Episode 277 - American Dream WORKS!!

We are finally hitting the road and at the end of March we went to a water park we haven't visited in almost 6 years, Dream Works Water Park at the American Dream Mall.

Check out our thoughts and how our day went.

Transcript

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Hello, hello, hello. Welcome to the 125 Roller Coaster Challenge, the Trend and Staple podcast, guys. And uh thank you guys for reaching out and uh basically really embracing the Q episode. I can't believe how many comments we got about our upcoming trips. And uh guys, you know, if you go on X, we're not really a big Twitter people, but if you go on X, we will let you know uh where we're gonna be as soon as we figure it out ourselves here. So if you're uh interested in meeting up during the summer, um we're gonna let you know where we're gonna be uh on X. So and of course it's 125 Roller Coast, no ER, 125 Roller Coast. Uh we couldn't get the ER from uh good old Elon there, but that's where we're gonna put down our travel plans and stuff like that because like I said, so many people want to see us when we're um out and about. And uh, you know, we're we're kind of spur of the moment people sometimes we just wake up and we're like, all right, we're going to Kings Dominion, all right, we're going to Great Adventure, okay, we're gonna drive up the Six Flags New England. But if you uh follow us on X, we will let you know that. And also um you can follow us on Facebook, Tickety Talk, and uh what's the other one there? Uh Instagram and stuff like that. And uh, you know, we we we're always uploading new stuff on those three too. And anywhere you leave comments, we will answer comments. But of course, our big thing is the YouTube channel. We are striving to get to 10,000 uh subscribers this year. Help us out here if you like our content, if you like the podcast, if you like the videos, we are cutting back on our videos. Uh, we're only doing two shorts for you guys, uh, one or two shorts a week. Um, if you like shorts, you got the membership program. But we're dropping about three full-length videos a week. So uh people seem to like the full-length videos more. Uh, we think we want to give you more quality than quantity now. So we're not doing everyday um drops like we used to, but you know what? Let us know. Do you want us to go back to everyday uh uh content on uh YouTube or do you like the uh how things are spaced out? This channel's from you and me, so definitely let us know what you want to see more of, and we'll make sure that happens. Now, without further ado, guys, let's talk about our trip to American Dream Mall and in particular the DreamWorks Water Park. All right. So uh we woke up, we were like, you know what, we need to get some content. It is March, it's uh near the end of March, and we need to start uh get it packing some of these um coasters and uh um you know water parks and also the dry parks. So the plan was we were going to go and we were going to um hit both DreamWorks and Nickelodeon Universe. We are going to uh film both, we're gonna do the explorers, we're gonna do the unplugs, we're gonna do let's eat, we're going to ride all the slides at DreamWorks, we were going to ride all the coasters over at Nickelodeon Universe. So we get in the car. We're still here in Central PA. So it was about two, two and a half hours, got lost on the way there. Uh gotta admit that uh gets a little confusing with the 295s and the 87s and all that stuff going in there. And uh you're basically on the Jersey side of the um New York City, and you're basically in the Meadowlands. You if you've never been to American Dream Mall, it is right next to the Meadowlands, which is where the New York Giants and the Jets play. Uh their stadium is right there. Uh so that's basically where this mall is. Now, the American Dream Mall is a uh a mall, uh, one of those mega malls, uh, kind of like the Mall of America over in Minnesota. This is the East Coast version of it. And my God, did it have a tough start uh with the pandemic. You know, it's tough enough to try and sell a mall nowadays. Where I am, malls are closing and becoming, you know, you know, strip centers and all that. Uh people, I guess, like walking outside. They don't like the you know, the old aspect of being in a mall and having you know that kind of stuff. I grew up in a mall generation. I like the malls. I remember mall rats from Kevin Smith, and I was like, hey, that was me. Uh that's what we did uh when we were growing up in the uh 80s and 90s. But things changed, the malls are disappearing. So it was very shocking when they're like, we're gonna build a mega mall uh from New York City, and uh everybody's kind of like, What have you not seen the trends? Who's going to malls, right? And then a pandemic hit, and that really messed it up. But we went to Nickelodeon Universe, so that they have a lot of attractions there, and we're going to go back there again and do you know the Hershey one they have there, and they got the arcade and all that stuff. So they got a lot of attractions. But we've done Nickelodeon uh universe, I believe, three times. Uh, we've got all the credits except for Sandy. We haven't been able to get on Sandy yet. Um, and then we did DreamWorks. Uh, it was myself and Janine, and we actually did it uh the day before uh New York City closed down for COVID. We were we went to the water park, and it was us and maybe 10 other guests, and the rest were all lifeguards and staff. It was, I mean, if you ever wanted to have a run of a water park, that was a day. Now, of course, the next day we look at the papers and New York shut down and blah, blah, blah. We're like, okay, are we are we going to survive this? We both survived. Um, but that was really the last time I went there because it is a drive, but also it's expensive. It's New York pricing. So, so I get there and usually I go online and I'll get my tickets, but I wasn't sure exactly how I want what I wanted to do, what time I would get there and stuff like that. So I did not get a ticket on my way there. I was like, you know, let me let me feel things out, see if they have a deal up at the front and all that. So I get there, I park, I end up parking in the Pearl section, so I ended up having to walk through pretty much the entire mall to get to the the rides. But my main thing was like, I want to get the water park done. That's my number one priority, and then Nickelodeon Universe 2nd, because as I was driving, I noticed, oh, Sandy's still closed. So Sandy was open in January, and then in February, it was supposed to be down for a week. Then it was supposed to be down for a little bit, you know, going into March. Now it's still down until the middle of April. So that kind of was a kick in the teeth because that was supposed to be my 400th coaster. I'm like, number 400's gonna be Sandy, mainly because it's so tough to get on that darn ride. Um, so that kind of knocked the luster out of the um uh you know, go doing Nickelodeon universe. Then I ran into the first issue. So I go to DreamWorks and I go there and I talk to the guy, and I'm like, okay, you know, uh, what's the pricing here? I saw the pricing when I was there and I knew it was off peak. So on the website it was $69 for um DreamWorks Water Park, while uh regular, I think it's like $79 or $89, and it was like $59 for the um what's that called? It was $59 uh for Nickelodeon Universe. It was off peak. You know, I went on a uh Wednesday. Wednesdays are off peak, especially this time of year. So I went there and I was like, all right, you know, the combo pass they had for 107. So uh online when I was there. So I was like, okay, you know what? Let's uh let's do the combo pass. So I walk up there and I'm like, hey, you know, where do I go to get the combo pass? They're like, um, you have to order your tickets online. I'm like, wait, really? They're like, yeah, you you can't come up to the front desk and get your tickets. And I'm like, but I'm here. They're like, yeah, go ahead over there in the corner, go on your phone, and uh you can you know do with that. Very weird, very weird that I've never experienced that anywhere else where I can't just walk up and buy a ticket. Then when I went online, they still had the $59 deal, they still had the $69 deal, but the combo deal was now $139. And I'm like, wait a second, it went up $30. And they were like, well, you know, it's kind of um, I forget what they call it. It's it's kind of like airline pricing. I guess it was busier than they thought it was going to be that Wednesday. So the price for the dual went up. Now the the other single tickets, you know, they were still the $59, 69 deal for the off-peak, but the combo is there, and I was like, Well, what do I what if I don't use them both? You know, what if I only do the one park today? And they're like, Oh, yeah, you can split them. I'm like, okay, yeah, it's a little expensive, but I'm paying an extra 20 bucks for the convenience of if I don't do it, I can come back another day. But before I hit the button, I talked to one of the managers, and they were like, Yeah, so what you need to do is if you don't use it today, is next time you want to go, you you gotta email us or call us and let us know that you're gonna be using this pass and blah, blah, blah. And I'm sitting here like, I gotta email you and I gotta call you to use the second half of my pass. Copy somebody else's homework. What in what world does this make sense? So for the ticketing experience and for that whole experience, I'm sitting here like, it went up $20 since the night before. It is now one of those things where I need to get them both done in one day because I don't want to end up having a situation where I'm like, okay, uh now I gotta call them up and oh, it's busy, or oh, nobody picked up, and okay, can I go now? Because I don't know if I get to the front, if they're gonna validate this and all that. So, long story short, I did not go to Nickelodeon Universe. I just got the DreamWorks pass. Because of all the headaches, I figured that okay, let me just concentrate on one of them and not lock myself into Nickelodeon Universe because at this point we don't know when Sandy's there, and then when Sandy's good, we don't know if they'll be taking down Slime Time or taking down Ninja Turtle. So I that whole experience, I don't know. I I know um Chris over at uh Airtime Thrills has had problems with this park also. Am I are we the only ones? Is is this normal? Am I the one who feels weird that you can't walk up and buy a ticket? Am I the one that's wrong when the prices change from when you saw it, you know, the night before? You know, the airline type, you know, what do they call it? Fluid pricing or something like that, flex pricing. That was kind of a weird thing. And then also, if you have this pass, can't they do it where it you if you scan it in at DreamWorks and don't scan it in at Nickelodeon, it's still good for Nickelodeon. I don't need to call you up and say, hey guys, uh bought this pass four months ago and uh like to use it now. So uh let me know in the comment section. Is is am I wrong on this or is this just way too complicated of a system? But let's talk about the park. So we walk on in. Uh first thing I decided to do was uh because it was early. Uh it was only open from noon to five, which yet again, $69 from noon to five. A little steep, guys. A little steep there. Uh, you know, the uh Nickelodeon was open from noon to seven uh and it was ten dollars cheaper. Meanwhile, I mean you should at least have made them the same price, logically wise, because you're yeah, you're losing two hours on the water park. But yet again, I'm there, I'm pot committed. I already made the drive, already dealt with New York traffic, so here I am. So I decided the first thing to do was instead of changing into my swimsuit and stuff like that, let me knock out the Explore, let me knock out that because I knew you know people were starting to come in. And even though we do film water parks, I'm not a huge fan of getting 100 people in water parks. There's a fine line between um you know photographing the events and photographing people in swimsuits. So I went in there real quick and we dropped it already. It's doing a very good video. Um, I ran in there and I just started doing the explore and uh went through it. Now, the funny thing about it was it's winter where we are. So I'm wearing a sweatshirt, I'm wearing pants, jeans, and all that stuff, my sneakers, and oh my god, I was sweating, cats and dogs, guys, because they keep that water park very warm, very warm indeed. Which, of course, you need to because um, you know, people are in swimsuits, they want to keep the water and all that kind of stuff there. But when you're walking around in a sweatshirt and all that kind of stuff there, it gets really hot. But uh walked through, did the entire uh walkthrough um on the one end, and then I decided to go the other direction and do an unplug. So pretty much uh it's only about an 11-minute, 12-minute video, and then the other one's like 10 minutes or something like that. So it only took about a half hour to knock out those two, but it was a smart thing for me to do because first of all, give me the lay of the land, and second of all, uh less people. So we knocked out those two videos. Then I'm like, you know what? There's a reason why we're doing the one, two, uh, five water slide challenge is because last year that's all I would do. Uh this time I was like, you know what? Let me play. But also before I played, I also did a let's eat uh because uh yet again, no lines. Now, with the let's eat on this front here, we kind of went with the Maury's Pier philosophy, where it's a mall. So if you go out of DreamWorks, you've got Chick-fil-A, you've got Arby's, you've got five guys, you got everything outside in that mall. We only did a let's eat of the things that are inside of the water park, uh, which was very limited. So it's probably a five, seven-minute video. I put it together the other day. I haven't really uh um looked at it yet, but um, there's only a couple different food places. So we knocked out all the big videos. That was our goal, that's what we did. So I went into the um um locker room there, and I was like, okay, time to change. And this is where New York pricing yet again kind of woke me up because I was like, okay, I'm gonna need to get a locker because I'm one person, I don't have you know, uh somebody there watching my bag. $25 people. $25 for a locker. All right. I don't want to hear anybody complain about Great Adventures $8 or $6 at King's Dominion or even $10 over at Hershey Park. $25 for a locker. Now, put that in perspective, over at Sahara Sam's, I believe it was six, I think it was six dollars for the locker at Sahara Sam's. Same company. Smart card, so same company. It blew me away that it was $25. That was one third of what it cost to get into the park was their locker, was their lockers. Crazy, crazy uh expensive. But yet again, when in Rome, you gotta do what you gotta do. Thank you, New York. I I wonder why people are fleeing New York, you know, uh way too expensive for what you get there. So, but now it's time for me to play. So the first thing I did was I figured the best way to do it was to go to the staircases because I did the explorer and I saw all the different staircases, and I gotta say, there's a lot of slides here. So, first thing I did was I went to um staircase A, and there they had Penguin Plunge, uh, another one like that. These are the uh shotgun falls, and then they had one called Mad Flush. But when I got there, the only thing that was open was Matt Flush. The other two were not open. I was like, all right, um I guess I'm not getting all the slides today. So I go up to Mad Flush, and what a way to experience this park. This was at the end of the day, this was my favorite slide. It's a body slide with a funnel. Now, we've all seen the funnels when you go to these parks. You see funnels everywhere you go. They're usually called tornado or something like that over at the parks. But they are raft rides. This is the body slide where you get into it, you drop down a steep hill, and then you go through a funnel. Now, it's funny, later on I was talking to uh, I believe his name was uh Anthony um or Andrew. Uh shout out to him, he was fantastic. I bumped into him a few times that day, and um he said most people go around maybe twice. I kept going around three or four times. It's kind of funny because I I I guess a little bit inside baseball. When you go on these water slides, every time you go on there, they say make sure you cross your feet and put your arms on your chest. All right, that's how they do it. You know, arms on your chest and cross your legs. Now I cross my legs, I've always crossed my legs, but I'm kind of old school where I put my hands behind my head because I figure why get a concussion. But also if you arch your back, you're riding on your shoulder blades. Well, that gives you a little bit more speed. If you're flat on your back, that's more surface area, right? More drag on the water. Simple physics, guys. But when you arch your back and ride on your shoulder blades, there's less surface area. You go faster. And that comes back and punishes me later. But I think that's the reason why on Mad Flush I flipped around four times instead of uh two times. But the weird thing about it is you then fall into a hole, and you literally drop in about three feet into a six-foot pool. But here's the thing about Mad Flush is when you pop up, you got all the water from the funnel coming down on you, you know, around the pool, and it's so disorienting, and there's and it's over six feet, so you try you can't touch the bottom, so you're kind of you know, I gotta close my eyes because I wear contact, so I pop out and I'm like, okay, where the heck am I? And I'm like, you know, flailing around until I realize, okay, over here is where the exit is and stuff like that. And they have a lifeguard sitting right there. I am not the only one that is um discombobulated when they hit the water. Uh but I ended up riding this thing four or five, six times that day. What a way to start. But the other thing that caught me by surprise was when I hit the water, it's salt water. It is salt water. Now, yeah, I know a lot of swimming pools are salt water and stuff like that, but I've never had from what I remember uh a water park where the rides are. I mean, when you come out, you taste the salt. You lick your arm, it's a salt lick. It is salt water. Um, so that also threw me for a loop. But mad flush, fantastic. Never seen anything like it, and highly recommend it. More parks should have this. Uh yet I understand it is more challenging because you need to be able to swim. Uh, it is quite a drop down there. And like I said, it's very discombobulating when you hit the water. Hence, they have that lifeguard right there to pull you over if you need it. Um, but then like I said, the penguin plunge was closed. So then I went to Tower B. And there they had four slides. Uh uh Thrill, uh, and they had somebody uh carnivortex was one, uh Sierra, uh Slammer, and stuff like that. But I'm going up these steps, not realizing what they were. So I go up to the first landing and the first two slower slides are closed, and they're the drop floors. I'm like, oh, okay. I'll keep going up. I didn't realize that this was the two big boys. Now, if you go on their website, they advertise the drop slides 140 feet. 140 feet in height. You go into the tube, and if you're not familiar with the drop slides, you go into a uh there's a door, and you go in there and they close the door, and then there's a countdown, and the floor drops out, and that's how you drop. Um, but I'm going up this staircase. Uh first of all, I'm getting older, I'm a little bit out of shape. I'm getting a little windy going up a hundred uh hundred and forty feet in the air on these stairs. But then as I start going up higher and higher, I'm getting the vertigo because I am afraid of heights. And I'm like, okay, am I going up? Am I going? I'm gonna keep going up, I keep going up, it never ends. And you see the ceiling, and you're like, okay, it's got to end at the ceiling. No, there's actually a extension that's actually higher than the regular ceiling. So you're like, oh my god, you keep going up. So I get to the top and I see what they are. I'm like, oh my god, I'm already doing the big boy. I didn't expect to be doing the big boy until you know I get my sea legs under me. So I'm up there, and the first thing I do is there's a purple one and an orange one, and I go to the orange one and you know, get ready to go in there. But I turn to the guy and go, listen, are these the same ride? And he goes, Yep, exactly the same. You know, they're mirrors. Fantastic, because we're not doing uh the same coat, you know, the same slides. Uh so whenever the rules that we have, we have three rules, three simple rules. So I might as well tell you those real quick in case you didn't know it. For the water slide challenge, we cannot, number one, do kiddie areas. So we're not going to go, they have a penguin area uh that had six little kid slides. We don't do the kid slides, they don't count. Second thing is we don't do the splash pads. Uh, like East Coast Waterworks has three or four slides on it. Uh the one they had there was the Tower of Awesome, I think they called it, and uh from Kung Fu Panda. And there, yet again, we don't do those slides. Um, just something there. And the other thing we do is we don't do the duplicate slides. So if I'm doing a racing, they had uh Trolls Rainbow Racer, and it was six uh interlocking um pads, um uh mat rides, mat slides. Well, they only count as one, you don't count it as six, and it's a duplicate slide, so if it's the same slide, kind of like the penguin uh plummet one and the shotgun one, they're both shotgun false, same exact slide. We don't do them back to, you know, they don't count as two credits, they count as one. So that was my solace was okay, I only have to do this once. And truth be told, I only did it once. Uh, but I went in the orange one and they locked me in there, and I free fell, and you're free-falling probably about 70-80 feet before the slide catches you and you go into a trough. But man, when you hit that water, wow, does it really clean you up pretty good? Um, on that end there. So uh that was the second slide of the day was a hundred and forty foot drop. So after that, I was like, oh, this is gravy. But then I went to um Tower C, which had uh three raft rides, which are really good raft rides. Uh the first two were pretty slow, but the one the Lemur leap um was the only really good one there, and that was a funnel. Uh the other two were very slow, very family oriented. So if you're looking for uh to get your kids on a raft ride early on, um, you know, and kind of get them uh acclimated, I highly recommend um one was um yeah, the other two slides there were very mellow, very um tame compared to uh Lemur's Leap. Lemur's Leap definitely uh threw you around a bit. But then I went over to Slide Tower D, which was uh Zany Zigzag and Zanier Zigzag, and that was closed. And I'm like, what the heck's going on? All these things are closed. Um but then I noticed people started going down the other two drop slides, the the shorter ones. And long story short, they had all the slides open, they were rotating them throughout the day, which I thought was a fantastic thing to do on a Wednesday. So it went from me being very disappointed with DreamWorks. I'm like, oh my god, the staffing's there, they don't have this, they don't have this, to me realizing that okay, everything will be open. You gotta jump on it when you see them open because um, like in the beginning, Mad Flush was open in the beginning, then later on, they opened up the penguin plummet, and then the other one, and then they kept jumping back and forth. Uh, they did the same thing with Zany Zigzag. When their next staff came in, probably around two o'clock, they opened up the zigzags. So going back to um the uh staircase, um, the uh penguin plummet was a shotgun. Now, if you're not familiar with the shotgun, it's basically it's a short slide, it's like two little bumps, and then it free falls you five feet into a deep pool. Uh, you see those over at a lot of parks, they're a lot of fun. Um, I only did the penguin one because the other one was exactly the same, same rule as with tower B. The two drop towers over on B, those the shorter ones were actually two separate slides. Uh, one of them was basically a free fall down, while the other one did a lot of um twists and turns, uh, which of course beats you up when you're riding on your shoulder blades, going a lot faster. So I got on those. Um, they were good, they were solid, uh, but none of those uh on tower B or tower C really caught my hey, this is something I need to definitely ride uh again and again. And I did not really ride them again. I got the uh slide credit for lack of a better word and moved on. But let's get back to Zany Zigzag. This was um staircase D. And this is where riding on my shoulder blades really affected things. So I went on Zany zigzag, which was the older one of the two, and that was a good ride. That was twists and turns. It's a great body slide, you're flipping left, flipping right. I was hitting the pool pretty hard, uh, water-wise. Um, but great ride, fun ride. Kind of whacked. I think that's where the first time I hit my hip pretty good there, because I walked out of this thing with two big bruises on my uh butt and hip area as I was getting beat up on some of these rides. But then I went on Xanear zigzag, and that was where okay, I can see why they don't want you riding on your shoulder blades, because halfway through it, I flipped. I hit the side so hard that I ended up flipping onto my belly and ended up going pretty much head, you know, uh feet first on my stomach into the pool. It was one heck of a ride, I can tell you. That was a fun ride, and it was one of my top rides, it was a top three ride. Um, but now I can figure out okay, that's why they don't want you to do that. So those were the body slides and stuff like that. Now, body slides and raft slides on all, like I said, the Mad Flush was fantastic. Uh, like the zigzags, the other two, yeah, they're fun and stuff like that. I got them, did them again. Now we're over in the back of the park. Now, the one thing about this park, and the first thing you see when you come in, they have a giant balloon of Shrek over their wave pool, which is the largest indoor wave pool in the country. Because I was making a comment that Clementon says it has the largest wave pool in um New Jersey, and I'm like, well, it's not even close to the size of this thing. You got that indoor, outdoor kind of thing there and stuff like that. So that's how they play with that. But um, yeah, if you like wave pools, they only had half of it open, but you only needed half of it open. It is a mammoth wave pool, and you actually get really good waves. Uh so if you like wave pools, this is one that you can lounge by the end there, put your feet in the water, or you can splash and play. And it's salt water, so it pretty much feels like the ocean. But um, great, great, great, great, great, great, fantastic um wave pool. Now we're at the far end, and the one thing that really I remember from our trip here before was their water coaster. And uh back when we were here last time, it was uh named after Tufless, which is uh how to train your dragons. It was the um one of the dragon characters. Now they kind of re-themed it to DreamWorks Dream Runner, and this is I haven't ridden a lot of these water coasters. I've done the one at Six Flags America, I've done Breaker's Edge at Hershey Park, but this one is by far my favorite. Uh, this one is you want to get on the back seat because you get really good airtime on this water coaster. Uh now if you're not familiar with the water coaster, what is a water coaster? Water coasters, so water slides are gravity fed. So basically you get to the top and gravity pulls you through the tubes and stuff like that. When it comes to a water coaster, you're in a raft and you actually go down and up. There's either hydraulics, which is what this one is, uh, where water jets shoot you up the hill, or there are magnets, like I believe breaker's edge is magnets that uh you know shoot you back up. So you got the effect of going up and down, up and down, up and down. And this one is pretty much above the entire water park. Uh it does one lap around the water park, the entire water park, but it's up high. And it's all about downhill, uphill, downhill, uphill. And there's some parts there where you twist. There's one when you're making a turn when you're going downhill, so you fly off to the side. Uh, then you have that big drop in the middle where um literally you fly out of your seat uh in the back row. Um, very straightforward, up and down, up and down, up and down, but a lot of fun, a lot of speed. Just a great experience. I highly recommend uh Dream Runner, a DreamWorks Dream Runner, uh if you want to try a new experience, uh especially with a water coaster. Now, with the 125, uh, is that a roller coaster? Because Hershey Park considers Breaker's Edge a coaster. I don't. But does that count there? Does it count as a water slide? I had some people saying, well, if it's water-based, uh the log flumes and the water slides and all that should be on the one while roller coasters should just be the roller coasters. There's a lot of food for thought there. So let me know where you think uh this should go. Should it just go on our 125 roller coaster list with the log flumes, or should it go on the water slide list? Let us know in the comment section here. But yet again, we went on that. Fantastic. Uh at the back of the park, so at the front of the wave pool, at the back of the park, that's where they got um four different things that are really good. You got bubbles the river, which is our lazy river, and calling it a lazy river is kind of a misnomer because in the front, yeah, it it's you know, it's got a couple little water things that get you wet if you go under them, but you can dodge them. But when you go to the back of it, there are areas there where you are getting sandblasted by waves in water. Uh, there's turn you can dodge them, but you're not dodging everything they have there. They've got a lot of water features in the back there that pour water on your head. There's uh turnaround areas that um if you get stuck in it, you're gonna get pounded with water. Um, it's definitely not a lazy river. Uh, I can definitely see why they call it bubbles, because there's areas where there's bubbles shooting out from the bottom and all that. It is a really good lazy river, uh, for lack of a better word. You've got the Tower of Awesome, which is our splash tower, which it once you set foot there, you're gonna get wet. There are so many water jets and water features that are shooting water at you. They got the big bucket, of course, that uh pours down on you and all that kind of stuff there. Very well themed, a lot of little slides. Um, like I said, there are there's some kiddie slides, but there's also some larger scale slides on this um splash pad. Uh across from there, you got penguins um kids area, which has six kid slides, which you know, they're basic. They they almost look like playground slides on that end. Then in the way back, they've got the four-person tubes, the uh I call them the clovers, uh, the rafts. Uh, and these I did not do because you can't really do them solo. Uh, but the theming on these are fantastic, they're all Shrek based. Uh, with one of them, you come out of a dragon's mouth, which is really um, really nice. Uh, neat little feature and stuff like that. Um, just well done. Uh, like I said, I did not ride those uh just because I was solo, but um, all in all, people getting off there were smiling, laughing. Make sure if you want to see these things, uh, you go to our YouTube channel, 125 Roller Coaster. Uh, right there's a playlist for Dreamworks. We already have the Explorer out. We have an unplugged, we have Let's Eat, and we have an Our Park Day. So uh you can definitely see all the different things that we did on that end. And then on the other side of the uh uh wave pool is pretty much uh they got a small bar that was closed. They also have uh a food stand there called uh Beachhaven. And uh there, the food was kind of limited. I got the meatball uh sub. Wasn't a huge fan. I got meatball sub and a Fanta, and it cost me $19. Yet again, New York pricing. Uh so definitely make sure you uh bring your checkbook uh when you come here because nothing is cheap. Uh but the sandwich wasn't anything to write home about. Their biggest thing that they had at Beachhaven was pizzas, but yet again, what am I gonna do? I'm one guy. I'm not gonna buy a you know a 16-inch or 24-inch pizza and then eat it by myself, you know. And there's no place for me, you know, what am I gonna do? Stick it in a locker while I play. Not really conducive there. Right in the front, they um when you first walk in, I forgot to mention this, they have a kid splash zone. So instead of the um Tower of Awesomeness, they actually have a uh Gabby's uh kitty cat uh area and stuff like that, which has you know the water jet shooting from the bottom. They had something I never saw before. They had these uh trees, uh they are themed of trees, but they're like little swings where you can put the kid in there, and as it spins around, uh little water jets getting wet. So it's that was a kind of a cute thing there. But as soon as you walk in from the lockers, that's where that is. And then they have an ice cream stand called Trolls Ice Cream Screaming. It was a weird name, couldn't figure it out, but uh uh there you can get you know soft serve and um you know you can also get like the um orange creamsicles and stuff like that. So that's where you can get those kind of snacks. So those are all open. The only thing that was closed was a bar, and then there is another food location on the other side of the building uh near all the towers, uh, a burger location which was closed, which I would have preferred the burger place to be open. I kind of definitely would have craved a burger more than the meatball sub, or they had cold subs too, but I'm like, what's the point of that? I'll go to Wawa if I want that. But um, yeah, that that's all on the let's eat and stuff like that. But all in all, really good day. I stayed until about 4:30. So usually I'm a hidden run kind of guy. I do my stuff, I go, but by three o'clock, I was done filming, I was done on that, and I just went back. I went on Mad Flush a few more times, I went on zigzag, I jumped on a water coaster three or four times. I uh actually got to play, which is nice. And that was the whole point of doing the water slide challenge was to actually play this year instead of hidden run. So, all in all, um what's my thoughts on DreamWorks Water Park? Well, first of all, expensive. Uh pricing is definitely a factor, uh, especially compared to the Sahara Sam's or the Island Water Parks. Um, five hours, six hours total for uh $69, uh, would be $79 regularly, so uh even $89. So I did get it on a cheaper day, but um, you got to factor in the locker, you gotta factor in the food cost, you know. And then they have one of their biggest things is they have the cabanas and they've got this whole wall of private like suites um for upgrades. So really, I got the cheap version of this here. If you're looking to get a cabana, throw a couple hundred bucks on that. And if you went to private suite area and stuff like that, you know, there's there's a lot of stuff. Now it might have food thrown into the private suites. I would assume there's some food there uh to justify the cost, but um really be prepared to spend money if you're going to DreamWorks Water Park or anything with the American Dream Mall. The other aspect too is remember, you got to get your tickets before you come. So this is not a thing where you're like spur of the moment. Like with me, it was a pain in the butt, you know, finding a spot where I could actually sit down and then buy the tickets online so then I can show them that and get it scanned in. Um, the fact that you don't have a front gate where you can actually buy tickets is uh it's weird to me. I can understand why they want to know in advance so they can figure out their staffing. But you're in a mall, you got people that are walking around the mall shopping. Well, if all of a sudden the kid wants to go to Nickelodeon universe, are you go then gonna you you can't just walk up and buy a ticket? It's just really a weird system where you gotta pre-pay everything. Um, now of course they they will upgrade you there. They were if you want to upgrade, they will then you know open up the guest services and they will then, hey, we'll take you right now. But the fact that you can't just walk up and buy a ticket, that's also a factor that I would highly um you know caution there. Now, as of the attractions, some of the best attractions I've seen. Uh the 140-foot, if you're a thrill kind of guy, thrill gas car, I think is one of the names of the uh that dropped the purple one. And um, yeah, that is a huge throw in there. If you're a fan of body slides, highly recommend it with the body slides. Uh Mad Flush was something I did not expect, but I loved it. I love the shotgun falls. I I always enjoy you know, free falling five, six feet into the pool. Um, ziggy, zig, zany zigzag, and zanyar zigzag, some of the best body slides I've been on in a long time. The raft rides, you know, pretty solid. You know, um, one of the things with the raft ride is if you don't know the park, it took me a while to figure this out, but if you want to get the raft, you can rent a raft where you have it all day, kind of like what they did at Six Flags Hurricane Harbor, where you this is my raft. This is my raft the whole day. I will take this raft wherever I go, this is my raft. But if you're looking for public rafts, you've got to go all the way to um when you first walk in there, is where you exit the rafts and you can see the rafts lined up there. You grab one of those, but you're walking all the way to staircase C. So if you don't know where you can go to the rafts, I've seen people walking up staircase A and B, which are body slides, and then rafts being dropped on the side because they're like, oh, this is a body slide. Um, they need to have bigger signage to let people know this is a mat racer, this is a body slide, this is a raft slide, so you know. Uh, because the only sign you see on uh staircase C is a little picture of a raft, and then it says rafts can be found at the at the exit of the ride. Well, where's the ride exit? It's literally all the way in the front of the park while you're getting on in the middle of the park. So that was kind of a um different thing. And also the mat racer was kind of unique too because uh you go up the staircase for DreamWorks, uh Dream Runner, and then you know you exit where you enter, and it takes you down by the mats where you can grab the mats. And then when you start to try to walk up around the mats to go up the stairs, that's the exit. You literally have to grab the mat from where you are, go back down the stairs, walk all the way towards the front of the park to go up staircase F, I think it is. So it's one of those things where it's a lot of confusion on that layout. Uh take some time to learn it. Once you learn it, you're like, oh, okay, this is how I get on the mat ride. Oh, this is where I can pick up my raft to go on staircase C. But when you first go in there, if you've never been there before, and it's been you know five years since I've been there, six years since I've been there, it takes some time to learn that layout. But yet again, attraction-wise, Lazy River, one of the best lazy rivers. Uh, if you love giant wave pools, you got it. Uh, they have disco music playing the entire, well, not disco, but house music. So it's it's like a dance party in there the whole time. Uh, I was surprised uh with the unplugged, I did not get copyrighted. So apparently it's more generic music uh than there is because uh there is music playing all the time. It it's definitely got a fun young vibe to it, which is nice. Um, do I recommend going? Yeah, I I do recommend going on an off day, especially in the winter. Um, you know, it's neat seeing you know ice outside, snow outside, like the first time I went there, and then being in a water pool. But um, all in all, it's gonna be expensive, but you're going to, I do recommend going. I think it is a it's got enough good attractions. And if you go during the week, less crowds. Um, you know, I got on everything I wanted more than once or twice um going on that Wednesday. So definitely recommend it. And it probably cost me $19 worth of food, $25 for the uh um, so what's that? It's like $50 there. So it costs about $120 just for me to do a day there. Uh so it will get pricey if you're you're a family of four. Good luck. You know, good luck with those prices. But all in all, highly recommended, guys. And thanks for listening. This is a longer episode than usual, but guys, make sure you like and subscribe, and I can't wait to see you in the queue in twenty twenty six.