Wet 'N Wild To Close Permanently Next Year

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ORLANDO (CBSMiami) - Wet 'n Wild in Orlando, considered the nation's first water park, will close next year.

Universal Orlando announced Wednesday that the park will close permanently on December 31, 2016.

The park, a creation of SeaWorld founder George Millay, opened in 1977.

"Wet 'n Wild Orlando has been a place where guests have created wonderful memories. As America's first water park, Wet 'n Wild has been the birthplace of numerous innovations that are now considered a common part of the water park experience," according to a statement from Universal Orlando.

Wet 'n Wild was the most popular water park in the nation until the end of the 1990s when the Walt Disney World Resort opened Typhoon Lagoon and Blizzard Beach.

Last year, Wet 'n Wild drew about 1.3 million visitors, according to the TEA/AECOM 2014 Theme Index report. It was the fourth most popular water park in the U.S. behind the two Disney water parks and SeaWorld Orlando's Aquatica.

With the closue of Wet 'n Wild, however, Universal Orlando is not getting out of the water park game. Their Volcano Bay, a next-generation water theme park that reimagines what it means to be a water park, is under construction and is scheduled to open in 2017.