THE CHALLENGE
Water park thatch roofing has to survive a different kind of stress test than roofing built anywhere else. Discovery Cove, the all-inclusive day resort and part of the SeaWorld family of parks in Orlando, is built entirely around water. Guests wade through the Freshwater Oasis, snorkel the Grand Reef, float the Wind-Away River, and move in and out of the water continuously from morning check-in through the last swim of the afternoon. Every structure on property, from the free-flight aviary to the guest cabanas, lives inside that same cycle of humidity, direct Central Florida sun, and constant foot traffic.
The park’s design intent is total immersion, so none of that structure can look like it is working to keep up. Nothing can look artificial. Nothing can look tired by year two.
For years, that roofline was natural thatch. Nicole Sisco, Discovery Cove’s Manager of Operations, saw what that meant on the maintenance side of the business.
“Prior to the change in ownership, they had used natural thatch but were finding that they needed to rethatch their product too often and it was becoming costly for the park. We went with Endureed and haven’t needed to get it replaced since it was installed in 2018.”
Nicole Sisco Manager of Operations, Discovery Cove
THE SOLUTION
Endureed’s answer was not an existing product pulled off the shelf. It was a new blend, developed specifically for this park. Working from the Endureed Premium collection, the team paired the Bali profile, defined by depth, shadow, and a layered rhythm modeled after the temple and coastal roofs of Bali, with the warmer, more ordered tones of Kona, inspired by Hawaiian and Pacific island architecture. The two colors were combined into a single blend that exists nowhere else in the Endureed catalog.
“Originally we brought in a Bali Blend and mixed in the Kona color to create a custom blend which is proprietary to the Discovery Cove Park.”
Nick Rimert Endureed
The result is a bespoke blend, developed once, for one park, and never sold anywhere else. It gives Discovery Cove a roofline built to its own architectural language rather than borrowed from a standard product line.
WHAT WATER PARK THATCH ROOFING HAS TO WITHSTAND
Every Endureed Premium product shares the same performance foundation regardless of color or blend: a Class A fire rating, wind resistance in excess of 200 mph, and up to a 30-year no-maintenance warranty, backed by more than 25 years of installations that have stood through Category 5 hurricanes and wildfire conditions.
At Discovery Cove, that foundation meets a different kind of daily test. The roofline sits inside near-constant humidity, direct tropical sun for most of the operating day, and structures positioned over or beside water features that guests move through continuously from open to close. This is not a coastal accent roof viewed from a distance. It is a working surface inside an active, fully immersive day resort, expected to hold its color, its shape, and its craftsmanship under daily saturation, made in the USA to the same specification used on the world’s most demanding commercial installations.
THE RESULTS
Installed in 2018, the custom Bali and Kona blend has not needed to be rethatched once. For a park built around water and Florida sun, that track record speaks for itself. For Endureed, it stands as proof that a bespoke architectural blend can be built to match a client’s exact aesthetic vision and still meet the real, daily demands of a resort environment.
ABOUT ENDUREED
For more than 25 years, Endureed has engineered thatch for the world’s most demanding commercial environments, including Walt Disney World, Necker Island, and SeaWorld’s Discovery Cove. Made in the USA and backed by up to a 30-year no-maintenance warranty, Discovery Cove is proof that water park thatch roofing can hold its color, shape, and craftsmanship for years, with the same performance foundation available to any resort developer, architect, or hospitality operator planning a roofline of their own.
To explore a bespoke blend for your next project, visit here or contact sales@endureed.com.
