**Congratulations to our two winners – Gina Martin and Donna Montgomery Reid!! Ladies, I have sent each of you an email, so be on the lookout for it.**
On Saturday Jonathan and I loaded up the girls and headed to Blountsville, AL, to check out Spring Valley Beach Water Park. We’d heard some friends talking about it, so we looked it up on the internet. Though the pictures looked like it would be a lot of fun, we really didn’t know what to expect. As soon as we pulled up, we discovered that we were in for a really fun day.
Spring Valley Beach promotes a family atmosphere, and I think they deliver that quite well. We were able to park easily and find a spot near the pool for our picnic blanket. The girls wanted to hit the pool right away, and who could blame them?
The pool is HUGE – two acres, in fact! It was Patterson’s favorite spot in the whole park, as it has lots of shallower areas for little swimmers. In fact, it a beach entry pool, so people brought their beach chairs and pulled them right into the edge of the water.
One of the most attractive things about Spring Valley is how they really try to accommodate guests, while keeping the park very safe. While lifeguards are numerous and carefully watch the crowd and enforce the swimming rules, they allow guests to bring in coolers, grills, flotation devices, beach chairs, and almost anything else that wouldn’t interfere with the other guests (no alcohol or radios). They really try to make it fun for their customers! In fact, they have fabulous pavilioned areas that guests can reserve for the day.
How much fun would it be to bring a group and stay the day? We actually ran into some of our church friends there and discussed how much fun it would be to bring our Sunday school class here as a group. It would be really fun for an end of the year party for a soccer, baseball, or softball team. And birthday parties would be a blast at Spring Valley. There were lots of groups having family reunions as well.
Not only do they make it fun for big kids, but they have a fabulous splash park at one end of the pool just for smaller kids. The water around this section is only around 12″ deep, and the playground/splash area is so much fun!
And if you need a little more thrill than the pool has to offer, they have several rides to choose from. Our whole family rode several of the water slides. They were fast, but even my little girl loved them. My big girl and I were the only ones brave enough to ride the 360 Rush. Y’all, you climb the stairs to the top so that you are about 40 feet in the air. Then you lie down in a capsule, and in a few seconds the bottom drops out, shooting you down the enclosed slide. You go so fast that when you get to the bottom, you go around and around the circular part.
I’m glad to say we did it once, but I think once was enough for me. It is super fun but super fast!
We never did work up the courage to try the Sidewinder. We’ll save that one for another day!
After the excitement of the mega rides, we ended the day by taking a few more turns on the pool slides. They had about 4 or 5 water slides that both of my girls rode over and over.
Spring Valley Beach is only about an hour north of Birmingham and about 50 miles from Huntsville. They are open 10:00-6:00 most summer days, but check the calendar on their website before you make the trip. We paid the extra $10 to park near the pool instead of the free parking area, and we thought it was well worth it. We went back to our car several times during the day and it was an easy trip. The pavilions are great ($25 fee), but many people brought their own tents and claimed a spot on the sidewalk or grass. We felt like our things were secure on our picnic blanket, but they do rent lockers if you want to store items. We wore flip flops that we didn’t mind getting wet so that we could have shoes to wear in the bathrooms and on the pavement while walking among the different slides.
The super nice folks at Spring Valley Beach have been gracious enough to give us TWO pairs of tickets to give away. You can enter several ways. The giveaway will stay open a week, and next Monday we will randomly select two winners, who will each receive a pair of day passes. Fun, right?
Spring Valley Beach sent our family passes so that we could visit the park to write this review. All opinions are, as always, my own. I really do think you’ll like Spring Valley Beach as much as we did.