Post by skinnyguy on Jul 17, 2007 8:47:34 GMT -8
Well, I'm late on a TR this year as well, but better late than never. My wife and I headed down to WW on the fourth of July this year. It was my first time visiting the park in 10 years, so there was a lot of new stuff to check out. After re-reading skylark's review from last year, it seems the park has made a few improvements since Six Flags sold it, but overall, you can definitely still notice the mark SF left with this little park.
Anyway, we arrived at the park around 10:15 or so. Parking is $10/car (down from $15 last year). Still pretty expensive for this tiny park...Silverwood is still only $4. And, suprisingly, they had several people out taking money and giving out parking passes...better than only one person as skylark pointed out last year! So, the parking department seems to be on the up and up at least!
The lines to get in were crazy, we stood out there for a good 20 minutes it seemed like. We used the time to get our sunscreen on because it was going to be a very hot sunny day. As soon as we got in, we rented a locker and hit the slides.
First off, we went to Zooma Falls, the big family raft slide. You can go on either a 2 person tube or a 4 person tube. Since there were just the two of us we grabbed a 2 person tube and headed up. It wasn't a bad slide, but I think I was expecting more. I can imagine it would have been a lot better with four people. Also, after riding this, I'm glad Silverwood put in a conveyor belt on Avalanche mountain to take the tubes up. Good freakin idea! Those things are heavy, and hauling it up those stairs once was enough for me. Fun slide, though.
Then we headed to the body slide tower and rode both speed slides as well as the four main green body slides. The last time I was at the park, it was set up so everyone had to go through the switchbacks inside the building. Now, its split up into three separate lines that form outside the building depending on where you're going - green body slides, hydro slides, or speed slides. It's much more efficient, and you minimize the amount of time you spend in the gross, disgusting building. I think this was a good move..not sure when the change was made, but it was a good idea. My only disappointment here was that the hydro slides were closed (these are the enclosed blue tunnel slides off to the side). They were my favorite body slides the last time I was there. Apparently there were a lot of people who "Called in sick" that day, so there weren't enough lifeguards to run all the slides. (Disney, Cedar Fair, and SW would never have stood for this!)
After this, we decided to eat lunch, so we left the park and ate food we had brought ourselves in the car. We didn't want to get too ripped off, so we figured we could at least save ourselves from paying for one meal.
Anyway, we went back in to the park and got in the lazy river. I gotta say, I thought it was one of the best lazy rivers I've been on. Much faster, and a much funner ride than the one at Silverwood, though it much lacked the theming we see at Boulder Beach. But I thought the ride itself was much more fun. I loved the stretch of the river were it speeds up like crazy.
After this, we went to the river ride. This is a tube slide where you slide down a short stretch of slide into a pool where you can just goof around and play, or slide down to the next pool. This is my favorite slide in the park, hands down. I think there are about 7 or 8 pools in total, and you can spend as much time on the ride as you want. Great, great slide. After this, we spent some time in the activity pool, going down the cannonball drop off slides, and the zip line.
Finally it was time to do the giant Konga river tube slides. One of the four was broken, but the other three were great. I absolutely loved all of them. I thought they were much better than Silverwood's tube slides - much longer and faster. At this point, we'd done everything in the water park that was open that day, so we went back to the lazy river and river ride to do those each one more time before heading into the theme park area. Time for some coaster credits!
First we did the Wild thing, just to get it out of the way. It was just as I expected it to be...nothing more than an Arrow loopscrew. I thought it was cool that they let you ride through twice though. Silverwood should do this on Corkscrew. We then ate an outlandishly expensive dinner at subway, before heading for our last ride of the day - Timberhawk.
This was also as I expected it to be. A tame, smooth woodie. No good air-time, but I liked the first drop a lot, and after riding Ghostrider, it was nice to ride a smoother wooden coaster and actually be able to enjoy it. Timberhawk isn't a bad ride IMO, just nothing too thrilling. We rode once in the front and once in the back...I like the back the best, personally. The best part of all was that they were running TWO TRAINS!!!!! Shorter ride than Timber Terror, absolutely, NO CROWDS at all, and they still had both trains running. Silverwood - please pay attention and GET TWO TRAINS FOR YOUR WOODEN COASTERS!!!!! No more excuses after what I saw at Wild Waves.
Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get credit for Klondike Goldrusher as it was also closed for the day...I'm assuming this was due to shortness of staff at the park.
At this point the park was closing down for the day, so we headed home to catch a fireworks show nearby and enjoy the rest of our fourth of July. So, overall, I'd say that Wild Waves was a fun place to go. The theme park itself is nothing to get excited about, but the water park is great. The slide selection was excellent, and we had a great time. I will say this - in comparing WW to Boulder Beach, I'll say that WW has more/better slides, but for everything else, Boulder Beach is better. Cleaner, friendlier atmosphere, much better theming, and tamer crowds all make for a much more pleasant experience. If we head back to WW next summer, I'll probably skip the theme park area, and just do the water park all day. But overall, we had a good time, and I hope that the park continues to improve from its Six Flags days.
I'll try and get some pictures up soon for everyone to check out as well.
Anyway, we arrived at the park around 10:15 or so. Parking is $10/car (down from $15 last year). Still pretty expensive for this tiny park...Silverwood is still only $4. And, suprisingly, they had several people out taking money and giving out parking passes...better than only one person as skylark pointed out last year! So, the parking department seems to be on the up and up at least!
The lines to get in were crazy, we stood out there for a good 20 minutes it seemed like. We used the time to get our sunscreen on because it was going to be a very hot sunny day. As soon as we got in, we rented a locker and hit the slides.
First off, we went to Zooma Falls, the big family raft slide. You can go on either a 2 person tube or a 4 person tube. Since there were just the two of us we grabbed a 2 person tube and headed up. It wasn't a bad slide, but I think I was expecting more. I can imagine it would have been a lot better with four people. Also, after riding this, I'm glad Silverwood put in a conveyor belt on Avalanche mountain to take the tubes up. Good freakin idea! Those things are heavy, and hauling it up those stairs once was enough for me. Fun slide, though.
Then we headed to the body slide tower and rode both speed slides as well as the four main green body slides. The last time I was at the park, it was set up so everyone had to go through the switchbacks inside the building. Now, its split up into three separate lines that form outside the building depending on where you're going - green body slides, hydro slides, or speed slides. It's much more efficient, and you minimize the amount of time you spend in the gross, disgusting building. I think this was a good move..not sure when the change was made, but it was a good idea. My only disappointment here was that the hydro slides were closed (these are the enclosed blue tunnel slides off to the side). They were my favorite body slides the last time I was there. Apparently there were a lot of people who "Called in sick" that day, so there weren't enough lifeguards to run all the slides. (Disney, Cedar Fair, and SW would never have stood for this!)
After this, we decided to eat lunch, so we left the park and ate food we had brought ourselves in the car. We didn't want to get too ripped off, so we figured we could at least save ourselves from paying for one meal.
Anyway, we went back in to the park and got in the lazy river. I gotta say, I thought it was one of the best lazy rivers I've been on. Much faster, and a much funner ride than the one at Silverwood, though it much lacked the theming we see at Boulder Beach. But I thought the ride itself was much more fun. I loved the stretch of the river were it speeds up like crazy.
After this, we went to the river ride. This is a tube slide where you slide down a short stretch of slide into a pool where you can just goof around and play, or slide down to the next pool. This is my favorite slide in the park, hands down. I think there are about 7 or 8 pools in total, and you can spend as much time on the ride as you want. Great, great slide. After this, we spent some time in the activity pool, going down the cannonball drop off slides, and the zip line.
Finally it was time to do the giant Konga river tube slides. One of the four was broken, but the other three were great. I absolutely loved all of them. I thought they were much better than Silverwood's tube slides - much longer and faster. At this point, we'd done everything in the water park that was open that day, so we went back to the lazy river and river ride to do those each one more time before heading into the theme park area. Time for some coaster credits!
First we did the Wild thing, just to get it out of the way. It was just as I expected it to be...nothing more than an Arrow loopscrew. I thought it was cool that they let you ride through twice though. Silverwood should do this on Corkscrew. We then ate an outlandishly expensive dinner at subway, before heading for our last ride of the day - Timberhawk.
This was also as I expected it to be. A tame, smooth woodie. No good air-time, but I liked the first drop a lot, and after riding Ghostrider, it was nice to ride a smoother wooden coaster and actually be able to enjoy it. Timberhawk isn't a bad ride IMO, just nothing too thrilling. We rode once in the front and once in the back...I like the back the best, personally. The best part of all was that they were running TWO TRAINS!!!!! Shorter ride than Timber Terror, absolutely, NO CROWDS at all, and they still had both trains running. Silverwood - please pay attention and GET TWO TRAINS FOR YOUR WOODEN COASTERS!!!!! No more excuses after what I saw at Wild Waves.
Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get credit for Klondike Goldrusher as it was also closed for the day...I'm assuming this was due to shortness of staff at the park.
At this point the park was closing down for the day, so we headed home to catch a fireworks show nearby and enjoy the rest of our fourth of July. So, overall, I'd say that Wild Waves was a fun place to go. The theme park itself is nothing to get excited about, but the water park is great. The slide selection was excellent, and we had a great time. I will say this - in comparing WW to Boulder Beach, I'll say that WW has more/better slides, but for everything else, Boulder Beach is better. Cleaner, friendlier atmosphere, much better theming, and tamer crowds all make for a much more pleasant experience. If we head back to WW next summer, I'll probably skip the theme park area, and just do the water park all day. But overall, we had a good time, and I hope that the park continues to improve from its Six Flags days.
I'll try and get some pictures up soon for everyone to check out as well.
