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Old 20 Aug 21, 10:10 AM  
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The First Trip 1993 – Day Three – Watermania – 12th September 1993

We decided to go to Watermania today, as it was literally just down the road and looked really good from the outside and we had some discount tickets, as when we bought tickets for Seaworld from one of the on street stalls, he gave us these virtually for nothing. I recall he charged us $10 and the face value was $19.95 which you can see on one of the photos below. We also went back to Watermania, a few years later when we returned to Florida with my parents. I thought it was a really good water park to be honest, no theming like a Disney water park or the Universal water parks, just a good, honest bunch of slides and water rides.


We went to the Ponderosa for a breakfast buffet which was really good and filled us up for the morning. My friend at work had advised us to head to the buffets and if we were having breakfast to take some of the fruit for the rest of the day which we did. We literally drove one block and then into Watermania, used our cheap tickets, again worried that they wouldn’t accept them and then found beds for the rest of the day. For those that never visited Watermania, it was on the 192 and I have taken the following from the Abandoned Florida website:

Located on U.S. Highway 192 in Kissimmee, Water Mania opened briefly in 1986 and had its grand opening on March 7, 1987. The park was Kissimmee’s first water park and featured rides like the “Twin Tornadoes”, “Cruisin’ Creek”, and “The Anaconda” which debuted in the 1990 season. At the time, they boasted the largest wave pool in the region and also had a surfing experience called “Wipe Out”, where people used bodyboards to ride a continuous perfect wave. Its popularity peaked in the mid-90s when the park was welcoming over 500,000 people a year

Water Mania closed on September 5, 2005. One of its competitors, Wet ‘n Wild, hosted a job fair that same day for the roughly 75 employees who lost their jobs. Wet ‘n Wild also honored Water Mania customers still holding day tickets or seasonal passes. Many believe it closed due to competition from other attractions such as SeaWorld, Universal Studios, and Walt Disney parks, but according to owners Gary and Randy Larson, they were approached by a buyer and decided to sell the property as it was an offer they couldn’t refuse. Along with Water Mania, they also sold the property next door which included the Country Hearth Hotel and a go-kart track. The park was demolished and eventually replaced with a Golden Corral and Pirate’s Island Mini-Golf.

I actually thought it was a great park with a real family vibe and it catered for the adults with some huge slides and the young kids with lots of areas dedicated to them. I remember watching people on the body boards on the Wipe Out ride. Here is my good lady and myself in my prime and as you can see, I still have the tickets from the day we spent there. I can’t believe those photos are 27 years ago and I wish I still looked as good as that now!



At lunchtime we decided to get some pizzas and you ordered them from a window and picked them up at a given time. We decided to get two large pizzas so that we could just have half each. I have no photos of these, but when we picked them up, a large pizza was bigger than a car wheel – there was enough pizza for the whole water park. I remember we invited the kids from another British family who were sat next to us to dig in as well.



We left the park around, 4.30pm and went back to the hotel to shower and change and we headed out to dinner. My friend’s brother was actually working in Florida that Summer selling encyclopedia’s door to door I think (yes, he was crazy), so we drove up to Winter Park north of Orlando and met him in a Mexican restaurant for dinner. The restaurant wasn’t part of a chain, it was a real family run place and the food was excellent. The was no menu and the family just came over to you asked you what you liked to eat, made a suggestion and went away and cooked something. It was fantastic - great food, great company and fantastic Margaritas for those who were drinking.
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Trip report 1993: The First Trip 1993
Trip report 2008: The Stacey J Aswad Memorial Tour
Trip report 2013: What No Stacey?
Disneyland Paris 2000, 2002, 2006, 2008, 2011, 2014
Florida 1993, 1997, 2008, 2013
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Old 20 Aug 21, 10:26 AM  
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I loved water mania especially wipe out, where I did better than everyone ,but only on my knees, I couldnt stand up! The amount of people who lost their bikini tops on that , it was great fun , I never saw another one of those until we did a royal Caribbean cruise many years later, but I'd lost the knack of staying on the board by then
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Old 21 Aug 21, 12:09 PM  
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We never went to water mania though I do remember it
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