Roseland Water Park: A KOA Reader's Impressions

By Debra Wallace Summer, 2009

This past weekend, my family and I went to Roseland Water Park for the first time. We were exceedingly impressed. We had gone to SeaBreeze earlier in the summer, and I was surprised by some of the differences. I didn't expect to come away with such a strong preference.

First, I would say Roseland is definitely a cleaner, more welcoming environment than SeaBreeze. The entire place is landscaped beautifully with trees, plants, and decorative architecture (so to speak). Even the Adventure River is lined with faux red rocks through a park-like setting, which makes it really quite relaxing. Each attraction is separated by landscaping, so it never feels overwhelming, even when it's crowded. In fact, I wouldn't have even noticed it being crowded except for the lines for the slides. (SeaBreeze, on the other hand, is basically just cement and grass with no real efforts in this direction. All the attractions are stacked on top of one another so when it's crowded, it's overstimulating.)

The Splash Factory at Roseland was phenomenal. It was basically a playground with water everywhere. It looked well built with lots of activities and plenty of chairs around the periphery so that it would be easy to keep an eye on children playing. SeaBreeze's comparable area is less interesting for younger children and less inviting for adults.

I have to say that I preferred the tube slides at SeaBreeze because they were open (they are closed at Roseland) and the staff were more accommodating of me having children in my lap. But Roseland had a fantastic raft ride that most of our family could fit in. It was really fun to be able to be together and my 3-year-old is still talking about it. So that was about 50/50 for me.

Roseland has a few "extreme" water slides that we didn't try. SeaBreeze does not have these.

The wavepool at Roseland was also a lot more enjoyable. It was completely open, so you could get in and out as often as you wanted. At SeaBreeze, they tend to guard the entrance when the waves are on, which is sometimes annoying. The cycles also seemed faster at Roseland, so there was less waiting for the waves. The staff was very alert and I felt safe with my kids in the water.

Roseland had a great open air fast food place that had decent food (or maybe we were just hungry). But either way it was easy to find a place to sit and eat. Whenever we've been at SeaBreeze we have trouble finding places to sit down. Last time we were there we ended up eating in some grass by one of the maintenance sheds... it wasn't great.

Another thing I appreciated throughout the park was that there were plenty of places to sit for "spectators." I also appreciated the huge bins of clean lifejackets at the entrance that you could use your entire visit. At SeaBreeze they only have dirty, mildewy lifejackets by the wave pool.

The only drawback I really saw was that it's just a waterpark. However, our family loves waterparks so much that's all we ever do at SeaBreeze anyway. So if you're looking for a combination amusement/waterpark, SeaBreeze may be a better bet, but in terms of waterparks Roseland far exceeded my expectations. Next year we might even splurge for season passes.

Overall, I thought Roseland was incredible, and I really look forward to going back (and so do my kids!).

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©2009 by Debra Wallace. All rights reserved.