family raft

Going down the Summit Plummit

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Disney’s Blizzard Beach

Opened in 1995, Blizzard Beach is the newest water park at the Walt Disney World Resort. The theme of the park is based on a Disney legend. After a heavy snowstorm in the area, a businessman wanted to open Florida’s first ski resort. However, the snow did not last long. What remained was a mountain with water-filled ski jumps and a chairlift. The ride was about to close when an alligator was seen sliding down a ski jump and landing in a pool of water. The ski area was then reopened as a water park.

Melt Away Bay, Cross Country Creek, Tike’s Peak and Sky Patrol Training Camp

At the base of Mount Gushmore, we can find most of the family friendly offering. The toddler pool Tike’s Peak is slightly off the mountain and hence a good area to let your kids play safely. The Sky Patrol Training Camp on the other hand snugs neatly onto the mountain and offers a variety of fun activities for older kids. Surrounding the mountain is the Cross Country Creek offering a relaxing journey throughout the park. Finally, the family can come together to experience Melt Away Bay, the park’s large wave pool.  

Downhill Double Dipper

Probably the most fun slide at Disney’s Blizzard Beach is the Downhill Double Dipper tube slide. Here we race down a series of steep drops and experience a very fine airtime on the crest of the second downwards chute. It is also a very good slide to race against friends and family.  

Snow Stormers and Toboggan Racers

Snow Stormers and Toboggan Racers are the two mat slides of Disney’s Blizzard Beach. While Toboggan Racers is a mat racer slide, where you race against your fellow sliders down a chute with multiple waves, Snow Stormers is a more classic slide guiding us through seven serpentines on our way down.

Runoff Rapids 

Runoff Rapids are the park’s classic tube slides located at the back of the artificial mountain. While two of the slides offer a very chilling slide down a course with multiple serpentines and a few jumps, the third of the pack does it in pitch blackness.  

Slush Gusher and Summit Plummit

Slush Gusher and Summit Plummit are the park’s two kamikaze style bodyslides. While Slush Gusher offers a pleasant slide down multiple hills next to the ski jump tower, Summit Plummit takes it one step further and lets you go down the sky jump. These huge kamikaze slides always require a lot of courage and Summit Plummit – although you are not actually taking the jump – is a very breathtaking experience. Thankfully, you don’t have to walk all the way back up to go again, as the run off ends nearby the park’s chairlift.  

Teamboat Springs

Teamboat Springs is the large family raft slide and starts on top of the mountain. The slide goes down a very gentle slope at the back of the back. The slide consists of alternating left and right turns, sparkled with an occasional jump in between and topped off with a nice double drop finale. It is a very family friendly ride, but a very fine experience too.  

Pictures Disney’s Blizzard Beach

Conclusion Disney’s Blizzard Beach

I had a blast at Disney’s Blizzard Beach. Due to the “cold” weather – at least for the locals –, there was basically no one else in the water park, hence I could experience all of the slides in a very timely matter. I truly love the theme this water park is going for and I’m quite excited to come back one day.

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Disney's Blizzard Beach

Following Snorri to Rulantica

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Rulantica

It is very refreshing to see a stand-alone water park in Germany as well. Water slides are by no means a rare sight in Germany and some slide towers are a wet dream for water slide fetishists; but there hasn’t been a real water park in this country yet. Instead, we have a lot of thermal spas, i.e. wellness oases with mostly quite expensive entrance fees. Interestingly, the Europa Park with its water park Rulantica is already positioning itself above the long-established competition close to the border due to its very high entrance fee, and is also clearly outdoing the nearby Schwarzwaldtherme with its slide paradise Galaxy Schwarzwald. Yes, the park is a Mack product, but that really doesn’t justify everything.

Passing the new bed stronghold of Krønasår, we reach the Rulantica water park, where we pick up our wristbands at the ticket office. Shortly afterwards we enter the hansgrohe world of experience.

Snorri’s Saga

We start our discovery tour through Rulantica with Snorri’s Saga. The 250m long Lazy River winds once through the water park and tries to tell a story to the floating visitors by means of several projections. The whole thing is quite respectable, which definitely benefits the – in the nature of things – lazy flow channel.

Hugin, Mugin, Dugdrop und Vildvål

Directly opposite is the entrance to the tube slides Hugin and Mugin, as well as the drop duo Dugdrop and Vildvål. While Hugin and Mugin offer an exceptionally wild race characterised by numerous jumps and tight curves, visitors can expect a breathtaking tour de force on Dugdrop and Vildvål. The two AquaRockets from Aquarena are among the most intense water slides far and wide. The rather long slide also requires a lot of endurance, because there is no time to breathe until you reach the landing area of the turbo slides.

Vildstrøm

Fortunately, the entrance to the wild river Vildstrøm is right next door. The long slide through the wild river by the manufacturer API Waterfun is characterised by numerous faster slide sections, rapids and only a few intermediate pools. Thanks to the wider cross-section of the canal, you rarely bump into the canal wall, which gives visitors a very pleasant slide over a total of two lanes.

The bars of Rulantica

After so much sliding, you’re almost dying of thirst. Luckily, there are three bars in Rulantica, and you don’t even have to leave the pool at two of them. Above the hustle and bustle, you can relax a little in the sports bar Skål Bar, while the kids have a good romp in nearby Trølldal. The Skogbar, on the other hand, is a bit busier, and after buying a drink, you have to be careful that it doesn’t become one with the water around it. In the outdoor area of the water park, meanwhile, the Tempel Krog offers a pleasant ambience for a drink or two, especially in the evening.

Isbrekker

A little tipsy and passing the three children’s slides Översnurra, Överstor and Översnabb, we now move on to the larger slides of the Vinterhal theme area. The icebreaker for us is the short, but quite crisp Isbrekker slide, where you plop down into the water from a height of several metres after a short slide. Splendid fun!

Två Fall and Stormwind

We continue with the tube slides Två Fall and Stormwind. While Två Fall stands out positively due to its swinging course and the quick jumps, Stormwind is convincing due to its extremely fast ride into the large funnel.

Svalgur Rytt and Vinter Rytt

Things get really interesting on Svalgur Rytt and Vinter Rytt, both of which start from the highest point in the bath. While Svalgur Rytt is a surprisingly fast family raft slide that offers some really fun jumps on its 200m long track, Vinter Rytt is particularly convincing with its Tornado Wave, which you slide up in the usual Proslide manner. But even before the defining element, the Vinter Rytt convinces with its surprisingly strong airtime during the transition into the shooting ride of the water slide. Without question, both slides are the highlight of the Rulantica water park.

Pictures Rulantica

Conclusion Rulantica

A visit to Rulantica is a very expensive one. However, if you see the park not as a water park but as a kind of night club, which interestingly has some of the best water slides in Europe, then the visit is quite something. In a cocktail mood, the slides are twice as much fun, and if you haven’t brought your own car, you can get drunk here at reasonable prices. I like it.

 
 

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Rulantica

Wet and wild fun on the Gold Coast

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History of the water park Wet ‘n’ Wild

Wet ’n Wild is probably the best-known brand for water parks worldwide. The concept was developed by George Millay, who previously established the SeaWorld marine mammal parks. Over time, there were eight water parks sharing the same ideas with the most prominent one being in Orlando. Most of the parks were sold and there are currently just three parks left in operation. Wet ’n’ Wild on the other hand is a popular brand of water parks by Village Roadshow Theme Parks, who licenced the Wet ’n Wild name.

Wet ’n’ Wild Gold Coast originally started as Cade’s County by the Herringe Group of Companies in 1984. Back in the days it was a state-of-the-art water park and the biggest one of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere consisting of a wave pool, a kamikaze slide and a bunch of mat and body slides. Nowadays, it is pretty clear that Wet ’n’ Wild Gold Coast was heavily influenced by its namesake sharing most of the attractions once featured in Orlando.

Tour of the park

Surfrider

One attraction which is rather unique to the park is the Intamin half pipe roller coaster Surfrider. This LSM coaster features two revolving gondolas which are placed onto an oversized surfboard. Due to the small launches the ride more and more increases in height and the spinning just gets wilder and wilder. At the highest point you feel a great amount of airtime and, depending on your position, some very impressive views. This ride is fun and should not be missed when visiting the Gold Coast. But caution, the floor up to the ride’s platform can get very hot.

H2O Zone

Mach 5 and Black Hole

In the area behind the Surfrider, there were only two of the four slide towers operational. The most impressive of these was the Mach 5 slide tower, which just got demolished to be replaced by a similar tower featuring two water coasters, two raft slides and a bodyslide racer. The Mach 5 had two large scale mat slides and some rather impressive looking kamikaze slides. It was a shame that I could not give it a try, as I was nearly one year too late for that. The neighbouring Black Hole tower was currently scheduled for maintenance, so we had to give the nice-looking tube slides with all its tight curves and jumps a miss.

Tornado and Kamikaze

The two slide towers which were open on the day of our visit in the Extreme H2O Zone were the Tornado and Kamikaze slide towers. Where the Tornado provides its usual large scale funnel slide experience, the Kamikaze is a rather oddly named Boomerang slide. Both slides are basically sharing the same experience, yet the Kamikaze is slightly steeper and provides a longer time swinging up and down in the slide’s main element. Both slides are great fun!

Calypso Springs and Mammoth Falls

Past the closed Whirlpool Springs and the still closed lazy river Calypso Springs, we now head towards the front section of the park. To the left we find the large wave pool, a flow rider, a sky coaster and the Mammoth Falls water slides. The two family raft slides provides a rather tame experience with no real surprises along its serpentine style path.

River Rapids and Constrictor

To the right there is the kid’s area Wet ’n’ Wild Junior, as well as a large selection of water slides. On an artificial mountain you can find the four River Rapids bodyslides offering two enclosed turbo slides winding down a curvy path and two open slides featuring a series of tight curves and great jumps. The nearby raft slide Constrictor is the first installation of a constrictor slide by whitewater featuring very tight helices along its path. Unfortunately, it was the best visited slide at Wet ’n’ Wild Gold Coast and after some minutes not moving forward in the queue, we had to give it a miss.

Super 8 Aqua Racer and AquaLoop

A slide we sure did not wanted to miss is the mat racer Super 8 Aqua Racer. This kind of slide is always a great experience, and it did not disappoint! I even won the race 😊. Enthusiastic, I would have given the nearby AquaLoop slides a try, but they were not opened, even through their maintenance was scheduled to end on the day before.

Pictures Wet ‘n’ Wild

Conclusion Wet ‘n’ Wild

As the number of attractions was extremely limited during my visit, Village Roadshow Theme Parks once again did not provide a great experience. I seriously cannot understand how on earth you can not manage to open your attractions on time after a rather long maintenance period. If you cannot plan it well, then increase your timing or hire more people. This is simply not very professional.

Wet ’n’ Wild Gold Coast surely offers a great selection of water slides and their Surfrider roller coaster is great fun, yet I would have enjoyed the park far more, if all their slides would have been open. Combined with a visit to Sea World or the Warner Bros. Movie World, you can have a great day off – just make sure you don’t visit the parks during the low season.

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Click here for the next report of the Hell Yeah, Schabelteah! Tour

Hell Yeah, Schnabelteah Day 15 to 19 / Wet 'n' Wild Gold Coast