TR: Knott's Soak City Buena Park

[rcdude]

Yesterday, I went to Knott's Soak City in Buena Park. It is the waterpark across the street from Knott's Berry Farm, and has a separate admission charge. While it isn't the greatest waterpark, and is one of the smaller stand alone waterparks, it does have some pretty good slides and is usually not extremely crowded. I went with my brother, sister, aunt and uncle, everyone of which does all the slides. Even though the park was only open from 10 to 6, we still got on everything, and even two or three rides on various rides. I will review each of the rides individually.

 

Pacific Spin-This is one of the funnel slides, and is the only slide that had a long wait. It is also the only slide that I have seen where your picture is taken. On this ride, you get in a tube that holds 2-4 people and go through an enclosed tube which drops into a funnel. You then go back and forth several times before going out the end of the funnel and into a pool. This is my favorite ride at the park, but I chose not to go on a second time since the wait looked like it was close to 45 minutes.

Banzai Falls-This is a racing slide where everyone goes down headfirst on mats. It is like a waterpark version of the sack slide found at fairs and carnivals. The ride has six lanes and three drops. I rode twice since the line was only about 15-20 minutes.

Malibu Run-This is a slide complex with four different slides. You ride on a single innertube down a flume with twists and turns, and even a couple drops. Rincon is a completely enclosed flume, and is probably the least popular. It consists of mostly zig-zag turns. Dropoff is my personal favorite. The top half of the ride is enclosed and the bottom half is open. It has spirals and zig-zag turns and ends with a drop. Wave Chaser is my least favorite because it is open the whole way down. It seems to be the most popular, even though it is fairly slow until the drop at the end. Heavy Swell is another popular flume, and is completely enclosed the whole way down. It spirals down to the splash pool. The Malibu Run tends to have the fastest moving line in the park, and is the only tube ride in the park where you don't usually have to wait for a tube. Since the line was at most 15 minutes when I went, I ended up going on each flume once or twice.

Old Man Falls-This is the extreme bodyslide tower. It has three different rides. There are two red slides, one which starts off enclosed and then opens up when it goes down a large drop, and the other one which is open the whole way down and consists of three drops. There is also a yellow slide that is enclosed and spirals down to the bottom. I prefer the two red slides, since they have a faster moving line and are more thrilling. I ended up going on the yellow slide once and the two red slides twice each.

Laguna Storm Watch Tower-This is a single and double innertube slide tower with three completely enclosed flumes. They are called Typhoon, Tornado, and Cyclone. All three are fairly similar, with turns but no drops, but I think Cyclone has tighter turns since only single rides can ride it. I like Cyclone best, but I still went on each slide once.

Sunset River-This is a lazy river. It takes 10-15 minutes to complete one lap since it is so long. Also, everyone must ride in a tube on this ride, which I don't really like. For some reason the ride didn't open until the afternoon, so we didn't end up riding it until after three. We got in and decided to do two laps before leaving, but everyone else got out after one lap to do Pacific Spin a second time. The river gives a great view of Ghostrider across the street.

Toyota Beach House-This is a water funhouse, with many levers and switches to pull and cause water to spray everywere. It also has a tipping bucket, but it is on the small side. There are two waterslides in the funhouse, both of which have extremely slow moving lines. The slides are nothing special, but I still did them once each while everyone else did Pacific Spin again.

 

The waterpark also has a wavepool, which was closed in the afternoon, and a kids area.

 

Overall, it was a fun day. I would recommend anyone in Orange County to visit it, since it is cheaper than Wild Rivers and has better rides, although it is smaller. However, make sure to eat lunch really early (before 11). When we got in line for lunch, there were about five to eight groups of people ahead of us and it took us twenty minutes to get served. I could easily see people waiting an hour and a half in lunch lines at this place. It is almost better to leave to eat lunch since the food isn't very good anyway. Other than that, the park is good, and I recommend it.