Evan and Lauren's Cool Blog: 5/27/13: Evan's Birthday at CoCo Key Fitchburg

Yesterday was Evan's actual birthday and despite the big party we had for him at the Boys and Girls Club I wanted to do something fun. Recently I had bought a SweetJack deal for CoCo Key in Fitchburg and I thought it might be fun to go there. We had never been there so I thought I would share my likes and dislikes with you.

TIP: Always look for deals or purchase your tickets online. The deal I got on SweetJack was great as it saved me 60% so we only paid $10 per person to go to CoCo Key for the whole day. This is not affiliated with CoCo Key, it is just a deal site as any other deal site. You can see full pricing here. I do want to mention that if you buy a deal on SweetJack make sure to print the voucher before the day you are going. Yesterday when I went to login the login button wasn't working and of course it was on a day that there was no Customer Support. Luckily I tried the Facebook login option and it showed my voucher. Crisis averted. TIP: Also make sure that you make a reservation in advance even if you have a deal like this as they only have a certain amount of people they let in per day and you don't want to drive there and get turned away. Here are a couple overview pictures to sort of get a sense of what is there. This shows the kids play area structure.

Basically there is a kids water play area, a Lazy River, 2 larger slides that wind outside, a smaller body slide, a pool, a hot tub that goes to the outside. The outdoor hot tub was my favorite part. It is quiet as it is outside and when it is cool out it is nice to sit in a hot tub. The requirement for the hot tub is that children have to be 6 years old so this is not an adults only hot tub. Here you can see this hot tub area.

This shows the pool and Lazy River.

And this area is the spot where you walk up to go on the slides which actually loop outside the building. The lines for slides were not that bad despite how busy it was on a holiday weekend.

There is also an area that sells food that you can see here.

Some things I liked:

It is a great way to spend a full day when the weather is bad outside (like it usually is in MA). We were there from 11:30 until 7 pm.

Numerous life guards walking around at all times keeping an eye on everyone and making sure there is no horse play in the pool.

The kids were fully entertained all day and loved being in the water.

The facility was larger than I expected and I thought they made decent use of the space they had to maximize water play.

The outdoor hot tub was nice and quiet and relaxing despite the chaos of the inside.

It is fun for the whole family.

No sunblock required!

Here is Evan playing with the water in the kids play area. The kids really enjoyed this area.

Lauren peeking out near one of the slides.

Evan getting a high five coming down the slide. This was a nice preparation for the larger slides. I suggest starting here with smaller slides to work your way up for kids that are not sure about the larger slides.

Lauren tried out the body slide as she wasn't tall enough for the other two slides. This slide has a 42 inch minimum where the other slides are 48 inches. I went down this one too. I went up with Lauren thinking we could go together but you can't. It takes some twists in the dark but is much shorter than the others. Lauren was afraid at first but then after her first time she wanted to go back again and again and actually rode it 4 times.

Things I didn't like:

Chairs and tables are tough to get. It seems many people just lay their towels down and other belongings and leave them there to hold the table which makes it hard to get a table when you want to eat.

My husband went to the food area and it took forever. He said there was only one person working and the line was really long. This wasn't even at prime eating time, this was at 2:30. He did say that the prices were affordable however the wait to order and pick up food was way too long.

The bathrooms were not very clean.

I couldn't help but thinking how many kids had peed in the water. In fact when I was sitting at our table I saw a little boy pull down his swim shorts and pea in the water. YUCK! Needless to say I took a shower immediately after.

The Lazy River is fun however it wasn't so much a Lazy River as a get pushed my tons of people river. It was pretty packed.

Here is Evan coming down one of the slides. There is one that is light as you can see here and one that is dark. Evan took the light one and John took the dark one. Evan loved it and rode it multiple times.