Portage La Prairie Splash Island

We went there today.  Payton has been wanting to go to a water slide for so long.  Splash Island is in Portage La Prairie, MB  I've been hearing about it all summer and almost all the news feeds on FB have been about how great it is. I just needed Dustin to take time off of work to come with us.  They have rules about kids being 8 and under being at arms reach. So I needed an extra hand encase one of the kids just wanted to sit, and someone had to be near the slide to keep an eye on the kids.  Although the lifeguards did a great job of keeping track of who went down the slides and who was at the bottom of the slides.  Payton did at one time run into someone because that kids wasn't paying attention. There is a fence around it, so there is a capacity of people who can be there at one time.  It cost us about $35.00, we did the family rate of $25.00 plus one extra kid at $5.00.

 This is the slides.  There are only 2 of them. But the darker one is a fast tunnel. They call it funnel tunnel it is completely enclosed and goes really fast.  The lighter purple is open all the way.  This one can be slower but it can go fast too.  Dustin went down this one sitting up and he said he almost got stuck half way down.  His method for going fast was laying down and up on the heels and on the shoulder blades.  That method worked for Faith as well.  For me I sat up and leaned forward and swung my hips into each curve.  Although at one time I did hit my head on the side of the slide because I was sliding side to side; in my defense I did have a kid on my lap.  They have signs there that you had to be this tall to ride alone.  Nathan just meet the requirements, but I didn't feel comfortable with him at the end of the tunnels by himself.  They had signs saying that catching kids at the bottom was against the rules.  Luckily I had asked Dustin to grab Nathan's life jacket before we left.  You can ride down the open tunnel with a life jacket and with a partner if you wanted.  The covered tunnel there are no shirts, no partners and no goggles.  Nathan went up the stairs and down the slides without either Dustin or I with him.

They have a lazy river there.  Basically it's just a bit separate area from the main pool.  This is were we spent most of our time.  1 because Dustin could hide on the kids going around the centre isle there. 2 because our stuff was just behind me where I took the picture. The river has "jets" that push the water so that you float down the river. Clayton loved being on the tubes and just floating there.  The water here is 1.07m so everyone could touch.  Just to the left the water got deeper it was 1.5m, the kids had a harder time touching there.

 This is the little kid slide.  But all my kids went on it.  It's a small slide that goes into a shallow pool.
They also had a basketball net and ball there for anyone to use.

Just to the left in this picture you can see the little splash pad/wadding pool.  It was in a u shaped hole.  There wasn't a lot there, some tunnel sprays and a mushroom and a little blue slide like the ones you find at swimming lessons in the shallow pool.  You can also see in the background the entrance to the pool. You can find the change rooms, concession, bathrooms and medical.

They have beach entry over by the little splash pad area.  It slowly gets deeper, I could touch but my face was in the water.  Too deep for the kids to touch.  There was another U shaped area by the little slide. I'm not sure what you would call it.  They had a bench in the water there, in some of the spots on the bench they had smaller little jets come up from the bottom. The water was colder water then the pool.  This was a popular place, I think because most of the kids can touch here. 

There is a bit of green space around the edges.  There are some chairs to use, and picnic tables and some benches.  We managed to snag a bench; it was nice to have to put our towels on.  They do have a picnic area with a cover and some picnic tables under there.  The ride there was about an hour from our place, but let's face it going anywhere from my place takes at least 30 minutes.  We got there at 12:18 and stayed till 4:40.  You can bring in outside food as long as you don't have glass.  We brought our swimming tubes and goggles.  There were no problems with it.  I did see some kids with water guns and pool noodles.

All in all it was a good day.  The kids and I and even Dustin had fun.  This is definitely one place we will go back too.  Just not this year as their last day is September 1.