Weeki Wachee Spring — Attraction in Weeki Wachee

Worst place to go especially the week-end. You pay an entrance fee to access the facilities which are poorly managed and maintained. Let me explain:

They accept more people inside than the capacity can tolerate. Chairs are accessible on a 1st come 1st served rule and you don’t even have space to put a towel on the sand but they invite you to rent lodges at a ridiculous price (which covers 1/4 of the recreational area) or to settle yourself in the back of the bar in a dirty area I would not even park my car. For the toilets, if you don’t want to use the temporary dirty “construction site style” bathroom, you have to walk 5mn all the way up to the extreme opposite as they are still “remodeling” the old ones during the high season. Refund: of course they refuse it because they’re used to receive so many complaints. So if you try to swim calmly, good luck!you’re surrounded by teenage “safeguards” I will call prison guards flying around you like bees and who are trained to whistle every 30 seconds and forbidding you whatever you do: you can’t dive from the platform, you can’t throw your own nephew in the water in your arms, he can’t grab your shoulders with his hands, they keep asking if your kids know how to swim…so on and so on. The list is not exhaustive. At a certain point, I asked one of the young safeguards lady with a big smile: “could you please tell us what we’re are authorized to do? it will make it much easier I think“ and she replied: “yes I know…that’s why I never recommend to come here”. At the end, we left after 1 hour of hell and noise. Slides: you queue forever as there is only 1 person sliding every 2 minutes so the kids abandoned the idea. Mermaids show: poor quality and old fashion show. Even the young kids were bored and wanted to leave before the end.

In short words, forget about this place if you want to make a fool of yourself with your own money when you have so much beautiful natural parks around.

Ps: I don’t want to diminish the mermaid ladies performance. What they are doing is very hard and it doesn’t look like their management is offering them the best technical and working...

Offering up a less-than-five-star piece for Weeki Wachee is downright un-Floridian, if not wholly un-American. Since 1947, the Mermaid Theater has been entertaining the people travelling along U.S. 19 with a family oriented and memorable act involving innovative underwater breathing tubes, props, unique talent and more.

This was my second time coming to the show - the first time back in the early '90s. It was the first time my two oldest (17 yo boy, 15 yo girl) had seen it and they were expectedly "too-cool-for-school" about it going in, however they were as expectedly pleased to have been taken here after the show was over.

The website encourages park visitors to arrive early lest park capacity is reached before you arrive. At first, I thought this was a marketing ploy to drive a sense of urgency in getting to the park but then I realized that folks DO get her early.

I was particularly surprised at how many people were here at 9:30AM on a Sunday morning. The park opens at 9AM, and I thought that getting in line for the Mermaid show at 9:15 would guarantee a great center seat. Not the case. On June 5, 2016 (keep in mind, local schools are still in - and you'd think a good chunk of the area population would be getting ready for church) there were about 80 people in line ahead of us when get queued up.

So - if a center seat is your thing - get here an hour before starting time. (I can only imagine what time you need to get here in the good months...)

The show itself has a variety of oldies tunes along with some fresh new beats.

Pay attention to the flat-screens above for a walk down Weeki Wachee's history. Tons of B/W footage of the early days. Right before show-time, you'll get a viewing of Jimmy Buffett in HD, with four of the mermaids being carted from stage-left to stage-right during a recent (within the last 10 years) concert.

The show began promptly on cellphone time, and I suspect lasted about 30 minutes (I wasn't paying attention).

There is plenty of material on-line to read about this fascinating act. Check out the wiki- entry. Anyway - treat yourself to some ole-time Florida and...

My 6yr old daughter loved it. But as for me. Well for future visitors. You have to be there early with your whole party to enter all @ the same time. You can't pre pay for anyone that isnt present because once the park reaches capacity theres no way to get a refund or the person in. Me being a fairly new mom again with a 5month old and also with my handicap mother. I was there early in hopes to get a nice shady spot for my lil guy and mother. I purchased our ticket. Being our visit was the hottest month in florida! And also we arent locals. We are visiting from out of state. We had to have the rest of the family and kids rush to the park because they would not let us in at all. All i wanted was to get a good spot for my lil guy. Well now i cant get a refund and i have to rush the rest of my family there to hope and get a decent spot.. moms with new babies can understand my frustration!.. We finally get in the park to learn you have to pay for tube rentals, chairs, unbrellas also. Thats if you donr have any of these items that you would like for the day. First come, first serve. Bisically same for ticket entry to the park. And parking also is first come first serve. and they would not accomadate me in anyway at customer service!.. unreal... very dissapointing. The staff happend to be young kids majority of them. So i go to rental ask for a triple tube to rent. The young girl replies were out... i reply ok, so what i have to wait for a return or ??. She replies if you want you can and she smiled.. her reply was rude, uneducated & ignorant. These kids should be taught better customer service. Non of this info was listed on the website. Only thing they did write that was true is the part it reaches capacity and they close the park. Website needs adjustments and so...