A full FlowRider Single refurb, one seasonal shutdown, and a record set together.
Downtime at Great Wolf Lodge Williamsburg is rare, and when it happens, it’s planned down to the day. The indoor water park runs at 84 degrees year-round. Fifty-five thousand square feet of slides, pools, and a four-story water fort, with families driving in from Richmond, Norfolk, and well beyond for the weekend. When the lodge closes for its seasonal shutdown, every day of that window is spoken for.
So when they decided to line up a full refurb of their FlowRider Single, known around the lodge as the Wolf Rider Wipeout, with that shutdown, the ask was simple. Get the job done in eleven days, start to finish. For a full refurb, that’s close to unheard of, but we said yes anyway. Then we set a record doing it.
A Record Breaking “Yes”
Every FlowRider sale starts a relationship and the install is only day one. What comes after is the part we care about most: the season openers, the service calls, the parts shipped overnight, and the refurb years down the road when a wave that has carried thousands of riders needs its day-one feel back.
A wave is a serious investment for any venue and it only pays off when it’s running, and running well. Our job is to make sure it does, for as long as our partners own it. From initial install to year five and beyond, Josh and Zak are the first call. Behind them sits a team with more than 280 years of combined experience, ready to show up wherever a wave needs us. Our President, Marshall Myrman, puts it this way: “NOTHING makes us happier than our valued clients that buy again, and again.”
That kind of partnership runs on trust and trust gets built one conversation at a time. At Great Wolf Lodge Williamsburg, Josh has a strong working relationship with General Manager Nick Licasto, which is a big part of why a challenging eleven-day refurb got a yes instead of a negotiation. When a partner calls with a deadline that sounds impossible, we don’t lead with why it can’t be done, we try and figure out how. And in this case, Josh was grateful to be handed the challenge.
Eleven Days, Four People
Two senior guys and two installers made up the whole crew, and that tight team was enough to pull off a major ask. Andy Pendergast has been with FlowRider for ten years, long enough to know a Single inside and out. Randy Owens lives about two hours from the lodge, and on a job measured in days, that kind of proximity made a difference.
They started on September 14th. By September 25th, the Wolf Rider Wipeout had new foam and vinyl, front and rear pillow padding, new nozzles, and a fresh ride surface with the lodge’s custom logo, all done and handed back right on schedule for reopening. Everything else on the to-do list waited its turn. However, the crew did still find time for a round of golf, because a record deserves a little celebrating.
Eleven days, start to finish, and a new record for the books. Josh is quick to point out that it belongs to both teams, the FlowRider crew and the Great Wolf Lodge staff who backed them the whole way.
The shutdown window closed, and the wave is back to doing what it does best. This project is one of the best examples of our mission at FlowRider: show up, do it right, and put our partners first, whether it’s year one or year twenty.
