Blue Point Toasted Tour and Slide the City

Thanks to the opening of Ulele and the Water Works park, a once neglected area of downtown Tampa is now full of fun! The Husband and I headed down to the area for the Blue Point Toasted Tour and Slide the City.

Let’s start with the Toasted Tour. You had to RSVP online, which was free, and I found a Groupon for beer tokens so it ended up being a pretty cheap afternoon! The beer tokens were $25 for ten and they were full sized beers! We ended up giving a few away.

In addition to beer, as if that’s not enough, they also had games, live music, and a cooking demonstration. Attending the demos and playing the games got you a stamp on your Bingo board, which you could trade in for awesome swag. I ended up getting a picnic bag with pockets the perfect size for a bottle of Blue Point Toasted Lager. The Husband got yet another pair of sunglasses (he loves free sunglasses).

We were pleasantly surprised with the Toasted Tour. The weather was hot and sunny, but there was a beautiful breeze coming off the Hillsborough River that made it quite pleasant. I’m really glad that we went.

Slide the City, on the other hand, was a terrible disappointment. Now, I know that you’ll find this hard to believe from a germaphobe like me, but I absolutely waterslides. Yes, I know that it’s just a breeding ground for everyone’s germs, and I don’t care.

So I was obviously super excited for Slide the City, a world record 1,000 feet waterslide down the middle of the street. It just happened to be right around the corner from the Toasted Tour, so we bought tickets for the latest wave and figured we would go after we were beered out. It was $25 each for a single slide but I assumed it was expensive because it was going to be awesome. I was wrong.

It was terribly unorganized and not at all supervised. And in addition to the $25 we paid for one slide, we had to pay an additional $5 each for a tube and air. Yes, that’s right. You had to pay for air. It was $2 if you brought your own tube and just needed to fill it.

So after waiting to get your wristband, then waiting again for your tube and air, you walked up the bridge where it started and waited yet again. And waited. And waited. At least the view was pretty.

The end of the slide.

View of the Hillsborough River from the waiting area.

The giant line to go down the slide.

When it was finally time to go I was super annoyed but super excited. A giant waterslide! What a joke! Even with a running start with a wet tube, I only went about three feet and stopped. There wasn’t enough of a slope to keep you going, and even if there was, there were people jumping from the sidewalk in to the slide every few feet. No one was around to make sure people went to the top of the slide. Other people were just sitting on the slide, creating a human road block. What a disappointment.

I’m glad we saved some beer tokens for after the slide, because I needed one. We gave our tubes away to a mom and son, so they wouldn’t have to pay $5 each, and headed back to the Toasted Tour, where we enjoyed one last beer on the river before heading home.

Did you attend the Blue Point Toasted Tour or Slide the City? Did you have the same experience? Let me know in the comments!