When the air conditioning takes your electric bill to new heights, and your SUV’s sunshade barely makes a dent in the interior temperature, it’s time to take the family swimming. Whether you’re looking for a pool, waterslide, or indoor surfing experience, Davis and Weber counties offer ideal spots to make a splash.
So pack the water wings and fruit snacks for the road and head north. We spoke with Taylor Hartman, director of marketing and communications for Visit Ogden, and Megan Christensen, tourism marketing manager for Discover Davis, to find some of the best places for families to cool off this summer.
Water Parks
Driving north, you’ll see Utah’s 140-year-old amusement park, Lagoon, east of I-15 in Farmington. Inside is another park, Lagoon-A-Beach. Body slides and tube slides dot the 6-acre water park, along with a lazy river, a children’s area, and more. Christensen recommends buying a Lagoon season pass so you can drop by the theme park or water park throughout the summer. lagoonpark.com
Further north, Cherry Hill offers more slides, a lazy river, and the Pirate Cove children’s area featuring a pirate ship. Visit the Pie Pantry for dessert. Flavors listed on the park’s website include cherry, apple, and chapple (cherry and apple). cherry-hill.com
On a restless summer afternoon, Hartman recommends riding the nostalgic slides at Classic Waterslides in Riverdale. The park’s website also boasts more than 30 snow cone flavors at its Snowie Shack so you can cool down out of the water. classicwaterslides.com
Making Waves
Christensen, who grew up in Layton, fondly recalls frequent summer trips to Surf ’n Swim. She recommends making memories in the giant, reasonably priced wave pool — it’s $5 to get in, $3 for a tube. “Super fun in the summer,” she says. “In the winter, it’s covered with a bubble, so it’s open year-round,” laytoncityutah.gov
If you’ve always wanted to try surfing, start with flowboarding on a simulated wave at Flowrider in Ogden. Hartman calls the experience “incredible” and says that after wiping out, you can easily try again multiple times. flowriderutah.com
Community Pools
In Davis County, Christensen suggests pools and splash pads at South Davis Recreation Center in Bountiful, Clearfield Aquatic Center, and Farmington Swimming Pool. southdavisrecreation.gov, clearfield.city, farmington.utah.gov
In Ogden, Hartman says the newly rebuilt Marshall White Community Center offers a beautiful pool and splash pad, and the city’s Lorin Farr Pool is famous among cinephiles as a filming location for The Sandlot (1993). Other nearby options include the Roy City Aquatic Center and North Shore Aquatic Center in North Ogden. ogdencity.gov, royutah.gov, northogdencity.com
Cannonball!
Writer, director, and narrator David Mickey Evans fell in love with Utah while scouting locations for his 1993 film The Sandlot: “The underlying values of the characters in the movie, I think, fit pretty perfectly with Salt Lake as I know it.” Local landmarks set the scene for the best summer a ragtag group of adolescents ever had — including the Lorin Farr Community Pool, where one lovestruck youngster dastardly orchestrates a first kiss with his lifeguard crush.
The pool’s been fixed up with a few flashy slides, but the air of nostalgia remains, along with a few young swimmers conducting some harmless summertime mischief.
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