I've checked out a couple of the county's water parks in recent weeks, and I was impressed with one of them.

If your child is in daycare they've probably already been there, to T.Y. Park in Hollywood. That's TopeeKeegee Yugnee Park, off Sheridan Street. It's a lot of fun, and reasonably priced.

On the other hand, the new regional park in Lauderhill, the Central Broward Regional Park, was a maddening experience for me and the other parents. That park is off U.S. 441 and Sunrise Boulevard.

Apparently the county has two other water playgrounds. One is at C.B. Smith Park, the other at Quiet Waters Park. I haven't been to those yet.

T.Y. Park's Castaway Island is $6.50 for entry. They allow you to bring in food and drinks from outside, so you can really keep the cost down. Only when they're packed do they charge you by the session, one hour and 50 minutes, and make you pay $4.50 for an additional session. When I went there a couple weeks ago, we paid one fee and stayed as long as we wanted.

You also pay $1.50 per person to get into the park gate itself, on weekends. We went on a day off from school, so it was free to get into the park.

At the Lauderhill park, which is new, the entry fee to the water playground is lower, just $4.50. But it only allows you in
for one session of an hour and 50 minutes. There's no provision for a person who arrives in mid-session.

Let's say you arrive at 12:40 p.m., like I and another parent did. The session was set to end at 1:20 p.m. We either had to wait 40 minutes for the next session to begin, or throw out $4.50 per person for only 40 minutes of fun. Both of us had a few kids with us, and we felt ripped off. I had hoped to make a day of it. I asked what would happen if there were only 20 minutes left when a person arrived, and they said they would still charge full price. That stinks.

The other guy started yelling about how his tax dollars were being used for this new park, and he was highly upset he had to stand around 40 minutes to get his money's worth.

I didn't have the patience to stand in the blazing sun that long, so I paid and got the shortened experience. This waterpark also bans coolers and food from outside vendors, so we had to eat our Subway sandwiches in the parking lot. Not cool.

By the way you also have to pay $1.50 a person to get into this park on weekends. No wonder no one goes there, as we wrote about recently.

If you're going to check out this water park, I recommend calling to find out what time the sessions start, so you don't feel ripped off like I did.

Central Broward Regional Park
3700 N.W. 11th Place
Lauderhill, FL 33311
Phone: 954-321-1170
Fax: 954-321-1110
E-mail: CBRP@broward.org