Waco Surf — Attraction in Waco

Prefacing this review by saying we didn't do the surfing or cable boarding, which are the two main/big attractions here. So, take this review with a grain of salt if those are your jam. Wife and I usually do a summer trip to schlitterbahn, but last year prices and lack of shade made it ridiculous and frustrating. So, we looked for a new water park to try, and were attracted to Waco Surf for the long lazy river. Booked 3 nights in a cabin. Thought the lazy river would be mostly shaded, and maybe a few dips along the way to make it interesting. It's actually 30 min of slow-baking under direct sun with hardly any shade. One lap around, and we were done. Wanted to cool off. Noticed a lagoon next to the slides where folks could hang out and watch the sliders fly in the air. That's cool. But, it had lots of debris floating on top, so nobody was hanging out there. Ended up at surf beach to chill out. It's ok. A cement sand bar separates the deeper surfer area where they ride the waves, and a 3' shallows where kids and surf watchers can chill in the water. It's fun to bob around there and watch the surfers, but the cement bottom is really rough. The beach area is sandy, but has shaded areas, chairs, cabanas, etc. So, wife brought a book and read it while I bobbed around in the water watching the surfers for an hour or so. It was pretty relaxing. But, we decided to day-trip it to schlitterbahn for our 2nd day to ride tube rides instead of hang out at Waco Surf for a 2nd day. We're not big on slides, so didn't want to do the slide. We didn't do the surf or cable, but if that's your thing it looks really cool. But, what gets me about Waco Surf is they're so close to being a resort. Wife and I have gone to resorts (Bahamas, Dominican Republic), and they have chair-side drink service, day spa, restaurant. If Waco Surf implemented that stuff, I could see more adults showing up to enjoy it as a mini-resort experience. Let the kids, teens and young adults go surf/cable while mom and dad get a mani/pedi or couples massage, then hang out on the beach chairs ordering drinks and reading a book or playing on their phone. The place supposedly has a cafe, but it wasn't open. You literally have a captive audience of customers on-site at the hotel, b/c it's like a 20-min drive into town to get something to eat. So, their restaurant / cafe not being open for breakfast, lunch, dinner boggles the mind. If they hired some masseuses to do in-room massage (at hotel or cabin) or if they had a small on-site building to do them in... c'mon, that seems like a no-brainer value add that a lot of adults would love. I know Waco Surf seems to be going for more of the surf crowd demographic, but you have to think that a lot of adults there are parents bringing their teens to do that, and the adults might want to do a relaxing adult activity like spa or something else. If they added those things, the place would be a 4-to-5 star easy even for non-surf/cable folks. Ok, let's talk about the cabin.. The windows have sheer curtains that you can see-through from outside as night sets in. This makes it awkward for changing or amorous adult activities. (I don't want to change in a place where folks could see me, and, if I had kids, I def wouldn't want them changing in any room that someone could possibly see into). One window was cracked open. Didn't notice it until later in the night. Folks prepping the cabins probably need to add "close and lock all windows" to their prep checklist. The bedroom was missing a chair to sit in to put on shoes. The kitchen didn't have a stove top .. so I guess you're just making sandwiches the whole time? There were just things missing in each room that seemed odd. No place to hang up your towels / swim suits to dry? Really? Even just a clothes line outside would be nice. But, the cabins are across the cable lake in a nice secluded area, and are well-insulated (don't hear anyone around you), the AC is COLD, and the view is nice. But, sheer curtains means every light outside is coming into the bedroom. Overall,...

Lazy River: Pros and Cons sprinkled throughout: My sisters-in-law and I tried this place for our annual Sisters Day Out. We went on a Saturday (in spite of reviews that suggest going on a weekday to avoid crowds) because that was the only day that worked with our schedules. July 14th turned out to be the busiest day yet for the park this summer, according to some employees. We arrived at 1:30 p.m., and maybe we should have tried to get there earlier. The admission line outside the Pro Shop was long and slow, even though it does split into 3 lines once you get inside. We’d already filled out our waivers online, which supposedly makes it faster to get in, but we still had to wait in line to pay and get our hands stamped. Lines are to be expected at any place like this though, so we waited as patiently as we could, while sweating in the hot sun. (It’s a good idea to already be wearing sunscreen when you first get there; we were getting sunburned in line.) After we paid and entered the park, we found a spot in the dirt under a tree to leave our stuff; there are no lockers. Everybody’s stuff was everywhere on the ground, and towels were hung up in trees. You won’t want to bring valuables. Then we stood in the Lazy River’s line, which didn’t need to be as long and slow as it was for 3 reasons: (1) All the pre-inflated tubes were already in use, and a ton of flat tubes were lying on the ground waiting to be inflated. An employee told us that the flat tubes hadn’t been used this summer yet because they hadn’t all been needed until this particular crazy-busy day. It would have helped if all the tubes had been inflated ahead of time. A couple of teenage employees were at the front of the line inflating each flat tube brought to them, but... (2) they were hot and tired, complaining and distracted, working very slowly and talking to each other rather than focusing on their work. (3) Also, some people, who had started off using tubes in the Lazy River and then decided to abandon the tubes partway through and walk the rest of the way, left their tubes on the sides of the river instead of pulling them along and returning them at the end. So there were many available already-inflated tubes along the river that could have been used to speed up the line. Anyway, the Lazy River itself was very clogged with most people in tubes and some people just walking (the water is about 3 feet deep or so). In hindsight, we think that instead of sweating so much in line, maybe it would have been better to just get in the river without tubes and wade until finding discarded tubes along the river banks. But we finally made it with our newly inflated tubes into the water. The tubes were VERY NICE, with pillow headrests and cupholders. We also rented a tube for our cooler with its sodas and snacks. We held onto each other’s tube handles to stay together and keep the cooler with us. I recommend bringing a rope to string through the handles. The river water is dyed an unnatural blue that you can’t see through at all. I’m not sure why, unless it’s a chemical to keep the water clean, or maybe it’s just a dye meant to hide the fact that the water is murky? It’s supposed to be river water anyway, not clear and chlorinated like a swimming pool or a ride at a water park, but the unnatural blue color was unexpected. Anyway, despite being crowded, it really was enjoyable to slowly drift around and talk and tan. Some people brought waterproof radios, and we enjoyed their music... also, the river has radios installed along shore playing music. But here is my biggest complaint: smoking is allowed and so many people were smoking that the river air was clouded with it. It was hard to breathe sometimes. Also, many people were very drunk and loud. I recommend going on a weekday, or not at all. We still had a good time, but will only go back...

We rented the lake house for two nights. The place is still on property, however, the staff helping direct us was limited help in finding the house. Our guest that came in separate cars had just as hard of time because we had to keep going back to the gate to use the one clicker to let them in. Staff said they only have two clickers for the whole property. Highly inefficient- at the very least, allocate one of the many kids sitting around to show you how to get to the place, instead of them sitting on their phones.

Once to the house, cobwebs all over the entry door. These were not created overnight. Once we were able to get in the house, the fridge was not cooling, the dishwasher had standing water in it with bugs floating, on the back patio we attempted to turn the fans on and one of the fans was missing a blade and about came off the ceiling. Sitting on the patio could be delightful, but there are wasp/dirt dobers everywhere!!!! It appeared no one cleaned the place.

Next morning we woke up to two guys cleaning the pool and I asked how long before we could swim since they were adding chemicals. One guy “20 min” the other guy “an hour”…which is it?!?!? After that a guy on a lawnmower came to cut grass…all the work they did to clean the pool-he messed up with grass clippings—at 9am. I shared with the pool guys our son stepped on a nail at the bottom of the pool, his response “oh, sorry”

About 10ish Jordan showed up to fix the fridge and dishwasher. He had to call another maintenance person who then came out about 2ish. Fridge started working, so our food didn’t spoil. There was a mini fridge in the bunk room we could use with some of the food-

That evening we washed our wet clothes, the dryer turned on-but would not heat. So I had the pleasure of dragging wet musty clothes home 2 hours to rewash …

The dock was unusable and chained off, so no fishing. There are 4 TVs, only one worked. Since we could not be on the patio because of all wasp, we attempted to watch tv, we used our phones.

Will we be going back, probably not. For 2 nights $2,163.72, not including the water park passes - I would say we can find a much less expensive place that has working appliances, staff that knows the property and can truly assist, clean, and no nails at the bottom of the pool. And, yes, I did share all this with the front desk and Jordan. The response I received “I hope these issues doesn’t impact you coming back. And thank you for letting us know so we can fix before the next guest.”

7 water park passes for the next day was $250. This was an expensive experience I don’t plan to repeat.

EDIT: I have been contacted by Amy who shared they had a team meeting to address the concerns I raised, replaced the dryer, trying to find out what happened with the remotes, and credited me $250.00 for our water park passes. Oddly, the water park was the only “up shot” to the whole thing. So all in we spent $2413.72. She refunded $250. That is a 10.4% refund. If we think of all the appliances that were messed up (dishwasher, fridge, dryer, 3 TVs, back fan) plus the other issues, 10.4% is laughable. Glad y’all had a team...