Cermak Family Aquatic Center

My son loves it here! He always asked me «I wanna go ‘pool water’! Hoping to find something similar when we move to the country in TX next week. Great family fun!

had a great time here. it’s clean and nice and has friendly staff & life guards. the price is also fair for what you are getting. there’s a nice 2 ft pool area and then a play gym in the water with a big slide and multiple water features. i loved the lazy river though my 1 year old did not. ;) also a cement area with multiple fountains and a pretty slippery frog slide.
my biggest cons are two:
1) no strollers allowed. being a SAHM, i’m often alone with my son. a stroller allows me to do things like pay or use the restroom while he is strapped in. it also makes it easier to schlep in all the stuff we need. there is stroller parking outside the place but it’s conveniently located just far enough for sticky fingers to easily walk off with your stroller. it’s also not in sight of the water area so you can’t easily do periodic checks to make sure it’s still there. also there is no shade over the stroller parking so even if you are brave enough to leave it, it will likely be piping hot by the time you leave. the parking area is far enough that it would be nice to bring in strollers. perhaps if they let you break it down or have parking inside the place it would be better? not sure but every other place we have been allows strollers.
2) no outside food allowed. the pool is only 2 ft deep. to me, this means the place is geared to younger kids (toddlers, infants, etc). who feeds their infants and toddlers concession stand food? sure, it’s probably nice to have the concession stand in a pinch but if you bring your lunch, you should be able to eat it there. i understand if they said no coolers, etc but a sack lunch? with no stroller it made it even more difficult so we had to leave our things inside, go out to our car and get our food then walk back to a picnic table to set up for lunch. this was pretty annoying and time consuming.
overall we had a nice time. other than the two cons which might keep me from returning. they could also use more umbrellas. there were about three (i think) and, again, for a place geared towards the younger crowd, i doubt there is a lot of «sunbathing» going on. more umbrellas would be nice for the little ones.

Stuck with my niece and nephew for a day and need to take them somewhere to get really tired, really fast. Thank goodness for Cermak aquatic center.
The kids LOVED it. They ran around like dogs in the splash pad, (even though it’s geared towards really little ones), splashed and swam in the huge 3 ft pool that has a little water playground and chilled out on the lazy river. Seriously the best $ I’ve spent on an outing.
My main gripe is that the food vendor takes forever to prepare the food. Also, when you purchase the overpriced food, you can’t remove the food from the small eating area. This wouldn’t be such an issue if I didn’t have horribly spoiled family members that can eat sitting still. After a couple of Cuban shouts, they ate and got back to playing. I know for next time, I will just pack my stuff and avoid that one headache.

What a disaster for me and my kids to come to a waterpark to relax and enjoy ourselves and have fun without having problems such as taking a regular Coke or some chips by the pool deck with this ridiculous rules that you can’t do this and you can’t do that and then when I went to go Buy a pizza pizza was less than 4 inches for three dollars they never had nothing in the food concession ready everything was so expensive this be the last time ever come to this place ever again I want to tell management about it all they say it’s not me it’s my supervisors I do that the blame and point fingers at other people customers go there to relax and have a good time with your children not to be stressed out about pricing are the rules and regulations for something so stupid in common like I told the manager there’s plenty of water parks to go to you need to customers the customers don’t need you

Great for kids. Dirty murky water BUT what else is to be expected when it’s basically a pool for kids under ten? Fair pricing. THEIR CONCESSION STAND IS RUN HORRIBLY. You will wait in line to order forever. They have a hard time counting your change. Then you wait FOREVER to receive your food. Besides that it’s great. The food is inexpensive and good. Except that the fries taste like funnel cake. They were almost completely out of ice cream last time so the kids were upset. Everything else is nice. A few bratty kids but it’s better than bad teenagers.

Awesome swim park for the children ! Great prices ! And just a awesome time to spend with your children

Wow is all I can say! What a hidden gem. Surrounded by a forest preserve, fairly cheap and the park is very clean and new. My boys ages 2 and 4 had a blast and I enjoyed myself. This isn’t really for older kids, as the water isn’t deep, but this is why I love it. Adults are $ 6, kids 4 and older are $ 4, and 3 and under are free. Individual membership for the summer is only $ 40! They have a lazy river, a splash pad, a pool, and basically a jungle gym in the water. You can’t bring food in but you can eat it outside by the beautiful lake on a picnic table. Can’t wait to come back!

I was looking for an in between spot to meet for a play date with family and friends who live in the southwest burbs. This popped up and I was intrigued. We are constantly at Whealan Pool because it’s close so I know the Forest Preserve can keep up a nice pool. We had to check it out.
Overall: fantastic place! It consists of a splash pad, a lazy river and a pool with a maximum depth of 2 ft 6in and a climbing/​spray structure. It’s GREAT for kids my boys’ ages (3 and 1). My 3 year old loved that he could walk around the entire pool without being over his head.
Some advice:
— if they hear or see rain or thunder, everyone has to get out of the water for 30 minutes.
— there are mandatory safety breaks every hour and 20 minutes. The first is at 12:20 and I believe the second is at 2:10. We left before the third break. Everyone has to be out of the pool but the kids can use the splash pad.
— they say no outside food or drinks and that you can purchase food at the concession stand. That being said, the concession stand didn’t open until after 1:30 when we were there. Thank goodness we had snacks and were ok with breaking the rules because the kids were starving! Plus, they only have junk food: pizza, hot dogs, nachos, etc. My kids eat a lot of fruit so I recommend that if you don’t want them just eating junk, sneak some fruit in. A lifeguard told me that my son couldn’t eat the banana I brought in until I pointed out that he’s 1 and I’m not feeding him just pizza and junk for lunch. She let it slide. She was nice. :)
— the locker rooms are surprisingly nice! They put the showers at Whealan to shame. There’s actually hot water!
— kids over the age of 6 or 7 aren’t going to love this place. It’s really good for littler guys but not big kids.
I can’t wait until next summer when we get to go back!

Pretty nice place to bring the kids… But they should definitely have a few more people on staff … The place gets CROWDED, and I almost had to whoop a few undisciplined kids behinds, but that’s the parents fault for not being PARENTS and teaching their kids to be kind and polite… But a few more, shall we say, security guards, would help to keep little buttwipes in line

What a great place for kids! We took my niece and nephew (ages 2 and 4) here on a HOT HOT day, and had a great time! They have a kiddie pool which has tons of activities to do while inside, some sprinklers, and a lazy river. They each were a big hit with all the kids around! I heard that this has been recently renovated, and it is very nice now!
You can pack your own lunch and eat on the park benches. They have safety checks every two hours where everyone has to get out of the pool, and I think this was a good thing.
Prices are great– $ 5 for adults, $ 3 for kids 4+ and free for kids 3 and under!

Went there on a whim with my 6 yr old and a friend and it was so nice to know that there was a place to take him where I didn’t have to hover over him every second! The lazy river and Activity center only go to 2.5 ft. and the Splash Pad is great if you just want to get wet and go sit back down. It is cheap to get in and cheap to eat if you decide to eat there. Otherwise you have the whole Forest Preserve you can throw a cooler in the trunk of the car and have a picnic. I love they do Safety Checks about every hour and a half for 20 minutes and the staff there is so friendly and very nice to the kids!

I just discovered this. It’s so close by and my kids (5 & 2) loved it. I definitely recommend it.

5 bucks for adults and 3 for kids… An entire interactive playground covered in sprinklers with a water-​slide that feeds directly into the pool, a lazy river, and another run and play sprinkler area. This place is great for young children. The pool is the perfect depth for a 4 year old to walk around safely. I would recommend this park to anyone with young children looking for a surprisingly clean, cheap, and fun outing in the summer. This place is great! If your children are older than 11 or so I don’t think this park is for you. There is no part of the pool deeper than 3 feet so it’s more like an extremely large kiddy pool full of interactive sprinklers and fountains.

With this recent heat wave rolling through the Chicago area I decided the kids and I needed some water play. We didn’t want to hit the beach or one of the free water playgrounds because we figured everyone else would be there too. So after a LOT of searching on the internet, crossing off water parks that were too pricey or that were better for big kids, (mine are ages 9,8,4 and 8 months) I finally found a place that sounded perfect. And oh my, it was!
The Cermak Family Aquatic Center is a summertime dream for any parent with children under 12. Parking is free and there is plenty of it. Admission is just $ 3.00 for kids 4+ and $ 5.00 for adults. Here are other things that make this place great:
SPLASH PAD: It’s not exactly a pad, just an area of cement with a sprinkler tunnel, various fountains shooting up from the ground and a mini water slide. This place is perfect for your babies and toddlers.
LAZY RIVER: It’s a mini lazy river with nice yellow tubes that you can float around in. This ones popular so occasionally there is a small line but the line starts in a zero depth entry channel so your kids can still splash around while they’re waiting. And the lifeguards make sure the line moves at a good pace.
POOL AND PLAYGROUND: The deepest the «pool» gets is 2 feet 6 inches so don’t come here expecting to have your own swim time. It’s a great place to work with your young ones on learning to swim though and for you to just relax in while you watch them play. There is zero depth entry on one side near the playground. The playground and pool area have water cannons, drop buckets and a small water slide.
SEATING: The patio chairs underneath the umbrellas get snatched up pretty quickly after opening. There is grass encircling the entire area along with some small trees that provide a little shade. Be sure you bring a blanket to sit on. Maybe it’s just from the heat wave but the grass was all brown and pokey so I’m glad we had something soft to sit on.
FOOD: No outside food can be brought in. No coolers can be brought it. You are allowed to bring some water bottles with you though. There is an outside eating area and though I didn’t try the food, the prices actually looked very reasonable. They had ice cream bars, nachos and hot dogs to name a few items.
LOCKERS AND CHANGING: Lockers were available but it didn’t appear that they actually locked. So you can store stuff but you can’t really protect it. We just took our bags out with us and put them on our blanket. As for changing areas there are men’s and women’s changing rooms and 2 separate family changing rooms which were very spacious and included shower, toilet and baby changing table.
SERVICE: This place has a great ratio of lifeguards. Two lifeguards over the lazy river. Three or more lifeguards patrolling the pool and playground area. They were good at enforcing the rules but remaining friendly about it. We also happened to need some first aid on our visit. My son stubbed his toe and tore some skin off the front. They took him back promptly and cleaned it off and then coated it in water proof band-​aid spray. My other son got sunscreen in his eyes a little while later and a different lifeguard got out eye drops and helped rinse his eyes. Both gentlemen were great with my kids, knew where supplies were stocked and quick to help.
While we were there they cleared the lazy river and pool every 2 hours for 20 minutes to check the water quality. The splash pad remained opening for everyone during that time.
The park overall is very well maintained and squeaky clean.
I was very pleased with our visit. We had a wonderful time and felt very safe. All of my children loved it. I wish there were more water playgrounds like this one around.