Orlando World Center Marriott adds water slides, lazy river
Orlando World Center Marriott has unveiled its River Falls Water Park area, adding three tall slides and a lazy river to its pool lineup.
“Part of our deal was really just creating an expanded pool experience, which this allows us to do,” said Gary Dybul, director of sales and marketing.
The trio of new rides — dubbed Tailspin, Aquasphere and Boomerango — are tube slides, with one or two passengers coming down aboard rafts. The resort’s body slides remain in operation at its main pool nearby. The additions opened March 19.
“The river has been extremely popular as far as being able to enjoy a cocktail and float around the river,” said Kamiyah Woodard,
director of recreation.
In addition, “everyone’s screaming going down the slides,” she said. “I take it as a good sign.”
Aquasphere, the green slide, has a globe structure to swirl around about midway down. Tailspin, the yellow slide, features sweeping loops in its descent.
“When you go through the yellow one, they have reflectors, so it actually looks like there’s light as you’re going through,” Woodard said. “It’s a little trippy, actually, but I thought it was a lot of fun.”
Boomerango features a steep drop that flows into an open-air embankment and then sends riders back in the opposite direction, gliding into the splashdown area.
“When you hit that drop … that was when I screamed,” Woodard said.
The resort also is offering color cocktails that color-coordinate with the three waterslides.
The new rides leave from the same platform atop an eight-story tower on the north end of the 2,000-room resort, located at the intersection of Interstate 4 and World Center Drive in Orange County. From that landing, visitors can see the resort’s golf course and, a bit farther away, Epcot.
Orlando World Center Marriott does not offer day passes to its pools for non-guests.
The addition of the water park comes on the heels of the resort replacing its main pool after discovering a leak beneath it, Dybul said. The renovation increased the size of the original deck space and added five poolside cabanas. The recently opened area also has six cabanas available for rent.
“This was planned pre-pandemic,” Dybul said. The project’s approval was made mid-2019, he said.
“Just to get everything as far as the permitting, the design work, all the towers built … the size, the spacing, the River Falls, everything, it takes a little while to kind of get that going,” he said. Construction started in March 2021, and the water park opened about a year later.
More than 100 of the resort’s room face the new water park.
“We have balconies in almost all of our rooms. … That’s a unique feature to us,” Dybul said. “You just can’t build with balconies anymore.”
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