Thanks to Commercial Recreation Specialists, California’s Wake Island Leads A New Generation of Water-Based Family Entertainment Centers

Resort Trades has a great piece showcasing how Noel Carter of California’s Wake Island has turned his cable park into a Water-Based Family Entertainment Center™ or WBFEC™ .  You can see the original story by clicking above, or read on below:

When Noel Carter, owner of Wake Island near Sacramento, Calif. — the largest watersports park on the West Coast — realized he got what he paid for with the installation of substandard giant inflatables from a generic manufacturer in China, he needed to do something fast.

So he turned to Commercial Recreation Specialists (CRS).

The professionals at CRS in Verona, Wis., helped transform Wake Island into a more thrilling, more colorful and more memorable experience.

More than 50 giant blue and green structures — slides, towers, wiggle bridges, ramps, a trampoline, a water totter, balance beams, tunnels, monkey bars, hurdles, domes, swings and more — form modular obstacle courses on the water and make for challenging floating fun, safe and exciting play, and what Carter calls a “visually intense” experience.

“With the Sports Park, a picture tells a thousand words,” Carter says. “This thing advertises itself.”

What makes Wake Island even more special is that it’s among the first of its kind in the United States to embrace the emerging trend of Water-Based Family Entertainment Centers™, or WBFEC™.

The WBFEC market will only get bigger, according to Ron Romens, president of CRS, which is pioneering the concept. Customized for each location and budget, a WBFEC can turn any location — a lake, waterfront, marina or even parcel of unused land— into a revenue-generating attraction.

“This is definitely a trend,” Romens says. “People don’t forget this type of recreation, which encourages active play, social interaction and exciting but safe experiences. There’s nothing else like it in the marketplace.”

CRS worked with Carter to understand his business goals and created a tailored plan that met his needs. The plan featured a strategy focused on creating easy entry and exits, varying degrees of challenge and integrating differing rotations of play to encourage repeat visits. Wake Island’s Sports Park was built for success using a high degree of engineering and technical know-how to create a self-directed experience that keeps guests coming back for more.

Through a consultative approach and providing expert input every step of the way, CRS has helped customers like Carter design facilities to promote business growth. With knowledge and advice for developing and improving hours of operation, throughput, usage fees, waiver information and check-in processes, CRS offers solutions beyond the equipment.

“We are a solutions provider,” Romens says. “Our primary objective is to help make our customers’ businesses wildly successful. We preserve what they have already created by proposing solutions to make operations more efficient and fresher, while increasing per capita revenues and minimizing owner risk, liability, downtime and staffing needs. When we are successful helping our customers be successful, we have delivered value.”

Read the full article at Resort Trades.