Summers Spent on LBI

The Top 10 Places on Long Beach Island, New Jersey Shared Through Personal Stories

Week 4: Thundering Surf Waterpark!

on October 17, 2018

Like I mentioned week 2, my grandparents played an important role in why I love LBI so much… Even though it is very expensive, Thundering Surf waterpark, located in Bay Village, was such a fun time and worth a visit, especially when you had a willing person like my grandmother taking you as a child.  

It was a little cloudy and my cousins, my sister, and I were tired of going to the beach. We were all sitting around in the living room complaining how bored we were to our parents when finally my grandmother suggests she take us to Thundering Surf. Immediately our eyes lit up and we began begging and pleading our parents to please give her permission to take us. Since they were tired of our complaints, they said fine and helped us pack a bag with towels, sunscreen, changes of clothes, snacks (I do not know if it is still easy to smuggle snacks in), and anything else that we may need that day.

It really was such a treat to go because it is expensive, busy, and touristy, but that day it really was not that packed because the weather was kind of nasty. After we got our wristbands that dictate how much time we have in the park, we wasted no time and jumped in the first pool we saw. Thundering Surf is a classic, although kind of small, waterpark with many water slides, pools, a wave/flowrider (impossible by the way), other water dunking machines, etc. There are spots within for young kids and pre-teens and teens.

The four of us girls liked going on the waterslides the most, so we did them repetitively. We went down backwards or two and three of us at a time. We would close our eyes and race. It realllyyy was such a great time, especially since we were such water people to begin with. 

When we got hungry, we seeked out our grandmother to get dried off and get a snack. Waterpark snacks are nice when they are clean and fast because we wanted to make the most of our time there. We each ate a pre-packed sandwich, some grapes, and drank lots of water. Drinking water is extremely important — we did not feel thirsty because we were in water all day, but we were still running around and swimming a lot which is tiring.

Another great thing about Thundering Surf is that it is easy to meet friends here because you must communicate with other kids your age to figure out who would go down the slide first or if he or she wanted to race or something like that. That being said, I recommend not going alone not only because it may be boring, but in case something bad happens. The lifeguards are all young teenagers and there are way more children at play than people being paid to watch.

When they called our wristband design over the loudspeakers, signaling our time was up, we creeped back to our grandmother with sad faces because we didn’t want to leave. However, we were so grateful that we just had one of the best days of the summer, and our parents were even more grateful that we were so exhausted when we got home.


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