Southshore Bay Lagoon — Attraction in Riverview

UPDATE 2 - 3/17/2024: A slow decline persists. The obstacle course is now more expensive yet notably smaller than last year, and the area marked off for swimming (wading, actually, see below) seems to be reduced (i.e., making more room for the paid upgrades to paddle boards and kayaks), while the front gate demands picture ID from my 4th and 6th grade kids. When asked if they should bring their passports, their only forms of picture identification, with them to the community pool, the person said, "Yeah, I guess that would be best from now on.". Really?!?! I wish we had a regular community pool.

UPDATE: I think this captures the overall sentiment exactly - this place attracts a crowd whose defining characteristic is going to great lengths to hide their vaping on the beach, at the bar, and the open green, in violation of the facility's rules, and employees aren't interested in asking them to please stop.

A great idea, but poor execution.

Food and Bev prices rival theme parks, and they'll sell a thousand tickets with 300 beach chairs.

The line to get in is always long and a seemingly custom experience like you're renting a car. There's never a just pay and go option. Residents still waiting in lines, and the dedicated area for them is small. Can I bring my own chair and umbrella? I've had two pairs of employees at separate times tell me conflicting info, 4 people, none on the same page. I felt sorry for the party of 7 that was quoted $302 (!) for the privilege of coming in, and this was the discounted rate. Why would you come here when full-service water parks are only $10-15 more?

The obstacle course is a one-time thing - $15 for what they say is an hour but is really 40 minutes. It's not come and go as you desire, which I guess makes sense if there are a thousand people here, so they take you in groups on the hour and blow the whistle to leave at the next quarter-till. Learn this: there are no reservations. You pay outside and get a wristband, which is your ticket to the course. People start lining up, and they take groups of about 40 people out at once, cutting off the wristband. If you're after that group, you can either stand in line (no shade) for another hour, or walk away and roll the dice that you'll get back in the next line. BUT THEY KEEP SELLING WRISTBANDS! I think the last group goes out at 5:00 (maybe 6:00?), and there must've been 100 people in line to go out, and I've seen two responses. The first time, they only took out the first 40, and people were furious when told NO REFUNDS. I don't know how they resolved it, but I heard the yelling and cursing from across the way. The second time, they let EVERYBODY go out, so now the attraction is overcrowded and borderline dangerous when 4-year-olds are climbing on jumping on the same floats as teenagers and grown men on their second bucket of beers. Whoever runs this place will step over their mother for another dollar, apparently.

Waterslide operation is inefficient. They don't want to put two people on in it, so one person stands at the bottom and approves each person to go up the steps one at a time after the last swimmer has cleared the area, so it's super slow - I counted twelve minutes for 14 people in line ahead of me to go up and down.

80% of the available space seems to be dedicated to...checks notes...kayaks (?), so I guess they're making a fortune off of them. And there's really no deep water, the deepest part is chest high, so there's really just wading and no swimming for adults.

The teenagers that work here seem bored out of their minds, always distracted on their phones (except the lifeguards, thank goodness), with the oldest employee I've seen around 25 probably. Finally, I've consistently seen trashy couples rounding first, passing second, and seemingly moving on to third base both in the water and under umbrellas and likewise never walked through the parking lot and not smelled weed, so there's that.

I live here and am sad to report it somehow attracts many who make for an unfortunate visit. You've...

Frustrating Party Experience and Unresponsive Customer Service!!!!!

My event was on May 23rd, it is June 29th. No true communication received from Metro.

Our recent party at Metrolagoons was marred by significant service issues and an incredibly frustrating request for partial refund process. After enduring poor customer service upon entrance and throughout the day - I was disappointed to find the food quality lacking. The hotdogs were dry, the buns brittle, and the pizza was undercooked and tasted like cardboard—worse than school pizza, as the kids remarked. Of the 15 large pizzas I ordered and paid for, 8 were incorrectly served as personal-sized (pictured with cell phone for size comparison), and the remaining 7 large pizzas were burnt. There were no condiments, plates, or napkins available, despite my repeated inquiries. I spent approximately $400 for the food service alone, not including our guest and package fee.

Upon arrival, we weren't informed which pavilion we were assigned to. The food was delivered 45 minutes after our scheduled start time, and essential items like napkins, ketchup, juices, and a plastic knife were missing. Despite multiple reminders to staff, only napkins were eventually provided. I had to repeatedly follow up for the remaining items, which never arrived.

When I spoke to the manager, he was sympathetic but stated that any refunds for my prepaid food order would need to be processed through the Metrolagoons website. Even after our conversation, the promised condiments and plastic knife were never delivered. The overall service was exceptionally poor, with no one offering proper support or follow-up. Had I known the food quality and customer service would be so subpar, I would have opted to enjoy the lagoon and dine elsewhere.

If you’re interested in learning more details about the Endless Loop of Unanswered Calls and Emails, please read on!

Attempting to resolve this issue with Metrolagoons has been an exhausting and unproductive ordeal. I initially tried to use our existing email thread, only to find it had been shut down with a message stating the mailbox was no longer monitored. I then submitted forms through their "Contact Us" page over six times without a response. Finally, someone replied, feigning ignorance about my issue and asking for my location, despite my having repeatedly provided my booking number and email. After I responded, I received an automatic reply stating that this new thread was also not being monitored. Eventually, after more attempts via the "Contact Us" page, someone called me. I explained the entire situation, believing he was from corporate, and was told he’d call back on Monday. He never called back as promised. When I called him on Tuesday, he acted surprised that I hadn't been contacted by anyone yet and claimed he wasn't in the office. He again promised to follow up, but never did. I reached out on Wednesday, and after more persistent calls from my end, he finally left a voicemail stating the corporate office would take over and contact me. I waited one to two weeks, but received no communication. I then called the corporate office directly and left a voicemail. Someone returned my call the next day, and I recounted all the details again. She expressed surprise about the previous individual I'd spoken with, stating she didn't recognize him from the corporate level. She assured me someone would call or email me that week to resolve the issue, and that she would personally call me back within a couple of days. I waited 1.5 weeks and did not receive any communication from anyone else, and She never called. I've since called three more times and left voicemails, but have received no further response. It's clear that Metrolagoons has significant issues with both their on-site service and their customer support process. Have you experienced similar challenges with their...

Don’t let the five star reviews fool you. This park is part of a neighborhood community that surely benefits for its success and without a doubt is propping it up with 5 star reviews. Read the reviews about not being worth your money, they are the only honest reviews. We were tricked by the fake 5 stars don’t let them fool you too.

Giant pretty blue pool you only get to use 5% of is the first red flag. Sure if you want to paddle board around the whole thing you can do that, but swimming, playing, anything else is confined to tiny areas. If the bumper boats were working it would have been a perfect example of how this place takes something that should be awesome and destroys it. The area you get to drive the bumper boats in is maybe 30 by 50. It was so small I thought it was just the area they kept them until they were in use but one of the guards confirmed that the tiny area was the only area they operated in. So don’t look at the pictures and think look at how huge the place is, you don’t get to use it. Our family has been to a bunch of these water obstacle courses and this is the worst one. Looking at the pictures and what they have to offer it should be one of the best, but over regulation and poor management/ownership turns what should be great into something not worth your money.

Here are a few more examples. The one water slide they have is made to have a line by the life guard sitting at the bottom that allows one person to climb the stairs at a time. So you wait until the person walks to the top then slides all the way down before the next person is allowed to walk up. It is also so mild of a pitch that the one time I went down it I had to push myself along in the middle it was so slow and I got stuck.

Another example is they would only open one section at a time, forcing everyone to wait in longer lines at each activity. We came specifically for the obstacle course, so this was the worst part for our family. They have this stupid process of making you change life vests for every activity. You would think you could just find your size and keep it all day, nope, you must change life vests for every activity. Which leads to some of their understaffing problems because several employees are simply wasted all day sorting and rehanging the life vests. Back to the obstacle course. So you go on it for 30 mins, which turns into about 24 mins when they blow the whistle 5 mins early and the session starts at least a minute late each time. After your 24 mins you got it, yep, you have to change your life vest and wait/listen to the safety briefing yet again. After 48 minutes of the obstacle course they shut it down and force everyone to go use the paddle boards, kayak, and what should have also been the bumper boats, again they weren’t working. That session would last an hour before they would open the obstacle course again.

They won’t let you bring in any snacks, fine, whatever, but at least have a competent staff that can serve food in a descent period of time. There were three orders in front of ours and all we ordered was two sides of fries. Should be pretty simple right, not for the three kids in the trailer food truck. It took them 45 minutes to serve three groups. They wouldn’t allow us to bring in any snacks for our son, whom has severe allergies. We simply don’t trust most places with his health and after seeing how this place was run there was no way we were letting him eat there. This alone ended our day early, the grapes they didn’t see and make us throw out could only hold him over for so long. They even made us dump out our stainless water bottles full of ice and water, seriously?

There are plenty of other places like this that are much better, basically pick any one of the other ones and you are better off. Don’t let the pretty blue water mesmerize you, resist and spend your...