WOW! WHAT A DISAPPOINTMENT! Schlitterbahn is a major water park just north of San Antonio that was rated the #1 water park in America on the Travel channel. I am not going to pull any punches with this review. This water park was just not fun and I would never ever recommend going there.
It was with much excitement that we headed to Schlitterbahn on a nice hot Sunday morning. I would liked to have gone on a weekday but Sunday was the only time we could make it. No worries, I thought, we will get there right as it opens and I will get at least 3 or 4 shots at the big attraction.
We did get there early but neglected to research the park and made the mistake of going in the main entrance. Silly me….going in the main entrance. There are two water parks there (East and West) and little did I know that the newer big three slides were at the East park and not the original West park. After changing and running around trying to figure this out, we realized we needed to get to the other park. Could we walk there? NO. Could we ride there on a tube? NO. The only way to get to the other park was on a bus! Darn.
Out of the park we went, jumped on a bus, and after about a 5 minute ride through and alongside residential houses we finally made it to the East park. By the time we finally got back in to the park and up the stairs to the #1 rated water ride in the world (I think), there was already a wait of over 1 1/2 hours! Can you believe it? I will never wait that long for a ride and so we rode the other two which only had around a 20 minute wait. VERY disappointing I must tell you.
Things never really got much better. Most of the water rides are quite tame and all had sizable lines. What was even more frustrating was the layout of the two parks. Schlitterbahn is NOT like Blizzard Beach or Typhoon Lagoon at Disney World where everything is laid out in front of you. Schlitterbahn is a maze of trees and concrete and it is very hard to tell where some of the rides begin and whether you need to get and bring a tube. We spent half or our day trying to find the starting points for the rides.
Both parks look old and are old. The first one (West) was built in 1979 and it looks its age. The park itself as I previously mentioned is alongside real homes with people living in them. It is as though this German town got together back in 1979 and decided to attract some tourists by building a water park. Actually, that is probably exactly what happened. Additionally, there aren’t any of the new electronic advancements that a newer water park would have. The lifeguard at the top of each slide has to manually look at the bottom of the ride to tell when the person in the slide has finished. The lifeguard then gives the OK for the next person to proceed. The newer parks all have machinery to help with that of course.
This park might be fun for kids but there is really not much for adults. The wave pool is VERY small and is quite pathetic really. If you are in the area, have time to kill, and have kids then you might check it out. However, as a destination to perhaps fly to or drive a long way, I would suggest you choose something else.
