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America's wildest water parks

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“From the splash park to the fancy slides, it’s all becoming more interactive, more energizing, more participatory,” says Aleatha Ezra, director of park membership development for the World Water Park Association, based in Overland Park, Kan. And it’s not necessarily just the high-thrill, single-rider attractions that are making a splash. “Family-oriented rides are a big part of new-ride development,” she says.

Schlitterbahn operates three parks in Texas, and plans to open one of the world’s largest tubing parks next summer in Kansas City, Kan. As part of the $750 million Vacation Village, the park will feature Schlitterbahn’s innovation award-winning Transportainment — endless floating that carries guests from one ride to the next without having to “go ashore.” They were first to open a “convertible water park” (Schlitterbahn Galveston Island in Texas): an indoor park with a retractable roof and walls that can be opened or closed in eight minutes. “It’s amazing that people go to a water park to get wet, but they don’t want to get rained on,” says Jeffrey Siebert, director of corporate communications and sales.

According to Ezra, hotels with indoor water parks are the biggest trend in the water park industry, especially in the Midwest. Wisconsin Dells, Wis., has extended its Memorial-Day-to-Labor-Day tourism season by becoming the nation’s water park capital with 21 parks; only three lack an indoor component.

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In 2007, 33 hotels with indoor water parks (seven of them in Wisconsin Dells) opened or greatly expanded. There are now some 190 indoor water parks in the United States; 55 are opening this year, while another 33 are breaking ground.

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“It’s kind of a new industry,” says Todd Nelson, president and owner of Kalahari Resorts, which operates the largest indoor water park under one roof in the United States (at Sandusky, Ohio), as well as Wisconsin’s largest indoor water park in Wisconsin Dells. Nelson claims his newest project — Virginia’s first indoor water park, scheduled to open in 2010 in Fredericksburg — will be “the best in the world.”

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“It’s the next generation,” he says. “We find that people can’t stay in the water 10 hours a day, so they want to be entertained [in other ways].” To that end, Kalahari’s Virginia property not only will include such water features as a Tornado Alley ride, but also a Ferris wheel, 24 bowling lanes, miniature golf, go-karts, golf simulator, dance floor and other attractions.

“Everybody’s creating all the time,” Nelson says. “The industry is really young.”


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