Have you even taken your family to a water park and wished that you were the only ones there?  That was the case for my son and I during our stay in Mackinac Village.  Click here to find out why I call it Mackinac Village.

We stayed from a Sunday night through a Tuesday afternoon.  Our hotel stay came with wristbands for unlimited use of water parks at three different hotels.  I noticed that the resort town was not that busy during the week.  In fact, we had the water parks completely to ourselves.

When Ben and I arrived at the first park, we thought it was closed because not only was it completely unoccupied, but the water was not flowing through the attractions.  Then, to my surprise, we discovered that we had to turn the park on ourselves upon arrival.

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Much like a tanning light in some bathrooms, the park was on a timer switch that we controlled.  It was amazing to walk in to a quiet, humid room filled with water fountains and sprinklers not doing much of anything...

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...to a room that came to life as a wet water wonderland.  Of the three parks, only one had water temps that a grown man could tolerate without hours upon hours of adjusting.

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Ben, however, was not hesitant at all when it came to jumping right into the water, regardless of how cold it was.  He also had no problem dousing daddy with a water cannon.

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The best part about the whole thing was being able to watch Ben as he fearlessly took on everything from the chilling ride down the spiral slides, to the giant pirate bucket that dumped several hundred gallons of water at once.

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You can see above the initial tip of the bucket, and below you can see the full impact of the 'pirate pail.'

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Each of the water parks had their own uniqueness that made every stop a treat.  Between the three, we enjoyed a lazy river, splash pad, whirlpool, air and water cannons, slides and a water-infused jungle-gym.

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Time seemed to stand still, like the water in the picture above, as we enjoyed our time together.  It was nice to pay no attention to the time or an agenda.  We just played and relaxed at our own pace, on our terms.  It was a perfect getaway for the two of us.

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Once we were waterlogged and our fingers looked like prunes, we decided to head back to our hotel. But not before Ben turned everything off with a simple wall switch, and the thunderous sounds of the water slowed to a light trickle.

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