Who wouldn’t want to spend a hot summer day riding cold water attractions? You’re having a blast and cooling down at the same time, it’s killing two birds with one stone! Such water parks, however, are known to be inaccessible to those who have disabilities.
Well all of that has just changed as the world’s very first water park for people with disabilities has just opened! It’s called Morgan’s Inspiration Island and it’s designed for a range of various disability identities. Best part: anyone with a disability automatically has free admission into the park.
Water parks are notoriously inaccessible for the disabled, but Morgan’s Inspiration Island aims to change all that because it’s the world’s first water park designed specifically for people with disabilities.
“Our goal is to provide a great guest experience in an inclusive, safe, comfortable, not-overly-crowded environment,” says park founder Gordon Hartman, who worked with doctors, parents, teachers, special needs therapists, and caregivers in order to create an extension to Morgan’s Wonderland that caters to people with all varieties of disability.
The venue offers traceable bracelets that allow parents to locate their children, and it also provides PneuChairs, air-powered, waterproof wheelchairs that families can rent for free. Every part of the park is wheelchair-accessible and children with “special needs” can enter the park for free. The park even has the ability to quickly change the heat of the water in order to accommodate guests who are sensitive to the cold!
“Morgan’s Inspiration Island promises to give individuals with physical or cognitive special needs a place where they can splash and play without barriers,” Gordon said. “[It] is not a special-needs park; it’s a park of inclusion.”
The tropical-themed water park includes six major attractions.
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Such rides include an accessible river boat ride and different types of splash pads (which are more accessible than pools to mobility-disabled people). The splash pads could range from water cannons to rain curtains to surfaces with geysers.
The park teamed up with the University of Pittsburgh to create an innovative new wheelchair.
It’s called the PneuChair. Instead of batters, the chair uses compressed air to move, ultimately making them waterproof and inexpensive to produce. The park’s guests are allowed to use the chairs for free so that they don’t potentially damage the standard battery-powered wheelchairs they regularly use.
The PneuChairs only weigh 80 pounds while the battery-operated ones are hundreds of pounds.
In addition, the PneuChair only takes 10 minutes to recharge itself with air and run just as long as any electric wheelchair (which would normally take eight hours to recharge).
In addition to the PneuChairs, the park offers two other wheelchair types as well.
To help cater to guests with special mobility needs, the park also offers a model that can be pushed by a caregiver and a traditional manual wheelchair.
For children who are likely to wander and get lost, the park offers a high-tech, waterproof wristband.
This way, if they do get separated from their parents, the park’s staff can easily locate them. The park also offers the ability to change water to warmer temperatures. This way, guests that are sensitive to the cold can still enjoy the park.
For guests who may get overwhelmed with the crowds and noise, private and quiet areas are available as well.
Nonetheless, the park only allows a limited amount of attendees at a time to ensure a “milder experience” than common theme parks.
Morgan’s Inspiration Island’s design was built around water conservation.
The water is filtered 24/7 and then recirculated. This also aids those who may have immune sensitivities who worry about the water’s quality.
They call themselves the world’s very first “accessible water park.”
A lot of other water and theme parks in the United States have some accessible attractions, however Morgan’s Inspiration Island is the first to make accessibility universal.
According to the Americans with Disabilities Act, public water parks only need to have accessible wading pools.
The act, however, doesn’t apply to the actual rides and attractions, ultimately making most water parks’ rides inaccessible to those with mobility disabilities.
Morgan’s Inspiration Island’s creators wanted to create a new type of water park model that would stray away from the traditional.
They wanted to build a space that would be welcoming to those with disabilities. Nonetheless, they refuse to gain the title of a “special needs park.” Instead, the creators want Morgan’s Inspiration Island to be a “park of inclusion.”
Morgan’s Inspiration Island is actually the sister park to another: Morgan’s Wonderland.
Wonderland is a 25-acre fully accessible park that first opened back in March 2010. Morgan’s Inspiration is located right next to Morgan’s Wonderland so that attendees can easily park-hop between the two.
“When Morgan’s Wonderland opened in 2010, we really didn’t know what to expect,” said park founder Gordon Hartman.
“But the park’s popularity has grown tremendously, and encouraged us to add Morgan’s Inspiration Island. Now, we’ll have two attractions like none other that everyone — regardless of ability or age — can enjoy.”
Hartman designed Morgan’s Inspiration Island with his 23-year-old disabled daughter, Morgan (the namesake of all the Morgan locations).
The two met up and worked with doctors, therapists, park consultants, caregivers, special education teachers, park consultants and the disability rights community to help develop the water park.
Morgan’s Inspiration Island had its official opening on June 17th in San Antonio, Texas.
Before the grand opening, however, the park invited a few people with disabilities into the park to help test out all its components and receive feedback on how they could improve.
For now, the park will be open every day for the entire summer until the middle of August.
After that, it’ll only be open during the weekends of August and September. Future accessible Morgan facilities are currently in the making and will be added soon.
