There used to be a water park in my hometown that had a bunch of slides and a wave pool. I used to go there all the time as a kid, and even went there as a senior on a trip. I went to birthday parties there, sometimes.
It closed in 2020 and never reopened because they had apparently been avoiding paying bills for years. It wasn’t just the pandemic. It was visible from the freeway, so I watched it slowly being demolished over the next couple years any time I passed by.
I haven’t found a water park that really compared to it yet. Most are either too small or part of a larger theme park, which is fine. It just seemed like the fact that it exclusively was a water park allowed it to focus more on the atmosphere and types of slides it had.
We had an amusement park called Geauga Lake close to where I grew up in Ohio. Not quite as big as the famous Cedar Point park which was a couple of hours away by car, but it had quite a history, and was a really popular one for school trips, company picnics, etc. It went through some ownership changes, and was eventually closed and left to rot with many of the original structures still sitting there after the coaster parts were sold off. Haven’t looked into it for a number of years, but it was weird seeing that same entrance building we walked through so many times just decaying.
Geauga Lake was featured in Bright Sun Productions “Abandoned” series on YouTube. Excellent channel if you enjoy the subject matter!