Tidal Cove
Waterpark

Project Overview

Tidal Cove needed work across the entire waterpark: structural fiberglass repairs, a new exterior clear coat on the main slides, and a complete rebuild of the kids area. The original plan was to shut the park down, and the owner was not happy about what that would cost.

So we threw out the original plan and built a new one around keeping the park open. We restored the whole waterpark in six weeks. The kids area was the only part that closed. Every other slide stayed open and the park kept earning the entire time.

The original plan meant closing the whole park. We rebuilt the plan so guests barely knew we were there.

Changing the Plan

First we looked at closing half the park, then at closing one slide at a time. Neither worked well enough for the owner, so we moved the work to the hours when the park was closed.

A Schedule Built Around Guests

Our crew came in at 4 a.m. to clear coat before the park opened, then came back at 6 p.m. to clear coat until sunset. The rest of the night went to sanding and prep, one slide at a time, so every slide was ready for guests the next morning.

Structural Fiberglass Repair

Damaged sections were rebuilt the right way, not patched over. Our technician laid up layers of 1.5 ounce mat and biaxial cloth on both sides of a quarter inch honeycomb core to restore the strength of the slide wall.

You can see the difference in a single photo.

This shot was taken partway through the job. The dark blue section in front already has its new clear coat: deep color and a mirror shine. The section right behind it has not been touched yet, and it shows what years of Florida sun do to a slide, chalky, faded and dull.

Every exterior on the green and blue slides got the same treatment, section by section, during the early morning and evening windows when the park was closed.

One slide hung directly over a pool, with no room for scaffolding or lifts. So we built our own way up.

The exterior of one waterslide sat right above an active pool. Scaffolding would have meant closing it, and the park was never designed to fit a man lift or aerial basket, so no heavy equipment could get in.

Our team ran aircraft cable through anchor points drilled along the top of the slide, placed where the fiberglass was strongest. The result was a custom harness system built to hold a total of 13,000 pounds, which let our crew scale the slide while tied off to it.

Without that system, there was no way to work on the slide at all.

The kids area was the one place that had to close. We rebuilt it from top to bottom in nine days.

Back to square one: Years of old coatings had built up in layers and were failing. We stripped the slides and the structure back to the original surface before putting anything new on.

The entire structure: Every bit of rust was sanded away, then the steel was primed and repainted from the top of the tower down, along with all of the features and decals.

Slide exteriors: After stripping, the exteriors were refinished with a high solids, marine grade paint.

Slide interiors and runouts: The interiors were sanded and buffed, and the runouts were sprayed with a high gloss gelcoat.

Nine days, with a wait: We would have finished even sooner, but work paused while the park’s engineering team rewelded some of the steel.

The Result

In six weeks, Tidal Cove went from faded slides and failing coatings to a fully restored waterpark. The main slides have a fresh clear coat, the damaged sections are structurally sound, and the kids area looks brand new from the top of the tower to the end of every runout.

Most important to the owner, the park never had to close. Only the kids area shut down, for nine days, and everything else stayed open to guests the whole time.