This past weekend, we managed to hit both SeaWorld Entertainment parks in Williamsburg, Virginia – Water Country, USA and Busch Gardens.  I’m going to cover these separately since a) they’re not attached, and b) we had different experiences at each.

(As I always state with reviews – I was not compensated in any fashion for this review.  We paid for our own admission to the park.)

Water Country, USA is a fairly decent-sized water park in Williamsburg, a short distance from the historical district.  The park itself is just off Interstate 64, and features purely water rides, with a couple of open-play areas and a number of slides and tube rides.

We arrived straight off our drive from Baltimore (about 4 hours in the car, plus a stop for lunch), and immediately headed into the park.  This is where we encountered our first issue – there was only one person at customer service.  The woman in line already was complaining about a matter, and there did not seem to be any other window available for handling the matter of the Monster’s need for assistance… so after ten minutes waiting (which the wife did – I had the kids down at one of the splash areas already), the attempt was simply scrubbed as “not going to happen” and we just let it be.  No guest assistance card or the like for the Monster on this trip.  (For the record, we did make a second attempt on our way out of the park, and the line was four deep, with still only one person at the guest assistance window.)

And to be honest, I’m not sure that it would have mattered anyway – the Monster’s not much for water slides, to be honest.  Instead, we stuck to the open-play type areas and let him run around and work off his energy much like he would have if we’d gone to the JCC pool for the weekend.  He did go on a couple of short slides in these splash areas, and we even convinced him to ride a short tube-based water slide a few times… but let’s just say that there was no danger in his wanting to go on a bigger slide.

One thing that I do like about Water Country is that they have life jackets available around the park in various sizes.  This was very useful as it reduced our need to haul one along for the Monster (and let us put R in one), plus there’s a ride – the Hubba Hubba Highway – where you just float along, and with one of us supporting him, he was able to just relax and enjoy it.

I don’t know that we would have gone without having our season passes for Sesame Place – the cost of admission is just not worth it, really, with what the Monster is actually able to ride (and what he’d be willing to ride).  I also can’t speak to how they handle children with disabilities, since we never did get to the window to speak to a person.   If you have a means to get in for a discount, and aren’t setting the bar high, however, it’s a lovely place to visit and cool off for a few hours.