Fun in Rochester: Roseland Water Park

We visited Roseland Water Park, located in Canandaigua, on our way home from Rochester. The park offers plenty of active fun in an environment that’s calm enough to be low stress for the parents. We had hours of fun, and it was really only a couple of hours into it that I realized that the place isn’t too big. Which I like, because, as you know, I’m easily disoriented!

The Splash Factory is a splashy playground of mini-slides and not-too-scary bursts of water for the youngest (up to 48″) visitors.

The Giant Wave Pool has a structure behind it that seems designed to fool the adults into thinking that they’re someplace more exotic than Canandaigua. Indeed, one of the brochures encourages the grown-ups to lie back on one of the huge collection of chaise lounges, close their eyes, and pretend that they’re at the ocean! I might even do it here, as opposed to pacing tensely like I did at Seabreeze. Here the waves are milder and thus less scary for the grown-ups. Along with the chaise, a shade structure and nearby food made the area near the wave pool an excellent home base.

There are a variety of tube, raft, and body slides (in varying degrees of twisty-ness and angles of decline) as well as an Adventure River, really an extra-long lazy river with extra opportunities to shove your mother under chutes of water (dang kids!).

Based on scare factor alone, The Cliff was a clear winner the a vertical drop that would have scared my pants off me if the sheer force of gravity weren’t wedging them firmly. . . you know what? never mind.

J chose not to try that one (it really was intimidating, especially looking down from the top), but all of the other activities were well-received.

Our family favorite was the Mammoth, where an entire family of four can share a raft together. This ride provides an excellent introduction to the big slides for hesitant kids, since the raft stays fairly dry, and it’s tough to be scared when you’re facing others who are clearly delighted with how the raft’s moving along.

Getting to the top of all of those slides is a workout, and we liked the whole atmosphere: it felt clean and outdoorsy, and the lifeguards were placed everywhere that a parent might worry, “Shouldn’t there be a lifeguard there?”

We sampled some food while we were there, and I’d put the food at a bit above average, with yummier-than-usual fries and a wide variety of foods from which to choose. They have the standard kid fare, like cheeseburgers ($4) and pizza ($14.95 for a full 16-inch cheese pie) and plenty of junky snack food, like hot pretzels, ice cream, snow cones, and cotton candy. But I was pleased to find some healthful options as well, like a salad, a grilled chicken sandwich, a turkey wrap, veggie burgers, a fruit cup, or an apple. Not so pleased that I bought that stuff. Well, okay: a turkey wrap. But due to popular demand, we had to double down on the fries.

The girls had a terrific time, and Cute W and I liked how low-key and clean the whole place was and how easy it was to get clothes changed and stored. As you may recall, we’d pretty much exhausted ourselves over the previous day and evening, so while the kids were on a water park high, Cute W and I were running low on patience altogether. We stayed here longer than anticipated, too, and the girls were fast asleep moments out of the parking lot. In fact, if you find yourself traveling west on the NYS Thruway, planning a stop here is an excellent way to blow off all that energy from being in the car.

Details/directions/admission prices and more are on the Roseland Water Park FAQs page. And I finally got to this post in part because I know that there’s a special KidsOutAndAbout.com discount offer  that will get you $6 off most tickets for this weekend only. Just in case you happen to be heading west!