Midland/Odessa Memories: Summers at Water Wonderland in the 80s and 90s

Summer is coming and if you grew up here like me, you can remember summers in the 80s and 90s spent at Water Wonderland, above is a drone video from YouTube of the abandoned park taken in 2016 by Zach De La Rosa.

The park was a sprawling entertainment facility that opened in 1980 and at that time had a mini carnival with a Ferris Wheel and mini roller coaster mostly for the little kids that visited.

The mini amusement park was torn down a couple of years after the park opened and was never replaced. But there were plenty of things to do in the first few years of the park.

When it opened, the area that became the wave pool was originally a speed boat track, I vaguely remember hearing that they took it out because there were just too many accidents that cost too much money for the insurance company so they decided to go with Tumble Waves.

They had another boat area that was mainly for the little kids, this did not have speed boats but had boats that just floated around the pool. It was taken out from what I remember because of lack of interest and the area was filled in and paved and it was a go cart track till the day it closed.

The slides were always my favorite part of the park and if you got some cool people that were at the park at the same time you were, you could get them to form a block and pile up several people and of course, get in trouble with the lifeguards at the end of the slides because you would just have people all coming down the slide and into the pool in one big mass of bodies.

The park has been purchased by a family that is hoping to have it refurbished and opened back up in the future.

Because of COVID, the park re-opening has been put off, but the park was used for a Halloween gathering last year so that gives me hope that the new owners will have the park up and running soon.