Concept WCUSA Theme Day concept

[warfelg]

Despite no “direct” connection to SEAS (I’m talking on the surface), I’ve been thinking of a way for WCUSA to help in improving the image of SEAS and I thought of something:

The Saturday after the park closes to the public; they should open for “Bark in the Park”. No slides would be open (safety) but some of the pools at the bottom, the wave pool (turned off), the splash parks, and the two lazy rivers.

The park takes $5 donations for parking to pass onto the local SPCA. At the gate $5 per person/dog that goes to a rescue foundation. Provide food and water for $1 a cup to go to various conservation non-profits. Dogs can go in any of the open water attractions with their owners. (No dog off lead) At the gate every dog gets a special collar: green means friendly, Orange means caution, red means leave alone.

A little water park near State College Pa does this and raises $25,000 yearly for the SPCA. I think WCUSA would easily be able to outdo that total and SEAS as a parent company can make the donations.

At this point they would be closing and winterizing the slides anyways, so keeping certain areas open for the dogs wouldn’t require a quick clean for guests.

 

[Jonesta6]

I like this idea a lot!

Just to add to the idea a little bit (my apologies if this is what the other park already does) but they could include a toy zone where for an additional donation of some sort you can get a choice of a special toy that can be used in one of the play zones - WC and SPCA co-branded of course.

Also, does the other park offer some sort of drying options? I can see people not being interested because the chance that their dog would be wet on the car ride home and/or if the weather starts to become a little cooler.

 

[Nicole]

I love this idea!

I actually used to run a Doggie Dip when I lived in Fairlington. We let the dogs swim the weekend after they officially closed all of the pools.

Both the big and small dogs stuck to the kiddie wading pool. The retrievers spent the entire time padding out to get the toys we had provided. One particularly industrious guy swam around collecting everything, before returning.

We, of course, were not doing it as a fundraiser, but we easily could have made money.

 

[b.mac]

Knoebels has a similar event they host in September but I'm unsure whether or not any funds they raise go towards any rescue efforts.

This is definitely an idea I wish a few parks got behind, and WCUSA would be a great park to start it at.

 

[lightninlady]

Ocean Breeze does this and I think it’s pretty successful, I think it’d be nice!

 

[warfelg]

A day later I really am in love with my concept here. And I love the ideas, toys for cheap with the money going to charity. I think they could incorporate a donation center for toys, blankets, and other items for shelters.

My big thing is it really allows for SEAS to keep spinning these continued Blackfish shots by going far more this way. Of course it's going to require that owners of the pups either pre-register the shots or bring paperwork to the park.

The more I look at the park, you can cut off the path past Malibu Pipeline.Still got Surfer's Bay, Rock 'N' Roll Island, Kritter Koral to use for this. Maybe open one slide for the pups at Cow-A-Bunga (given it's a kiddie slide anyways it should be fine for most dogs to slide down. I imagine it wouldn't be that packed of a day so it wouldn't require a lot of space.

The one thing I am struggling to think of how they can best do it is a 'cool zone' and 'health spot' for pups that show distress. I think that having a tent somewhere that's AC cooled, and a second tent that local vets come to in order to tend to and pups that may need help. BGW could bring their dogs from the show to interact too (leave the cats, wolves, and birds behind!).