Wet 'N Wild Orlando Permanently Closing on Dec. 31, 2016


Earlier this morning, the official Universal Orlando Resort Blog announced that Wet 'N Wild Orlando (Universal's water park) will close at the end on 2016:
"Since its opening in 1977, Wet ‘n Wild Orlando has been a place where guests have created wonderful memories. As America’s first water park, Wet ‘n Wild has been the birthplace of numerous innovations that are now considered a common part of the water park experience.


Today, we are announcing that the park will close permanently on December 31, 2016. However, the groundbreaking spirit that has defined Wet ‘n Wild will continue in the development of Universal’s Volcano Bay, a next-generation water theme park that reimagines what it means to be a water park.


We’re grateful to our countless fans and team members for making Wet ‘n Wild such a special place for so very long. Share your favorite Wet ‘n Wild memories with us in the comments below..."

PHOTO: ©2015 Universal Orlando Resort. All Rights Reserved.

12 comments:

  1. Interesting. With it closing, that's a good chunk of empty land Universal will have. Wonder what they plan to do with it?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Rumors are pointing to Universal building another resort and moving their nighttime life, City Walk, down there. With everything else opening down on International Drive, this will probably be the smartest move on Universal's part. Put the party where the party is.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I doubt they will move City Walk as they are building a new restaurant currently (actually renovating it to be a new restaurant). My thought would be them adding a second "City Walk" area with different themed restaurants or another resort on the land since they could reuse some of the wet n wild stuff for the pool area at a resort.

    ReplyDelete
  4. My guess is that they will build another hotel or two.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I agree, probably a second City Walk area with a resort. That makes sense

    ReplyDelete
  6. I bet they just sell it. It's far too small for a resort. Look on Google Maps in satellite view. It's one third the size of the land used by their other resorts. As for another City Walk, I'm not sure that really makes sense. That area of I-Drive is largely just lodging, not a party scene. If they did something it would be standalone, with only bus service as an option to get back to the rest of the theme park (unless they did something very expensive, like new bridges over I-4 or a tunnel for boats under it (would be cool, but not gonna happen)). I think it's just too small and too separate from the rest of the park to do anything with it. I guess we'll see who's correct in a couple years...

    ReplyDelete
  7. Not sure, but heard Universal was purchasing land between their resort and Wet and Wild..could have something to do work connections between the two, hugh?

    ReplyDelete
  8. Universal leases the land that WnW sits on, so Universal won't be doing anything with it. Part of the emphasis on the new waterpark was to make it their own and bring their property together. The last few additions to the park have all been slides that are easily moved to a new location, or sold if they no longer had a use for them. I wouldn't be surprised to see some of the (newer) slides make the move between the closure of WnW to the opening of the new park.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Universal do own the land that wet and wild is on, they purchased it a couple of years ago when the lease ran out(2013) I believe, they also own the area that is wet and wilds car park and various other small pieces of land in that area. They also purchased the land that the Walgreens oppositewet and wild.
    I for one think they will build hotel and a citywalk type attraction with some sort of transportation links to get you over to universal studios and island of adventure

    ReplyDelete
  10. Maybe Universal's own type of monorail over I-4?

    ReplyDelete
  11. They could call it UniRail. LOL

    ReplyDelete

Powered by Blogger.