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| Rah outside Splash Kingdom in Shreveport, LA |
Summer's ending and the Swann Family took its final season trip to the waterpark. We only found out about this waterpark by chance. We knew of the local amusement/waterpark Blue Bayou/Dixie Landin' in Baton Rouge (about 2 hrs east - halfway point to New Orleans) but as we were on a time crunch and had to head North to Alexandria, I figured I'd investigate if there was something by the way of an amusement park and/or water full in the area that would allow us at least 3/4 hours of fun!
I was delighted to find that there was indeed! Right there in Shreveport, LA (about 2hrs North of DeRidder and 1.5 North of where we were in Alexandria). Splash Kingdom is a Christian operated Waterpark (only in the south) and we jumped at the opportunity to
Seek the Kingdom Matthew 6:33 - it was on all of their float tubes! How cool! They play contemporary Christian music over the loud speakers and there are colorful scriptures painted everywhere, but nothing seems out of place or schema - it's far from over bearing. It is a splash park so there were bikini clad individuals and swimwear about, but nothing beyond what is seen at the local pool and totally family centered and oriented - I absolutely loved it!
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| Davaughn in a double tube |
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| Rah, Dae, & Garr |
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| Garrett with his double tube |
The park consisted of about 7 large water slides, a huge wave pool (I laughed to myself atone point wondering if it was diluted with Holy Water) and lazy river. It also had a kids area with the normal squirting apparatuses, bridges, kids castles, lagoons, and the like. It was great fun and very reasonable in price (about $17/pp). We paid our admission, we offered meal value chips for an additional $6. Meals consisted of either 2 slices of pizza, a cookie, and a large drink, hamburger curly fries and a drink, or 4 chicken strips, fries, and a drink - for $6! That's surely a deal and went only to enjoy some summer fun! Or you could just eat use cash and eat as you like...
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| Garr wearing Darryl's pants - enjoying pizza! |
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| Darryl and Garr |
I took Rah on a waterslide. His first, but he was too consumed with riding in the raft that he continuously got stuck (not enough body weight to move it) and wouldn't let it go to slide down normally. At one point he actually stood up inside of the half-tube and I think I went into cardiac arrest! Meanwhile the adjoining side has had like 4 other persons go down successfully. By the time Rah finally emerged at the end of the slide, the park announced that slides would be closed due to the possibility of bad weather! So needless to say, I didn't get to slide - only walk up and down the 3 flights of stairs! LOL. Good thing the lines moved so quickly. I teased Rah that he was the reason that the slides were closed down, but didn't care at all because he got to go down the slide! That booger!!!
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| Mommy & Rah in the wave pool |
So we went back to the wave pool and after Rah scared Darryl by continuously swimming to the rear like he was an Olympian only to get caught up in the waves and disappear and resurface, I figured we'd go to the lazy river so that Daddy Swann wouldn't experience once of those coronaries too as he was still fully clothed besides swim trunks.
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| My little Olympic swimmer |
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| Upset because he was told to come from the deep end... |
I did later coax Mr. Swann into the lazy river, we shared a double raft and I tried desperately not to get my hair completely wet! Natural hair takes forever to dry, good thing Darryl was able to stir the raft away and since he was trying to stay moderately dry also I flipped the raft and dunked him when we exited!!!! LMBO I'm still waiting but I know he's gonna get me back somehow...
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| Daddy & Mommy Swann |
We left the park as planned 3 hours later which seemed to coordinate perfectly with the threat of lightening/rain. It never actually rained but one can't take chances with lightening at a water park - and it was announced later that all tickets for the day would be allowed reentry for another time during the season (I don't know of many parks that offer that concession either). So guess what? If its not raining, we're heading back this weekend for Part TWO of Swann Family End of Summer Fiasco and this time I'm going down the slide before Robbie!!!!
Garrett is on the field now and in his element! Both of my boys are playing football and both are cornerbacks (hilarious). But as Rah is playing for the community based DeRidder Youth Football League, Garrett is playing for the school and as all the city of DeRidder schools carry the same mascot he is a Dragon, of course. In elementary they are "Baby Dragons" and in Junior High School the Dragon changes a bit to look more "adolescent like" and the full-blown Dragons are represented by the one and only DeRidder HS.
