Last week we ran a story about the Coco Key Water Resort in Orlando. Essentially the resort is set to open on April 15th. We placed several calls, and requests for an interview, and received no response, which lead us to believe perhaps the story was false, and the park had been delayed yet again. However, if you look at the official website, not only will the resort be open, but you can already book rooms!
Its extremely peculiar when you have a brand new water resort opening in Orlando, and not only do you hear nothing about it, but you don’t see any advertising or even hear anything from those living in the area. So, we began to look around. The area that the resort is in, is the I-Drive area just north of Sand Lake Drive, right around the “Worlds biggest Mc Donalds”. Not the most desirable of locations, however it is fairly central to Magical Midway and a short walk from Wet N Wild. Coco Key bills itself as being an “indoor waterpark” and yet when we drove by, we didnt see an area large enough to house a large indoor facility. In fact what we saw gave us the impression that there wont be much to this waterpark at all.
When we drove up, we almost drove right onto the construction site as there was no gate and no construction walls. After, realizing our mistake we quickly drove around to the surrounding hotels and began to look at the area. No concrete footers, no pools being dug, nothing indicative of a water park being built. A lot of the parts were still in crates, and nothing looked remotely close to being done. Perhaps it was a delay on permits, perhaps it was the cold weather, but this waterpark will not be ready for the busy spring break season.
As for the hotel itself, it looks like they took whatever hotel they had purchased and put a quick paint job over it. A lot of the windows on the hotel looked as if they had plastic bags over them which to me seemed to indicate they had no glass. Perhaps I’m wrong, but I think it’s safe to say that April 15th is not going to be opening day, and if it is, it won’t be for a fully operational waterpark.
