This week has been a bit hectic as I finished my work teaching for the year and summer officially started for me. But I’ll come back later and talk about that as well as my new favorite recipe for peanut butter cookies and baking the perfect chicken breasts.
Today I want to talk to you about a little thing called Slide the City.
I signed up for this what seems like ages ago with a friend of mine, and the forecast became gloomier and gloomier in Eeyore terms as the day approached. Today has been a mix of rain, storm clouds, lots of wind, and patches of sunshine. But it’s actually the perfect weather for this kind of wet and wild event.
My friend decided not to go with me, but because I picked up her packet of things, Fernando graciously came with me. But let’s back up a bit.
So what is Slide the City?
It’s a giant slip-n-slide like the ones I used to ride in my grandparent’s backyard in Indiana when I was a kid. Except when I say giant, think 1,000 feet long, the length of three football fields, and stretched down a closed off city street on an incline. Got the picture? That’s Slide the City.
This is a great idea of what Slide the City looks like.
How many times do you get to ride Slide the City?
It depends on what package you choose. I chose the Triple Slider as that was the best value when I signed up. Technically the unlimited option is your best value if you get it early, but if you don’t, then I’d go with Triple Slider. Now, I’ve seen people from other events saying that there was no way to tell if someone was riding the correct amount of times, but at our event, there were volunteers checking wristbands and marking on the Triple Slider and Single Slider wristbands so people couldn’t cheat the system.
Now, let me tell you how Slide the City worked for me.
I purchased my Triple Slider in the regular (not early) purchase time frame for $35. The organization pairs up with a charity in the city (ours was the local Children’s Hospital) to give some of the proceeds to, and I think that’s the only reason I would ever pay that much money for a giant slip-n-slide. The week before the event, I received emails with an e-receipt to use for retrieving my swag and information about how to retrieve said swag and where to report on the day of the event.
Retrieving the swag was easy. I simply showed up to the event location the day before and stood in a hot, stuffy line for about twenty minutes before I got my wristband, tube, and mouth guard. They do have a pretty streamlined process, and I was pleased there wasn’t too much confusion about what to do; though the volunteers did seem to just shuffle people off with little actual direction about where to go in a long line of people checking riders in.
For people curious about the information that says you have to sign a waiver, I’ll go ahead and say I never did. I printed it out and brought it with me, but there was such chaos at the actual event I have no idea where I would have turned it in. On event day, there was no check-in station just a number of different sponsor booths set up, a place to fill up your tubes for a small fee (ours was $1 despite the Facebook response that it would be $2), a DJ playing obnoxiously loud pop music, and the world’s largest slip-n-slide.
By the time Fernando and I arrived, the lines were outrageous. We picked a line that looked deceptively short compared to the extremely long middle line. It was a huge mistake. The lines had different unmarked purposes we weren’t aware of. There were three lines, one for families with children under 12 years old, one for parties (groups of people who would slide together), and one for singles (only one person could slide at a time). We made the mistake of picking the single slider line, and we watched enviously as the party line moved at about three times the rate of our line. It wasn’t till Fernando saw a friend of his that we found out why the middle line was going so much faster. By then we were almost to the slide after about 1.5 hours wait.
My advice to anyone going to Slide the City: ask around and find out what the different lanes are for so you don’t make our mistake.
We were able to slide three times, but after waiting in line that long and seeing so many more people showing up, we decided to call it a day after one trip down the slides. But what a trip! The slides were worth the wait, I think. You run to the edge of the slides, flop onto your tube, and take off. I can’t tell you how many times I turned around or hit the sides, but it was a rush! Fernando caught up to me pretty quickly, but I’m going to guess it’s cause he’s bigger then me.
Shh! Don’t tell him I said that. 😉
Overall, Slide the City is a fun event. My advice is to buy in early to get the best prices, and go with the unlimited number of slides so you can go early and not have to wait as long as other people.
Would I do it again? Perhaps not. I think once is enough for me. If someone wants to pay for me, sure. Other than that, I’ll spend my pennies elsewhere.
– RaeNezL
Cubed 