Have you been thinking of having a Sandcastle Water Park birthday party?
Here are a couple of things you need to hear before you think about having a party.
I’d like to note that this is our experience hosting a birthday party for Zoie’s 9.5 at Sand Castle Waterpark.
Cost
First, let me say the cost is confusing, especially if anyone in your party is a season pass member.
Also, before you ask no you do not receive a discount for having a season pass.
Okay, here we go! You have to have a minimum of 10 guests, at $449.99 + $10 processing fee, tax you’ll be coming in at $486.54. This includes 10 guest entries, access to the cabana, and a meal. Every additional guest with the meal plan is $44.99 and $16.99 for just the meal plan.
You cannot have more than 20 people in your cabana — from what I was told on the phone. So please keep that in mind.
After you fill out your form you’ll email it back to them, and you’ll need to provide 20% of the party down. Then 14 days before the party you need to provide the remaining 80%, and if you do not pay that 80% or want to cancel, you do not receive that 20% back.
Also, note parking is not included in your price! Parking is $20
Click here to see the 2023 Sandcastle Birthday Party form.
Outside Food & Drinks
You cannot bring in a cake or ice cream. You can bring in tiny cupcakes, however, they do have to be within a 6-pack and not homemade.
You may bring in – chips, snacks, and drinks — ONLY — if they are individual items. You cannot bring in a large bag of chips, no jumbo container of pretzels, or 2 liters of soda.
Everything must be individual items. Also note, that the box has to be open to go through security. So if you do purchase a Costco bulk individual chips you have to make sure the box is open for them to look through.
Lastly, you cannot bring in; large coolers, hard coolers, or large soft coolers. You may only bring in a soft-shelled cooler small cooler. Note that the soft-shell cooler cannot have a hard inner liner. They will turn it away, speaking from experience.
This is the cooler we were able to bring in with no issues; CleverMade Collapsible Cooler Bag.
Also, under NO circumstance are you allowed to bring in glass. No glass food containers, no glass bottles, no glass anything.
The Cabana
With the party fees, you receive the “VIP cabana“. This cabana is all the way at the end of the park, under the slides. There is a lot of room for 20+ people if not everyone is sitting.
The plastic furniture was surprisingly nice compared to the rest of the park, and the other furniture was kept clean.
You are not allowed to tape, nail, tack, etc party decorations. They do the balloons to the poles for you, you’ll need to provide the other balloons.
There are no trashcans in your cabana! You have to walk your trash to a trashcan which is — which at Sandcastle are few and far between. If you do find one it’s full, usually overflowing.
It is very loud at the cabana, you are right on the boardwalk, under the water slides, and across from the first aid station.
The Rules
Let me just say, I feel like no one knows the rules, not a single person. One person will tell you one thing and another person will tell you something different.
First off cabanas; they said that only 20 people could be within the cabana and everyone absolutely needed wristbands. No, only adults need wristbands, and no one needs wristbands. Did we receive wristbands, yes, did multiple people come into our cabana and just sit down, also yes.
Security is non-existent when you get into the park. They’re only there to check your bags, and they are hardcore about checking your bags.
There is a limit on meal vouchers you are allowed to purchase. I did try to purchase extra for guests who had season passes, and I was not able to. This was confusing; because I thought I purchased more until I got there, and I did not add them correctly to the order form, even though I was on the call with someone. Since my receipt was not itemized and a picture, I wasn’t able to go back to see it.
Remember how I said parking is not included in your price? It is not included for your guests either! I forgot to ask about this one. However, when I did get there I asked about parking, in which they told me to text a picture of our season pass to our guests to have them show it at the shed. Which worked great for everyone.
They tell you that you can come in early to get your tickets, get everything in, and set up your cabana. That is not true, NOTHING is open until 11 am. You are not allowed to go in, you are not allowed to get tickets, and you cannot go to your cabana.
The UGH
The worst was the “ticket printer” was broken, so we could not pick up our tickets prior to the party. So the day of — I had to write a list of people to give to the ticket counter. Then I had to text everyone where our cabana where to pick their tickets up.
I love party bags! Anyone who knows me knows how much I love them! So of course that was one of my first questions, can we bring in party bags? They said yes absolutely, which was not a lie.
So I decided that I’d give everyone a reusable flashy bag and a towel. What they did not say is that I would have to open every single bag, every single towel at security!
Lastly, to wave pool and lazy river are filled with; twigs, bandaids, grass clippings, and goose poop. It is right next to the river, so you are bound to have wild animals come in and out. However, they DO NOT do a good job of cleaning! They need to hire people to clean. As well as fix the filtering system to get the grass, and other items out. I highly recommend wearing water shoes! The boardwalk is very hot, and there is a lot of goose poop!
The Good
The meal vouchers were great! They look like tickets — you can hand them to your party guests to be used at any of the food locations. It was one less thing I had to worry about; everyone could get something they wanted to eat and drink.
Everyone could do their own thing, however, can meet back at the cabana. I liked that a lot. Everyone could do the activity they want or sit and enjoy the lounge chairs in the cabana. It took a lot off of me!
We threw a ton of snacks on a table, and everyone could grab what they wanted. We also had the soft cooler filled with juice boxes and Capri Suns.
Final Thoughts
The whole process was confusing and time-consuming. The form does not allow you to fill out all the spaces in Acrobat. You cannot submit payment online; it has to be over the phone or a check. The receipt you receive is a picture of a receive scanned by a phone — not much security there.
In the end, will I host a party there again? No. I felt like no one knew what was going on, no one was on the same page, and there was no discount. It was not worth the stress or cost. Especially — with the extra costs of having to pay for individual-sized items. I don’t like that you cannot use your season pass discount.
Don’t take this as we did not have fun! Everyone had a great time — all the guests were running around playing. I think for myself it was a little too stressful with not a lot of options to do what I wanted with the party.
