A month or so ago, Gwen discovered, to her amazement, that I had never been to Schlitterbahn. She said that once school was back in session that we should make it a point to go.
Saturday night, I mentioned that we should look into going. It turned out that the next day was their last day of the season before closing for the winter. That seems silly to me–there will probably be three more good weekends before the weather threatens to get too cold. At least according to my standards. But this is Texas. Anyhow, we decided on the spot to go, and bought our tickets online–which they loudly trumpet saves two dollars (they do not trumpet as loudly that they charge a $1 “convenience fee” for online tickets). We also received a “last day of the season” discount.
Sunday, we made a fairly early start, so that we’d have the whole day there. Driving down, we drove through an ominous rainstorm around San Marcos. We also drove past what must be the highest concentration of RV and manufactured-home vendors on the planet, including one selling a model hilariously called the Taj Mahal, another even more hilariously called La Casita Grande. And, to my surprise, a two-story model.
When we arrived at about 10:00 AM, there was no rain, but the sky was very threatening. We waited an inordinately long time to get in (thus negating any supposed convenience of online ticketing)–there wasn’t a long line, but, inexplicably, the clerk was taking about ten minutes to process each party–though he scarcely took a minute to pass us through. Once inside, we got changed and dove in. Although I’m told that lines can be an hour or more for the most popular attractions, we never waited more than a couple minutes, and for the most part, we just got on and went–often several times down the same slide. Clearly, we had picked the right day to come.
Around 1:00 PM it started raining, which made no difference, since we were already wet, but around 1:30 there was thunder, and they closed all the attractions until it stopped, which took half an hour at most. We continued having fun, but it was getting cold, so we warmed up in a hot tub (“warm tub” would be more accurate). Having started in the old part of the park, we then took a shuttle over to the new part. (The old part has a lot more trees, which is nice. The new part has more high-profile rides, which are also nice in a different way.) By the time we got there, the sun was starting to come out again.
We stayed at the park till about 4, hungrily ate a lunch we had packed (all that water-sliding really does sap your energy), and headed home. It was a ball.
For the record:
- Schlitterbahn does allow you to bring in outside food, and you should–the food sold in the park is 4x a fair price
- The storage lockers they rent (for a usurious $4) are tiny–pack accordingly
- It would be a lot of fun to bring a waterproof camera along
- Sunblock sunblock sunblock
OK, so I’ve never been to the ‘bahn either. My girlfriend has been begging me to take her all summer. We finally decided that we were going to go on that same last Sunday of the season. But then at he last minute we remembered that we were planning an open house that day, as we’re trying to get the house sold. So we didn’t end up going. And when we saw that it was raining here in Austin all day, we decided that it was probably better that we didn’t go. I guess you proved us wrong. But I can guarantee that we’ll be there next season.