Robert had survived two heart attacks, spent his days taking his kids to school, and had nowhere to be in a few days when a stranger with a briefcase pulled him aside in a Florida hotel lobby. That stranger was Ryan Trahan, and Robert was about to find out he was going to Hawaii. The trip that got them there started not with grand plans but with a simple, slightly embarrassing mission: find the cheapest waterpark hotel in America, then the most expensive, stay in all four, and ride every single slide.
From a rusty slide in Ohio to a Florida lightning delay
The first stop was Comfort Inn Splash Harbor in Ohio, the only Comfort Inn among more than 2,000 locations worldwide with a waterpark attached. The waterpark offered one slide, two basketball hoops, and a hot tub that turned out to be the same temperature as the pool. The slide had a little rust on it, there was no lifeguard on duty, and the place was completely empty. Trahan rode the slide, shot some hoops, spent time in the business center where the printer was not working, walked to a gas station for a turkey sandwich, and called it a night.
Florida was next, at a resort a mile from Disney World with two separate waterpark zones, a flow rider, an arcade, and a movie theater showing SpongeBob and Kung Fu Panda. The waterpark was shut down by lightning almost immediately after check-in. That is where Nolan, Robert’s son, was celebrating his birthday, and where the whole group ended up playing hide and seek through the hotel hallways while the storm passed. When the sky finally cleared, Trahan counted down from three on the slide with Nolan beside him. A staff member named Kenzie gave them ten minutes before closing. They made it count.
94,000 square feet of wolf-themed chaos in Texas
Great Wolf Lodge in Texas brought 13 named and unnamed slides spread across 94,000 square feet of indoor and outdoor attractions, plus a ropes course, a Northern Lights Arcade, a Dunkin Donuts, and a Build-A-Bear Workshop. Trahan rode nearly every slide, convinced a stranger to film one of the runs, and then found a bottle floating in the lazy river with a handwritten note directing him back to his room. He built a bear at the workshop and named him Reginald. That night Trahan ate salmon, watched a Minecraft video, tried the bottom bunk, considered the top bunk, and ultimately surrendered it to Reginald.
The whole time, through the business montages and the briefcase and the tie tutorials watched on YouTube, Trahan had been keeping files. Research on Robert, who he had met briefly at the Florida hotel. As he put it after pulling Robert aside: ‘I cannot come to Hawaii without Nolan’s dad, Robert.’
Robert’s response when told the flight and hotel were covered: ‘You have no idea what this means to me, dude. You have no idea.’
The lava tube and two Shirley Temples
The Hawaii resort, built to resemble a sea turtle from above, offered seven slides that Trahan described as the final bosses of waterslides. The fastest and longest of them was the lava tube slide, which he admitted was scary before riding it. Robert and Nolan flew in from Florida and were already somewhere inside the waterpark when Trahan arrived to find them. They rode every slide together, including the lava tube, before settling into chairs with Shirley Temples at the beach.
‘This has been the best couple days of my entire life,’ Robert said, holding his drink. ‘I never thought I would ever come to a place like this.’
After the last slide, Trahan handed Robert one more envelope. He kept the contents between them.
Reginald, left behind at checkout
On the bedside table at the Hawaii resort, before checking out, Trahan left his business card. It is the same card he had been handing to front-desk clerks all trip, the one with no information printed on it.
Robert and his family stayed on in Hawaii for a few more days. The waterpark was quiet again by then, the lava tube running in the background, two Shirley Temple glasses long since cleared from the beach chairs where a dad who had two heart attacks sat in the sun saying he could not fathom actually being there.
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