Slidin’ with Skyline

itemprop="discussionURL"0

Aquatica Orlando

Reef Plunge

Right at the entrance to the water park is the entrance to the first highlight: Reef Plunge. This classic bodyslide offers a fairly long slide over numerous bends and several smaller jumps and towards the end offers a ride through a larger water basin in a transparent tube. Here you have a few seconds to watch the Commerson’s dolphins, leopard sharks, sardines and other cold-water fish above and beside you before you reach the exit of the slide. Thanks to this feature, Reef Plunge is a unique experience and should definitely be tried once, provided the slide is open.

Loggerhead Lane and Tassie’s Twister

The Lazy River Loggerhead Lane serves as a cozy entry point for the double funnel slide Tassie’s Twister. After drifting for a few minutes, you can make your way up to the entrance. After a quick start, you then do a few laps in the funnel before leaving it comfortably through the outlet and being led back into the lazy river.

Riptide Race

Riptide Race was still the newest water slide in the park when I visited. The double racing slide offers several sections along its course where you can meet your competitors in the other lane. Despite its numerous jumps, the slide is a little too gentle, at least for a single person.

Walhalla Wave and Ray Rush

At the time of my visit, the Ray Rush slide was under construction. I would have loved to go for a ride on the Family Blaster ride built by Whitewater with the large Manta element, but I would have just as loved to go down the Valhalla Wave slide. Both slides promise to be a lot of fun, which is why I would love to return at some point.

Walkabout Waters and Taumata Racer

After this small disappointment, we now make our way through the Walkabout Waters play structure, where we refresh ourselves a little with the water from the huge overturning bucket, towards the Taumata Racer mat slide. This eight-lane slide not only has an incredibly high capacity, but also encourages you to race against your family or friends. The Taumata Racer is by no means a classic mat slide, because before it goes into the big shoot ride, you first pick up a lot of speed in a high-pressure helix. Wonderful!

Roa’s Rapids, Big Surf Shores and Cutback Cove

Aquatica Orlando is home to the pretty fast and really exciting Lazy River Roa’s Rapids. For a large part of the course, you can simply let yourself be carried along by the current without paying too much attention, and in between there are the absolutely brilliant rapid sections. It’s great fun. The nearby wave pools Big Surf Shores and Cutback Cove are perfect for letting yourself drift a little on the waves after a round or two in Roa’s Rapids.

Ihu’s Breakaway Falls

The four turbo slides of the Ihu’s Breakaway Falls tower are located directly next to the two wave pools Big Surf Shores and Cutback Cove. While the blue, green and orange tubes have a trapdoor start, the purple tube offers a classic entry followed by a very steep gradient before it turns into a curve-dominated slide, just like the other tubes. As always with very high waterslides, the tension increases with every meter of height. Here at Aquatica Orlando, it is even forbidden to wear swimming trunks that are too tight, as you would probably be going too fast. At some point, you reach the top and are spoiled for choice between the four lanes.

While the two of the three trapdoor start lanes immediately turn left and, after a short bend to the right, offer a longer straight section with the third in the group following the same course in the other direction, the purple slide gets off to an incredibly fast start with a fairly high drop. This is followed by a powerful downward helix, which leads into another high drop for the finale. Meanwhile, the three other lanes also set off on their final spurt and elegantly lead you into the exit after another high-pressure left or right turn.

All four lanes of Ihu’s Breakaway Falls are really good slides, with the purple lane definitely being the wildest of the four. Those who like turbo slides will get their money’s worth here, because Orlando’s highest water slide is really not for hot showers and/or water park newbies and is therefore a real test of courage!

Kare Kare Curl

Let’s now move on to the last huge standalone slide in the park and my personal highlight: Kare Kare Curl. As I was traveling alone and a group of three happened to need another person to slide with them, I was able to take a seat in one of the four-person boats in no time at all. After a short slide at a lofty height, there is a tight helix before the big drop into the Tornado Wave begins. In this wave, you speed up rapidly before drifting sideways and hurtling downwards. After two quick swings along the slide wall, you are slowly slowed down before plunging into a tunnel and being guided leisurely to the end of the slide.

Kare Kare Curl is an absolutely magnificent slide, which for me also serves as a symbol for Aquatica Orlando.

Whanau Way und Omaka Rocka

Nearby is the ascent to the fast tube slides Whanau Way and Omaka Rocka. While the former scores points with its rapid double drop finale after a winding start, Omaka Rocka impresses with its wild pendulum passages in the small funnels on the way down.

Pictures Aquatica Orlando

Ihu's Breakaway Falls • Proslide Superloop

Omaka Rocka & Whanau Way • WhiteWater Tube and Funnel Slides

Tassie's Twisters • WhiteWater Super Bowl

Conclusion Aquatica Orlando

Just like back then in San Antonio, I was once again quite happy to have bought the ticket for the water park. The visit to Aquatica Orlando was my highlight of the day and one of the best water parks I’ve visited so far. Despite the many closed slides, I liked the park even better than its sister park in San Antonio. There are a lot of really good water slides here and the design of the park is also extremely sublime, which is why I can highly recommend a visit. With a visit to the main park next door, you really have a lot to experience here.

What is your opinion on the Aquatica Orlando water park? Simply write them in the comments field below the report or visit our social media channels:

TKathke November 22, 2021 January 8, 2024 Aquatica Orlando

Wet and wild fun on the Gold Coast

itemprop="discussionURL"0

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.

What do you think about Wet ’n’ Wild Gold Coast? Just write it in the comments section below the review or visit our social media channels:

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

TKathke November 5, 2019 February 25, 2022 Hell Yeah, Schnabelteah Day 15 to 19 / Wet 'n' Wild Gold Coast

Nessie and the Highlander

itemprop="discussionURL"0

Hansa Park’s Beautiful Britain

Nessie

The Superrollercoaster Nessie is one of the most famous roller coasters in Germany. This Schwarzkopf looping coaster was the first stationary roller coaster featuring a vertical loop and is more or less a product of its time. Once the definition of a thrill coaster, it later became a beloved family coaster and the first roller coaster to go upside down for many growing up nearby the Baltic sea. It has been a very fine roller coaster for the past 38 years, but starting from this year it just got better.

During the past decade Hansa Park was working hard to get rid of its late 70s look and became a very Hanseatic theme park. After most of the facades were finally transformed, the park decided to expand its overall theme and added Britain as the first trade partner to the park. Hence, Nessie got a theme and moved back to its home in Scotland. The new station building looks amazing and due to the location of the new entrance, the ride regained a lot of its former popularity. Well done, Hansa Park!

Highlander

Another addition for this year is the drop tower Highlander, the tallest one of its kind. Built by the Austrian company Funtime, the ride offers a new way to enjoy the view onto the Baltic Sea and the surroundings, as well as the already proven drop experiences known from various German funfairs and other theme parks worldwide – currently, there are two options: a non-tilting one in the morning and a tilting one in the afternoon. I don’t particularly understand why they wanted to introduce two options, as the drop in the tilted position just enhances the overall experience without increasing the fear factor. Many visitors would not even notice it when looking at the ride. Needless to say, the Highlander became a hit among visitors during its first year of operation.

Personally, I don’t rank the Highlander as high as others. Compared to other installations of the manufacturer, it has some flaws. Yes, it might be the tallest one of its kind, but it lacks the thrills and the capacity of Donjon de l’Extrême at Nigloland. At least, the ride is far better than the Power Tower Montezuma, which used to stand at the park till the year 2012.