Beach Getaway! (Part 2)

Paul and I just got home from a very short beach getaway! On Tuesday, we headed down to Cape May, NJ and spent the day there. Wednesday and Thursday were spent in Wildwood, NJ. I'm not going to tell you every single thing we did, but here are some highlights!

(I realized this was a little long so I broke it up into two parts. Check out Part 1 if you missed it!)

Jet ski/Running Date

On Wednesday morning in Wildwood, we had a jet ski/running date... AKA Paul rented a jet ski and I went for a run. He never went jet skiing before and he had the best time ever! I was so glad he had fun. 

My run was not fun. This is going to sound crazy, but I hate running at the beach. Too many cars. Too many people. It's just impossible to find several miles of road to be able to zone out. And I am definitely not a boardwalk runner. First of all, it feels weird on my feet. Second, I hate dodging in and out of people. I hate people.

Boardwalk @ Wildwood

We spent our last evening in New Jersey walking Wildwood's huge boardwalk. There were lots of shops, lots of food , and three piers full of amusement rides and attractions. The boardwalk was very crowded and I realized I am so over the boardwalk. Every single shop is the same and everything is overpriced ($4.50 for an ice cream cone!?). We actually walked the entire length of the boardwalk but were lazy and took the tram on the way back.

Raging Waters (This is the long one!)

Did you know I freaking LOVE water parks? Water slides are the best. Not the scary speed ones, but the safe ones. (Actually water slides statistically are the most dangerous amusement rides there are. I know this. I researched.) 

One of my favorite beach memories from childhood was going to water parks. When my family went to Wildwood, we went to Raging Waters, and I remember my brothers and I having a TON of fun. There was this one slide called Shot Gun Falls, where you slide down a steep slide, then free fall 6 feet down into a tank of water.

Obviously my goal was to recreate this awesome memory with Paul! We decided to do the early bird ticket where you could ride from the opening at 9:30 to 12:30. I figured 3 hours was enough time to squeeze in some good water park fun.

My goal was for us to be the very first people in line to buy tickets, so we rolled up the the park at 8:52am. There were only two other guys in line in front of us. Score! 

As we waited in line, we could see the lifeguards doing safety drills. It made me feel very safe to see this in action. Also on a side note, I have to say that throughout the day all the lifeguards were on POINT. After riding certain slides several times, I started picking up on some of the safety rules they had. Like after a rider goes down Shot Gun Falls, they wouldn't wave the next two riders down until BOTH of the previous riders had touched the ladder to get out of the pool. That's just one example. All in all, they knew what they were doing, and while I'm a strong swimmer, you never know what could happen and it was good to know the lifeguards, while young, were taking their job very seriously.

As I suspected, they started selling tickets around 9:15am, and since Paul and I were literally the second people to step foot in the park, it was probably only 5 minutes between the time we bought our tickets, threw our stuff in a locker, and were climbing the stairs of our first slide. See, my planning pays off sometimes!

For the first hour and fifteen minutes, Paul and I were in high speed mode. We went from slide to slide riding most of them several times because that early in the day there was either no line at all or a two minute wait at the most. This is going to sound silly, but we were exhausted by the time it was 10:45! So we took a little breather and floated through Adventure River that winds through the park. It felt great to just lay on a tube and relax for ten minutes. But after that, it was time to get going again!

By now, it was 11:00am, and it was starting to get crowded. There were actual lines for rides, but some were still shorter than others. We went hard for about another 45 minutes, but after that, we were ready to call it a day. Not only were we tired, but it just continued to get more crowded.

I bet you are wondering if I rode Shot Gun Falls again. I sure did! I went down that slide 6 times! Other cool rides were a rope swing, where you literally would swing like Tarzan and leave go into a pool of water. Then of course there were lots of twisty slides that you either went down on your back or on a tube. I loved the tube ones- they went very fast!

That's Shot Gun Falls!

There was also a cargo net stretched above one of the pools where you had to go across sort of like monkey bars... but it was a lot harder because it was a cargo net! Of course I had to go across the thing, and I actually was able to do it thanks to all the pull ups I do at Planet Fitness!

**Funny story: The next day when I went to the gym to lift, I noticed my shoulders and triceps were sore before I even began. Then I remembered the cargo net from the day before and realized that's what I get for being cocky!

**One more funny story: All the warnings said don't wear your sunglasses on the water slides because you will either lose them or break them. I did not heed the warnings so of course mine broke. Dang, and I'm always such a rule follower!

Have you ever been to Cape May or Wildwood?
Where do you like to hit the beach?
Do you like water parks?