Soak City 2016

Soak City opened today and since the weather is great, I ventured to the water park to hang out at Bubbles. I was very curious to see if Bubbles was ready to open after last year's disaster of being filthy on opening day.

Well, I have to say I'm extremely disappointed that it's just as bad this year. Bird crap on the chairs, deck and all in the pool. Clearly no time was spent getting Bubbles ready to open other that unstacking the chairs and filling the pool. With the great attention to detail I've seen all over Cedar Point this year, it's disappointing to see Bubbles totally neglected. I haven't really walked around much to see the rest of Soak City, but the swim up bar is filthy yet again on opening day. Whoever the water park manager is needs to get it together.

That is really disappointing. I saw someone steam cleaning the sidewalk outside of Soak City Friday, I had high hopes that they would have the pool clean this year.

I will say the rest of Soak City looked good. Wave pool and both lazy rivers were clean and no issues. Bathrooms were clean as well. Not sure why Bubbles continues to have opening day cleanliness issues.

They figure after a few drinks the beer goggles will kick in and you will think Bubbles is beautiful...

Bubbles is definitely due for an overhaul. It's so 1997. I'd love to see a teakwood bar or some kind of stone work and maybe some canvas or otherwise lake appropriate nautical theming. I don't want to see it become a tiki bar, but I'd really love if they played off the Breakers upgrade and gave it a re-do.

^ What's wrong with a Tiki Bar? Looks good to me :)

It's generic, and belongs at some place like Kalahari or something more "tropical" - they need seersucker/canvas fabric, ropes and white pillars there. They need to bring the sailboat/lake lifestyle to soak city, not a generic tiki bar that you could find in someone's back yard

Ahhhh I see & agree with your logic on hindsight.

Went yesterday. Lots of debris in the wave pool. Bubbles seems really outdated now. The place could use some sprucing up.

I'm going to take a wild guess here and suggest that 2017 will be a big year for Soak City. Hopefully such shortcomings will be addressed.

Augustmueller said:

I'm going to take a wild guess here and suggest that 2017 will be a big year for Soak City. Hopefully such shortcomings will be addressed.

We have Bingo!

Spent some time in Soak City on both Saturday and Sunday. Bubbles wasn't on my agenda unfortunately. :) I did notice the one children's play area (the one you cross over the bridge to get to) was not operational. Also, on Sunday, there was TONS of tree material in the rivers and it looked like it was clogging the filter outlets as well, but I'm sure that had to be a big challenge because of the storm the day before. On the whole though, I didn't notice much else that was in the awful department. I will say though that the whole place just needs a face lift and some upgrades. The shower/changing facilities at Soak City are really pretty shabby when compared to some of the other water parks I've been to more recently. I don't think it will be long until Soak City and the Magnum gate see some upgrades.

Soak City is a dump. I've been to most of the waterparks in the Cedar Fair chain and it's easily the worse I've seen. Not even just the slide selection. It's just sorta dirty and unkept in some areas. I think it's mind boggling the great Cedar Point has that waterpark and even worse and embarrassingly, they charge that much for it. I'd bet my house that next year Soak City is getting one of those trap door water slide complexes (don't know the technical term) and/or a Funnel. My hope is they don't just add a Slide Complex or Funnel and call it good. That place needs some TLC. Paint jobs and renovations of some of the current areas.

I will be there next week and was wondering if Renegade River was open yet. We went early June last year and for some reason it was only half full and not operating.

It was open and running on Saturday.

If we were to see a Carolina Harbor-esque expansion and re-theme of Soak City I would love to also have a name change to go with that. Like "Lake Erie Shores Waterpark" or something that ties the park to the region. I like that they did that at Carowinds, sort of remove the corporate feel and help it feel more local. Celebrate the lake and the history of it. I like the idea of sailboat/lake lifestyle instead of the generic tropical theme.

SkyhawkRaptorXL-200 said:
Soak City is a dump.

I don't think it is that bad, I certainly wouldn't consider it a dump. It does have that 80's feel in a lot of places and could use a nice overhaul.

I'm thinking there almost has to be something happening with Soak City for next year, given the removal of half of Challange Park.

Soak City could definitely use an upgrade as long as they keep it as a hard ticketed second gate. The value could use some sprucing. Having said that, I was there on Monday and made a mental note to post here praising the park for getting the waterpark looking clean and fresh! The renegade river was beautiful after a rough start last season and all of the water effects were working! The basketball pool area was clean with new basketballs that should not cause concussions when the guy on the other side of the pool channels his inner Kyrie Irving and fires an errant shot at you... Everything seemed clean and fresh, although I did hear reports of the wave pool not working. I did not go to Bubbles though.

Last year, I was at the water parks at Kings Island, Kentucky Kingdom, Holiday World and Cedar Point.
Soak City at Cedar Point was, by far, the only one to look like it needed a major overhaul. Peeling and rusty metal does not make me feel too confident about safety, even it that metal is only there for cosmetic reasons. Kentucky Kingdom being closed for those years may have been what was needed in order to make that waterpark a beautiful one.
And don't get me started on Bubbles, again. Hopefully they fired the one manager I dealt with last year.