Summer time. Warm weather, sun shining, campfires, s'mores, catching lightning bugs and one of the most popular ways to cool off...SWIMMING!!! With this fun activity comes all sorts of unspoken rules that one needs to follow when in a public pool, including lazy rivers.

I was recently just at the one amusement park near where I live and it has a section that has a pool, water slides and a lazy river. While I do understand that it is a place for children, I would hope that parents would have common courtesy to still watch their children and, even though I wish it wasn't true, understand that the world we live in isn't safe and just because you might be at a place that is geared towards kids, doesn't automatically mean that nothing bad is going to happen.

While I'm sitting in the pool, I know that I might get splashed here and there because of younger kids playing or sitting by their parents who are sitting near or around me. That doesn't bother me that much because I knew when I sat down that I might get splashed, so that's on me. However, to the parents that apologize when their child(ren) accidentally splash me...thank you. I appreciate it because you really didn't have to apologize since I knew what I was getting myself into when I sat down in the shallowest part of the pool where younger children might be playing.

But...to the parents of the child(ren) who are swimming in the lazy river....why are you letting them swim there when there is an actual pool that they could be in? To the lifeguards, it scares me that it's ok for these kids to be doing this...among other things right in front of you. To the kid(s) who are in one inner-tube but holding onto another and aren't using it, even though there are people waiting who would actually use it, why won't you let them have it? To the child(ren)/teens that wait until the lifeguards aren't looking to hop the middle section of the lazy river....what in the world are you doing...do you understand how unsafe that is? Speaking of unsafe...the parents of the kids that are swimming in the lazy river, have you not thought (and I know you don't want to) about how unsafe your child(ren) is(are) swimming under all of those inner-tubes? It's not ok when others who are trying to enjoy the lazy river are getting kicked and splashed in the face and used as something to push off of while swimming-which actually happened to me today, when a boy (who looked to be old enough to know not to do it) was swimming and couldn't really fit wrapped his arm around my stomach and used it to help push him through while he was underwater.

Even though it's supposed to be a kid friendly place, you still need to watch your kids and if you are ok with them going off on their own, then please...please go over rules and common courtesy of not trying to swim in the lazy river but to swim in the giant swimming pool. And to the amusement park/lifeguards, shouldn't you care more about your guests?

Sincerely,

I understand, but there has to some sort of line.