 person hours of families who just sought some rest and cooling in the park. You should have seen the faces of our companions!

This would have been so easy to avoid if someone had stood at the beginning of the line with a $5 clicker counter to simply politely turn people away. We notified both a lifeguard of this point, who seemed quite disinterested, and the station manager, who was somewhat apologetic, but...

Loooove it! ♡PROS♡ and cons (mostly PROS 😉) *They have these great soft floaties for the kids. There soft and not as bulky as the others plus they're cute. *Have many slides. *Baby areas like a baby pool with a baby slide then they also have springs and fountains shooting from the ground so it's great for the little ones. They can still get their feet wet and play *they also have a "playground" type of area where there are stairs and sprinklers and cool little nifty gadgets where they can point/aim to wet other kids. The buckets that eventually fill up and pours on you. *The lazy river is great. *They have plenty of lounge chairs BUT in the areas where those cant fit they have regular plastic chairs so no matter what you will have SOMETHING to sit on or set your bags down *They have a lovely "Lawn-like" area where u can set up your own tents and umbrellas and all that, coolers etc *They have 10 minute breaks every hour so that's a nice excuse to get the kids out of the water to grab a bite. *FOOD! food is decent but they have a few options so that nice. Hot dogs chili dogs nachos pizza chicken tenders. THE SHAVED ICE IS AAAAMAZING absolutely love it. Love the mango one and they have many flavors. Also have other ice creams.

CONS *This place gets PACKED (not overly crowded when ur inside... next point) But this means LINES LONG LINES *Although there are lines and a wait sometimes,{Hot days} they have such an organized system set in place that the lines move quickly and efficiently. could be a BIT cleaner. Bathrooms a little gross but I mean it's a public pool bathroom...

Somewhere to escape the heat for sure! big tips I'd like to add is get your tickets online, get there early, grab your chairs , go straight to the shaded area lol. and bring your own food, and drinks!!! A cabana/ gazebo IMO is a little expensive for just 2 hours. ( 45-60$)

For my munchkins(2) and I paid 50$ for the day. They offer tons of junk food items to pick, funnel cake, pizza, chicken nuggets, nachos. they have Ice cones with tons of flavors to chose from. DOTS ice in another truck.

The pizza is 27$, for the whole pie. They sell by the slices as well for a cheaper option.

They take many safety breaks through out the day (150/250/350/450etc til close) which I think is great. It gives parents a opportunity to make sure the children/themselves use the restroom or grab a bite. The breaks last only 10mins.

The park is clean over all, the life guards take their jobs very seriously and some kinda seem like they don't wanna be there.

One life guard particular aggressively screams at the kids, following no please or thank yous. ( walk please, etc) and it sounds irritable. That is the only reason why I took the star off. The other life guards and staff were genuinely kind and was patient with the surrounding kids. They have 3 big slides that can close in the middle of the day. They have other slides "Little Pete to big Pete" They have obstacles over the water ( log walks) they have a nice playground setting in the back, the have a great size lazy river that wraps the whole park. Alot to do!

I will return again, i do recommend the visit on a hot...