Soak City got a little wetter!

Sunday, I spent some time in Soak City, where I was doing a little research and encountered a couple of interesting policy changes.

First, the orange cones are gone from the wave pool, and on Sunday the lifeline was pulled all the way back to the back wall. You may recall that instead of putting a rope across the pool to delimit the swimming area, they would put a rope across and then set a cone on the edge of the pool some 6' ahead of the rope, then whistle meaninglessly at anyone who went past the cones. Presumably if the crowd or staff is smaller they will pull the rope back. But I have never seen any wave pool where they let swimmers right up to the back wall.

Second, I swam both lazy rivers on Sunday. You may recall that Soak City had a strange rule that you *must* have a tube for the lazy river, which effectively means you are most likely sitting or lying on top of the tube so that only a very small portion of your body actually gets wet. Now, you can swim, walk or float (within reason) without a tube.

Now if we could just get Kings Island to implement a similar change...

--Dave Althoff, Jr. (who really likes the 'noodles' in Kentucky Kingdom's high speed lazy river...)

Ya the lazy river thing is at wildwater kingdom too which i liked. And same with the wave pool. It was a thursday and very few people were there yet you could go all the way to the wall.

Great news! Thanks for sharing.
It's always good to read something of value about the park here.

It's funny you mentioned the tube... we were on the back lazy river (by the kiddie pool area) and I asked a lifeguard at the entrance if my son could go without a float. She said yes that is fine and my son was very excited... until he got yelled at by another lifeguard halfway through that he needed a tube. I felt bad like we were breaking the rules (I never want to make a lifeguards job difficult) but just let him know that we were told otherwise at the beginning of the ride. BTW he's almost 9 and probably 54 inches so it's not like he couldn't handle the lazy river.

Don't they block off the part where the waves are made in all wave pools because that's a dangerous area?

I always thought so, but then in wave pools like the one at Soak City, the actual machinery is tucked away back in the building.

What surprised me was that when I was swimming right in front of the grate during a wave cycle, I could feel very little movement in the water. I don't know if it's because I was in the current (in an inertial frame of reference) or if it's because not much motion is required to produce the waves.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

RideMan said:

Sunday, I spent some time in Soak City, where I was doing a little research ...

Is that code for checking out the bikini styles for this year???

You know what I would like to see? Something like Roa's Rapids at Aquatica in Orlando. It's not a lazy river, it's a current channel. Under 51" requires a life jacket. It's aggressive and super fun.

Valley Fair soak city has a very fun aggressive rapids ride that you use a heavy duty tube to ride as a single. Height min is 56 inches

Jeff: I am not familiar with Roa's, but the new (last year) thingy at Kentucky Kingdom where Chang used to be might be similar. It is a small 'high speed' river, noticeably faster than a standard lazy river, but from descriptions probably not as fast as Roa's. Still flat like a standard lazy river, and attached to an activity pool (waterfalls, basically).
The first time I saw it, they had foam pool noodles and these little hourglass-shaped 'saddles' made out of the foam stuff they used to use for skiing life vests. When I went back later in the year and actually got into the water, the saddles were gone and the pool noodles (compare to macaroni) were replaced with similar size rectangular noodles (more like really thick linguine) made out of that same skinned foam. Two of those floated me very nicely with my head just out of the water. Perfect!

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

The lazy river at Atlantis is awesome, it's at least 15 minutes long, has rapids and also takes you to a waterslide in the process!

^And don't forget the massive wave section of the river.

Personally I really don't like these action rivers. Am I the only one who actually misses when a lazy river used to be lazy?