The Skinny
Cypress Gardens wants you to spend even more time outdoors. The award-winning botanical gardens and kiddie playland has now opened a modest-sized water park.
The Slides
Park visitors can experience numerous soaking slides, each concluding with a plunge into the Spunky's Lagoon splashpool: Coral Reef, a 33-foot-long drop; Pineapple Pipeline, a 43-foot series of twists and turns; Barracuda Blaster, an 85-foot descent into a soakzone; Rio Raceway, an 80-foot speed-slide; and Typhoon Twister, the park's signature slide, which runs more than 170 feet.
Spunky's Lagoon
In the kids' zone, visitors can lounge at an enormous wading pool or on one of its six islands. Each island houses a number of kiddie slides and splash areas. Kids will also be able to meet some of the park's original animated characters, including Squirt the baby elephant, Tippy the turtle, Hermoine the hippo, Daffy the dolphin and Squawker the parrot. In the center of the Lagoon sits a giant volcano, which shoots cooling bursts of water at passers-by at specific times of the day.