As a parent it is great for my kids. They have a lot of fun things including a great area for little kids, a water playground area, a lazy river, a big water slide, and just a lot of fun little things. I was quite happy with all that it has to offer. I am also a little disappointed for selfish reasons as there are no indoor diving boards. Is it too much to ask? They do have diving boards in the outdoor pool but I don't think there will be a lot of Winter swimming out there. None for me anyway. The other bummer is that both boards are low dives and my personal preference is the high dive. So selfishly, I am a bit disappointed but other then that I thought it was very nice.
So on we go to absolute madness. They opened the pool yesterday and had free swimming yesterday as well as today. We are in Cedar City and that means two things, there isn't a lot of this type of stuff to do and there are a lot of people like me that are looking for a good cheap option. Well, free is cheap and that place was packed. When we walked in Jack took two steps into the pool and then disappeared. I did not see him again for over an hour. After parting with Natty at the locker rooms I didn't see her again until a few minutes after I finally saw Jack. They are both great swimmers so I wasn't worried about that but with the number of people there it could have been very easy to lose them. Andy was also out and about all over the place and he loved it so I spent a lot of time following him around. I am glad that he has grown more comfortable with the water.
We lived in Florida for 5 years. Disneyworld was less then an hour away from our home. In that 5 years I went there only once. It wasn't that we could not afford it, we had the resources. No, the one time we went was during Spring Break when we first moved there and it was packed. We had a good time but that many people stress me out. I am not a big fan of crowds and so I avoided Disneyworld from then on. It didn't appeal to me.
They opened a park in Lakeland probably in late 2009. It is called Common Ground. The park is amazing. It is equipped with lots of cool things and the kids loved to go there. I had a good time watching them have a good time but it was always a very stressful experience. The park was good sized, had several things to do and it was always packed. With three kids running around doing different things it was near impossible to keep tabs on each of them. There were a number of times that I could not find Jack or Natty. Even Andy was hard to track. That is stressful especially when you think about your one little boy who will walk up and talk to anybody. I thought about predators being there just looking and waiting for the right moment. Unfortunately there was an incident there and frankly I was not surprised. Our best day there was right after school in a light rain. It was nearly empty and that made it much more enjoyable for me though it was still a challenge to track all the kids. I definitely had a love hate relationship with Common Ground.
Well, the pool today reminded me of Common Ground. Those same stressful feelings existed and though the kids loved it I found it exhausting. The excitement will wear off eventually and with the prices they are charging I don't think it will be near as busy in the future.
Fun times in store for sure. Here is proof that the kids were there and a quick shot of some of the area. Note that this pic does not do the crowd justice. They were over packed and as we were leaving they were not allowing people in because it was beyond capacity.
Sorry the pics are tough. This is Natty on the playground.
Here is Jack in a very brief moment of being still.
Andy was a fish but here he is drying off and relaxing after his busy swim.
Finally the quick shot of the pool. Note that all three kids are somewhere in this shot. I have no idea where but they are out there, somewhere.
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