Soak City
After spending some time at Valleyfair, I headed straight into the neighboring Soak City water park. The entrance is located quite centrally within the park, directly across from the Mad Mouse roller coaster, making it very easy to switch between the amusement park and the water park.
The water park itself has a surprisingly long history. Valleyfair opened its first water slides back in 1983, eventually developing into Whitewater Country and later the Soak City water park.
Breakers Pipeline & Plunge and Breakers Bay
Right next to Breakers Bay stands the large Breakers Pipeline & Plunge slide tower. Breakers Pipeline features four different drop-floor slides. After stepping into the launch capsule, it is arms and legs crossed as you wait for the floor to suddenly disappear beneath your feet. Two of the slides take a fairly direct route down, while the other two feature a more winding layout. The drop-floor start adds a nice dose of suspense to all four slides.
A few meters higher up are the two slides of Breakers Plunge. There are no capsules or drop floors here. Instead, you are looking straight down two classic kamikaze slides towards the runouts some 27 meters below. Despite their much simpler layout, Breakers Plunge feels even more extreme and certainly takes a little courage. I really enjoyed both attractions.
Right next door is Breakers Bay, the large wave pool at Soak City. Once the waves start, there is plenty of movement in the water. For me, a good wave pool is simply part of a good water park.
Panic Falls
Hidden away in the back corner of Soak City was Panic Falls, a truly old-school slide tower. The three body slides dated all the way back to 1983 and were among the first water slides ever built at Valleyfair.
And you could certainly feel their age – in a good way. You race through the numerous turns at surprisingly high speed, hitting several small jumps along the way. At times you even lift slightly off the slide, while the increasing speed causes you to bounce around more and more as the ride progresses. This slightly unpredictable behavior made Panic Falls great fun and one of the highlights of Soak City for me.
A few years younger were the two Panic Falls Speed Slides, which were added in 1988. Their layouts are much simpler: from the roughly 18-meter-high tower, two open slides head almost straight down towards the runout. The speed is accordingly high, and their old-school construction gives these slides a character of their own.
Ripple Rapids
After the rather wild slides of Panic Falls, things became much more relaxed on Ripple Rapids. The classic lazy river winds its way through part of Soak City and was perfect for a short break. Simply lying back in a tube and floating around the water park for a while was exactly the right change of pace after the wild slides before it.
Hurricane Falls
The big highlight at Soak City, however, was Hurricane Falls. The roughly 21-meter-high family raft slide didn’t look all that unusual at first, but turned out to be a surprisingly wild ride.
A large raft takes you down a wide channel featuring several steep and highly banked turns. The raft quickly picks up speed and starts swinging higher and higher through the curves. At times, it climbs surprisingly far up the side walls before swinging back down into the channel and almost immediately entering the next turn. This extreme swinging motion makes the ride incredibly dynamic, especially as you can enter the next section backwards or sideways depending on where you are sitting in the raft.
The ride was much wilder than I had expected from a typical family raft slide, and I really enjoyed it. Hurricane Falls was without question my favorite slide at Soak City.
Pictures Soak City
Conclusion Soak City
I really enjoyed Soak City during my short visit. The water park isn’t particularly large, but it offers a nice mix of modern attractions and some wonderfully wild old-school slides.
Hurricane Falls was the clear highlight for me. I certainly wasn’t expecting a family raft slide to be this wild, and the extreme swinging of the raft alone made my detour into the water park worthwhile.
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