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My family loves amusement parks and my kids love rides. They also can’t get enough of the pool! So I knew this summer we wanted to try a full-on water park for the first time. This week we decided to venture to Splish Splash water park in Long Island, New York for an awesome day of water rides! UPDATE: Excited to say this has become a yearly tradition! One of our favorite summer activities for sure!
Momma To Go would like to thank Splish Splash for hosting us. As always, all opinions are my own.
Splish Splash Water Park Long Island, New York
Splish Splash is a 90-acre water park located in Calverton, Long Island, exactly an hour from where we live on the South Shore of Nassau County. Driving from Manhattan will take about 90 minutes. This area of Long Island is also accessible via auto-ferry from Connecticut.
On our recent visit, we arrived exactly when Splish Splash opened, at 10am. We wore our swim suits on the ride out, and put on sunscreen at home before leaving. So we arrived ready to ride! Well, first we had to park ($15 per car) and rent our locker ($18 for a medium size).
We tried to not bring too much stuff to Splish Splash. We had one towel per person, our dry clothes, extra sunscreen and a small cooler with bottles of water. Unopened water bottles are the only food or drink you are allowed to bring in, and I don’t think there is much else you need for a great day at the park!
Throughout the day, we went on almost all of the rides. I was really impressed with the variety offered at Splish Splash. I figured each ride would be some version of going down a water slide, but the attractions were so much more than that!
Splish Splash offers a range of thrills for kids of all ages (I think hubby had more fun than the kids). Personally, I’m a lazy river kinda girl (which we went on twice) but the kids loved the water coasters like Hollywood Stunt Rider and Bootleggers Run! Hubby and little man even braved Dr. von Dark’s Tunnel of Terror!
Other rides loved were the Shotgun Falls (water slide that lets you free fall five feet into a deep pool), The Abyss (this was the perfect amount of speed and thrill without being too scary), Giant Twister (a waterslide that you sit on) and the Dinosaur Run!
Baby girl is about 43” in height and just made the 42” cutoff most of the attractions had. Little Man stands about 50” tall and he was only too small for one attraction, the Cliff Diver, which he was too scared to try anyway. Cliff Diver is an eight story vertical slide that you have to be 54”, and a bit crazy, to go down!
We did a great job of hitting all of the attractions, and even riding some of our favorites multiple times. However, we only ventured back to the Kahuna Bay Wave pool at the very end of the day and did not get to spend a long time here. This area looked really fun! There was a man-made beach and plenty of lounge chairs that looked perfect to relax in!
We stayed at Splish Splash until it closed at 6pm (check operating hours here). We visited on a Monday in late June and fortunately the lines for each ride were not too long (20 minutes might be the most we waiting for anything). We did stop mid-day to eat lunch in the food court area, and again around 4:00 for some Dippin’ Dots. Otherwise, we just rode the rides! There was one show offered (three times daily) but we skipped that, as well as the carnival games that were situated mainly in the area near the entrance and lockers.
Splish Splash Water Park Tips:
- You can buy your tickets ahead of time on the website and save a few bucks verses paying at the gate. If you can buy them a week in advance, you save the most money per adult ticket. Check out all of the ticket options HERE. Use THIS SPECIAL LINK to save for a special ticket discount!
- Bring older towels and take them around with you. You can leave them near the shoe cubbies which are located next to most rides. We started the day with our towels in our lockers and then had to run back to get them because we were freezing when we got out of the water. Most of the water park is shady, and it was not the hottest day when we visited. So we were glad to have those towels waiting for us after the rides!
- Life vests are available (and required for those under 48” tall) at the wave pools. If you want a vest for the rides, you have to check one out at guest services (and leave a $40 deposit). I would recommend bringing your own. I had baby girl just wear hers all day that way we didn’t have to argue about which rides she needed it for, and which she did not.
- Oh and lastly, hubby’s super important pro-tip: He says “ let your readers know that the fried chicken (from the Snack Shack) was surprisingly good”
Memorable fried chicken aside, I was really impressed with Splish Splash – it was very clean, and all the pools were well maintained! I even noticed that they continually had an attendant mopping up in the rest room. Even at the end of the day, the bathrooms were clean. We had such a great day at Splish Splash, I am sure my kids will be begging to go back!
Actually, they already are.
** UPDATE: June 2019 – two new rides, Riptide Racer and Bombs Away open. Click here to read about two new rides at Splish Splash Long Island **
***Use THIS SPECIAL LINK for special discount tickets! Or use Promo Code blogreader19 at check out! ***
WHAT TO PACK FOR A DAY AT SPLISH SPLASH LONG ISLAND:
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This place looks awesome. We are taking our daughter to a water park for the first time this year and I’m very excited about it. I love water parks but she turns 4 this month so she’s been a little young before now. Not that she’s older I’m always looking for new things to do so I will have to add this place to the list! Thanks for the awesome review.
Awe how fun! The kiddies look like they had a great time!
This sounds sooo fun! I love that there was a man-made beach for lounging. I feel like I would’ve spent most of my time there 🙂 Although I know my boys would’ve loved the Dinosaur Run!!
Looks like a fun place for a summer day! We haven’t done too many water parks because my seven-year-old really doesn’t like water slides. She really just wants to swim in a plain old pool. Maybe some day!
I’ve never been to a waterpark! This looks so much fun even for an adult. It doesn’t look like it was very crowded during your visit either, which is my main hesitation for water parks. We have a ton of water parks around Houston since its so hot for 6 months of the year!
It wasnt too bad! My kids hate waiting on line, so that worked out! Im sure in the dead of the summer, on a weekend, the lines are really long
Looks like a great park to visit. Definitely putting this on our to go this year. Our daughter loves going to water park. Thank you for sharing this awesome post.
@davi — It was just as much fun for me as it was for the kids!
I’m shocked how many fun rides there are at Splish Splash Water Park! I think having older towels to bring around is a brilliant idea, too. Looks like a fun time ?
What a fun day with the kids! Wish we had something like this where I live, my youngest boy would love this!
This place looks amazing and so much fun! I bet my kids would love this! Will check this out!
Belle | One Awesome Momma
I m taking my kids to a water park for the first time this year. It looks like you had a blast!
This looks like so much fun! I used to love water parks as a kid. Kind of miss going and my kiddo doesn’t really care for them. Lol!
This sounds so fun! We have a couple of water parks around where I live but they are so crowded that it’s hard to get on the rides without waiting forever.
Looks like you had a great time! I always love going to water parks but find some of them can be quite dirty. Looks like this one is a winner!
yes this one was totally clean!
That looks like a fun day. Looks like they have a nice variety of slides. Good tip about bringing older towels with you.
This place sounds like so much fun! It also sounds like you got to do a lot of activities while you were there, which is a huge plus! My kids still need to learn how to swim (they are little) but I can’t wait to go to a water park sometime with them.
It looks like a lot of fun !!
Great review of the water park! Love all the photos! Wish we lived closer to NY, from this review this looks perfect for my kiddos!
This place look like soo much fun! You guys look like you had a great time! Im pretty sure my boy would love this place also!
This park looks like a lot of fun! I too am more of a lazy river girl, but the rides sounded fun! I’ll have to add this to our summer ‘wanna do’ list!
Having a place like this to take the kids to sounds fun! Especially if you don’t have a pool at home!