Macon water park opens with only minor kinks

The Sandy Beach Water Park in Macon officially opened its doors Friday morning just in time for the Fourth of July weekend.

There were no lines to enter the water park on opening day, and there was plenty of room to float down the park’s lazy river.

Misty Gamble, the facility’s general manager, attributed the slow-growing crowds to the mostly cloudy weather. Once the clouds wore off, she said she expected people to start filing in.

“We have a capacity of 1,200,” Gamble said. “And we hope to meet that every day.”

For nearly two hours, the water park’s two feature slides -- a yellow slide with a quick, straight shot into a pool and a blue slide with a series of turns -- were closed due to mechanical kinks. As of 3 p.m. Friday, the straight slide had reopened to visitors.

The other slide “should be back up any minute,” said park builder Jeff Franklin, president of Spirit of America Theme Parks and Development.

Franklin said there was a maintenance issue, and a material in the pipes of the slides had backed up. This was the first time the slides ran at such a great capacity, and it “just needs a little tune up,” he said.

He said that once everything is fixed, there shouldn’t be any more problems, especially for the expected influx of Independence Day visitors.

Before the slides’ closures around noon Friday, visitors ranging from young children to the elderly splashed down the water slides.

David Partin, 55, who came to the water park with his family, boasted that he was the first person to go down the slide, despite not being the first person to come through the gate.

He said his youngest son had made at least 30 trips down the slides.

Partin’s family of four moved to Warner Robins from Tampa, Florida, about a year and a half ago, and he said they are all used to water parks.

When he and his family arrived at the park at 9 a.m., they had to turn around to get cash because the parking attendants did not accept credit cards.

About 30 minutes later -- still a half hour before the park’s scheduled time to open -- Partin drove his family into Sandy Beach’s parking lot only to find four or five other cars parked. They expected a bigger crowd.

“I kinda figured it would be busy,” he said. “But I’d rather be here today with a smaller crowd than tomorrow with 3,000 people.”

Like the Partins, Nichole Brown and 11 of her family members arrived at the park before the gates opened but saw no big line.

“Actually I thought there’d be more people here,” she said.

Brown said that it’s a relaxing place for families to come, and she said that by this time next year, it should look really nice.

A third slide is expected to be built by 2017, and land has already been set aside for a wave pool.

Partin’s son, David Partin III, a senior at Houston County High School, said the water park is a great addition to the area.

“It’s going to spark a new type of business genre,” he said, mentioning the water park at Rigby’s Entertainment Complex that’s scheduled to open in 2016. “It might become a competitive market.”

Franklin said he thought the first day was very successful, and the number of visitors is exactly what he expected for the first day.

He said the place is built for people to come relax or run off energy.

“We want to be friends with all these folks and for people to tell their friends about us,” he said.

Franklin said that the young people hired to work the park as lifeguards, ticket takers and locker attendants all take their jobs very seriously. There were 36 total staff members working on opening day, including 25 lifeguards.

One lifeguard, Stephany Ramdin, an incoming freshman at Mercer University, just started lifeguarding two weeks ago. The 17-year-old said her main goal is to keep guests at the park happy and safe.

The park will be open daily 10 a.m.-7 p.m. until the first weekend in August, and then it will only be open weekends through Labor Day, Sept. 7. Hours of operation are subject to change without notice due to weather, Franklin said.

“Word’s spread,” he said. “And everyone hopefully realizes they need to get in on the fun.”

Despite reading some harsh comments online, park visitor Yvonne Cross of Vienna said she was elated and spoke highly of everything from the temporary, air-conditioned bathrooms to concessions from Marco’s pizza.

“For people that think it’s negative, that leaves more room for those that think it’s great,” she said.

Cross said one ticket to Wild Adventure was about as expensive as paying for her and all her grandchildren at Sandy Beach.

“I’m a 67-year-old grandma who loves to go down the water slide,” she added unabashedly.

To contact writer Conner Wood, call 744-4489.

This story was originally published July 3, 2015 at 4:08 PM with the headline "Macon water park opens with only minor kinks ."