It seems everybody is becoming a waterpark operator.
As an ever-increasing number of aquatics venues take an interest in adding waterslides, lazy rivers and other diverse attractions, their employees take on more complicated work. Waterparks have different needs and requirements, so at least parts of your staff will need to increase their skills and knowledge base.
Rescues become more complicated when dealing with a space that has multiple curves and obstructions. Attractions hold the potential for more congestion. And certain features fall outside the scope of the pool codes with which the industry is accustomed.
To help, here are five keys to success for designing and operating a waterpark.
1. Know what agencies, codes and standards you answer to.
This may sound obvious, especially if you have experience running aquatics facilities. However, waterparks can be a different animal. Not every feature or component will link to the government agency you expect.
It changes from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. You may answer to the same entities as any aquatics facility. But in some places, certain waterslides or bodies of water such as artificial lagoons could be inspected and governed by the Department of Insurance, officials covering employee safety, or even the agricultural regulatory authority.
“Sometimes these attractions fall into different code bases that aren’t intuitive at all,” says Wess Long, president of Orlando-based StarGuard Elite. “So asking and doing the research is important.”
In some cases, inspectors don’t know what codes to apply when doing their job. “Waterpark services technologies by manufacturers have outpaced codes, regulations and standards,” says Dennis Berkshire, president of Aquatic Design Group in Carlsbad, Calif. “So all of a sudden we have people trying to do things that we don’t have a code or standard for.”
As examples, this can apply to such attractions as surf parks, certain waterslides, water rollercoasters, water canons, zip lines and obstacle courses.
You may find confused officials requiring compliance to inappropriate codes, Berkshire adds. So you may need to advocate for a change.
Fortunately, the Model Aquatic Health Code, as well as standards from the Pool & Hot Tub Alliance, the National Sanitation Foundation and others have been updated or are undergoing rewrites to help fill some of these gaps.
2. Place attractions and destinations for optimal flow.
Some attractions will generate more interest (and congestion) than others; some will move patrons through faster.
Then placing attractions, think about throughput — how many patrons can move through in a given time. Waterslides that take only a few at a time will move much slower, leading to longer lines. On the other hand, features such as lazy rivers and wave pools can take many visitors at once, moving the line more quickly.
Mix features and destinations to avoid congestion. For instance, avoid placing two slow-moving water rides next to each other. Otherwise the queues for both could get tangled up and clog traffic flow. Try to place a faster-moving destination closer to a slower one.
This applies to renovations as well as brand-new waterparks. “In general, waterparks have tried to add new amenities every three or four years to keep them current and exciting,” Berkshire says. “Sometimes you’re fighting with the topography and layout, so you’re having to work with what you have.”
3. Design concession stands for optimal flow.
In laying out concession stands and the kitchens that supply them, preventing people from stepping over each other is a significant goal.
Try to keep the team working the counters separate from the kitchen staff. Think about what the cashiers and order takers will immediately hand to customers — pre-packaged foods and other grab-and-go items — and keep them near the counter. Cooks should be able to get their finished meals within reach of the counter staff or customers in an unobtrusive way. You wouldn’t want the cashiers having to walk across the kitchen area and getting in the way of that staff, and vice versa.
Kevin Post, chairman/CEO of St. Louis-based aquatics firm Counsilman-Hunsaker, remembers one particular case. “The food was stored where it was warmed up versus where it was served,” he says. “It required a staff member to pass by three or four people constantly.”
Kitchens and menus should be designed to support each other. If you plan to offer pizza, design a kitchen large enough to accommodate a pizza oven. On the other hand, if you’re developing a menu for an existing kitchen, and that space is relatively small, don’t plan to offer items that require considerable space to prepare.
Also make sure you can accommodate the visitor load. “The assumption with a larger kitchen is that you have a higher capacity serve rate, so the queue rate would be larger in that server area,” Post says. “Do you have a single serving window, or is there a large open area where four to five orders can be set out at one time?”
To address these and other issues, be sure to include the operation team in the design process from the outset, these experts urge.
4. Train to your specific site.
There’s no question that most waterparks need to meet revenue goals and stay within budget, whether the property is large or small, public or private.
There are certain areas where waterparks managers will not skimp, Long says: “They won’t cut the needed staffing or safety requirements like repairs and equipment,” he observes.
While those should take priority, these experts wish more managers would hold another aspect of their operations sacred — training.
“Not that they cut it entirely, but they may take a bare-bones approach,” Long says.
Parks may focus just on the training required for certification, for instance. But this often doesn’t suffice, for two reasons. First, teens and young adults make up such a large portion of a typical waterpark staff, especially during peak season. These staffers may need more instruction on how to handle basic customer service and other universal issues.
This need to provide such foundational training has been exacerbated by the number of knowledgeable aquatics employees who left the field permanently during the COVID lockdowns. With the industry still trying to recover from this loss of institutional knowledge, more training is necessary to fill that gap, says Joe Stefanyak, vice president of education for Ellis & Associates in Maitland, Fla.
So, as younger people take on mid-level and manager positions, they may need more training than you’d expect, Long adds.
Regardless of your staff’s age and experience levels, these experts see a need for more site-specific training. After the basic certification instruction, teach lifeguards and other staff how they should respond while working your particular attractions. “We have to make sure we practice in the same manner that we expect it to play out for real,” Stefanyak says.
When it comes to rescues, for instance, it helps to train and practice with the outside entities who will take part, such as EMTs and police. This helps staff learn how to transition the rescue from one team to the next. Also train with the equipment stored in its normal space, so the team becomes practiced at reaching it quickly.
Anticipate the kinds of emergencies that can occur, such as gas leaks, and drill accordingly. “Sometimes we haven’t thought we need to put somebody through a particular training until something happens, and it’s too late,” Stefanyak says.
5. Ensure consistency between documentation and real life.
During the season, procedures and responses to particular situations can change as the team finds out how they play out in real life. That’s just the fine-tuning process.
But these changes can result in discrepancies between your standard operating procedures, training programs and real life. Such conflicting information could cause problems in cases of litigation, Stefanyak says. At some point, staff should take the time to make sure that all documentation and training line up with what really takes place.
When the team makes changes on the ground, try to review and modify documentation as you go. If that’s not possible, at least set aside time annually to review and revise — a challenge for a hectic crew.
“You need to schedule those [reviews] and make it somebody’s responsibility to take notes [as changes occur] and make those changes,” Stefanyak advises.
