There seems to be much more creative freedom in the water park business. Fiberglass slides are much cheaper to engineer and fabricate than steel roller coaster track, and with patron’s cameras and other electronics stored away in lockers there’s a de-emphasis on constructing expansive and overly elaborate themed environments that require hundreds of hands to move from sketchpad to reality. We don’t buy admission to Wet ‘n Wild for experiential storytelling of shared pop-cultural fantasies, we’re just there to play in the water, work on our tan lines, and sneak glimpses of the hot specimens in their swimwear. Thus, with both smaller budgets and expectations, the brainy folk hired by Wet ‘n Wild can pretty much do whatever they want and no one will ever criticize. Don’t be surprised to discover slides can be named things like “Bubba Tub” or “Bomb Bay”, and you may find yourself listening to an interviewer’s ‘serious’ philosophical interpretation of Shake Your Booty while in line for Disco H2O. In a town that’s known for its big brand name, publicly-owned theme parks, it’s refreshing in more ways than one to visit a place that feels like the work of a small but dedicated team of entrepreneurial people.

That said, it’s comparatively disappointing whenever Wet ‘n Wild doesn’t take the opportunity to give their slides a clever presentation, as there are more than a couple vanilla-colored attractions named things like “The Flyer” or “Lazy River” that seem like a wasted opportunity to fully brand their style of irreverent humor as their unique selling point amongst Orlando parks. Wet ‘n Wild doesn’t exactly seek to revolutionize the water park formula: founded in 1977 as the first full-sized water park in the nation by entrepreneur George Millay (also the man behind SeaWorld), you can expect all the basics, but it’s the newer water parks by Disney and SeaWorld that have most daringly expanded upon this park’s successful but well-worn business model. Today, apart from the sly creative flourishes framing some attractions that I wish they could push to further extremes, Wet ‘n Wild mostly stakes its claim in a competitive market through sheer quantity. Even if you’re not a water park aficionado you’re bound to find at least two or three slides well worth your time, and even with minimal queues it will easily take an entire afternoon to slide down every slippery chute Wet ‘n Wild has on offer.

Surf Lagoon

While not the world’s first wave pool, it is the first wave pool that anchored a collection of slides and water activities in an amusement park-like property, and effectively became the model for every other water park to follow. I’m certain Wet ‘n Wild’s Surf Lagoon has been upgraded several times since 1977 given its modernist waterfall backdrop, but given its history don’t expect anything more grandiose than four foot waves in a serviceable family wave pool. The rest of the park is laid out butterfly style from this icon, which I’ll review first from the bottom right, then from the bottom left.

Bubba Tub

The cute name (supposedly picked at random from a list of joke names by George Millay) helps offset the fact that it’s kind of a banal experience not entirely worth the long climb of stairs. Here’s what you get: a big family raft slide, goes down a series of three straight dips (no curves), kills the small amount of accumulated momentum at the end with a simple splash pool. The tub is good for absorbing some of the crowds on a busy day or as a warm-up slide near the entrance, but not much else.

Grade: D

Lazy River

Befitting the name, this is a decidedly simple and laid back entry in the lazy river genre that has otherwise moved more and more towards pushing “interactive” features. The serene Floridian-inspired landscaping and lazy pace seems a bit at odds with the frequently edgy park, although it’s plenty welcomed for a change, along with a policy that does not require inner tubes to enter the river.

Grade: C-

The Storm

The small pair of ProSlide-built bowl slides could quite possibly be the most intense thing I’ve ever ridden in a park, wet or dry. With nothing but your swimsuit to protect you, you’re shot out of a steep, narrow tube into a royal blue toilet bowl, where depending on the side you swirl around in a dense mist in either northern or southern hemisphere flush fashion. At the end you drop out of a central hole into a pool of positioned three feet below, which I must have taken at a slightly sideways and upside down angle (I couldn’t open my eyes for the entire time to be sure due to water spraying everywhere) and resulted in more than one bodily cavity being deeply cleansed. By the time I pulled myself out, gasping for air, I was left wondering how these slides were legal in this country without requiring a signed waver… although I suppose that’s exactly the mark of a good thrill ride.

Grade: D+

Der Stuka

Means “the dive bomber”. What is it? A 76’ speed slide straight down to a watery landing. There are much taller and scarier speed slide variants out there, and as it lasts only a few seconds one might question if it’s really worth all the huffing and puffing to climb to the top. Nevertheless I can always expect a few butterflies just before edging off the precipice, which really is all this slide needs to do to be good at what it does.

Grade: D+

Bomb Bay

Side two of Der Stuka, Bomb Bay comes equipped with a claustrophobic capsule at the top that utilizes a trap door triggered by the operator to set you in motion. Considering it has the exact same height and profile as Der Stuka, it’s a surprisingly scarier experience, perhaps because it removes your ability to mentally prepare for and control the exact moment when you go over the edge. When the trap door finally does release, the following plunge is almost anticlimactic.

Grade: C

Brain Wash

I think this might be the world’s first capitalist water slide! The cloverleaf tubes come out on the wrong side the conveyer lift, so the means of production needed to get the tubes from one end to the other are outsourced to the guests, whereupon completion of this task they are paid a token which can be redeemed at the top for one trip down the Brain Wash. The ProSlide Tornado is first-rate in concept (particularly the video projection and sound inside the funnel), but the quick ride time and inability to get more than two decent moments of hangtime on the funnel walls with the broad tube scrubbing off lots of energy left me feeling like it wasn’t quite worth the paid labor.

Grade: C

The Blast

Hidden near the front left of the park behind the children’s play area and underneath the Mach 5/Flyer complex, The Blast is easily missable yet not to be missed.  It’s a ground-hugging one or two person tube ride through a “ruptured pipeline” that offers a new surprise around every corner with a bevy of triggered water effects. Variable water depths and channel sizes means an unpredictable stop-start-stop-start pattern that keeps you guessing to the very end, and heated water means none of the several water blasts is too abrasive.

Grade: C+

The Flyer

In-line toboggan slides with a loose Calypso theme. It’s labeled “family fun”, which is code for not as fast or thrilling as this seating configuration (which can load more weight relative to the frictional drag) could have allowed for. It’s oddly fun to ride more than once, yet it’s still unlikely to leave a lasting impression afterward. Maybe these can be upgraded to an uphill water coaster someday.

Grade: D+

Mach 5

At first I thought this was Wet ‘n Wild’s body slide complex, but upon discovering that the three slides require face-first mats, I realized that Wet ‘n Wild has a total absence of standard body slides (excluding The Storm and the children’s play area slides). Arching my back up to keep my face out of the water has simply never appealed to me, and it’s made worse by a fast serpentine layout that ends with a steep drop into a pool that veritably screamed “fuck you” before dumping me in head first. I don’t know if I should be envious that many people seem to have more flexibility than me to not mind, or grateful that they’re all riding this instead of the much better raft rides nearby.

Grade: F

The Surge

A large 4-person Mammoth raft slide by ProSlide. On the surface The Surge is nothing special, but it somehow managed to hit all the right notes in exactly the right order. Long, wet, speedy, unpredictable, and very fun. A midcourse water curtain is designed in such a way that half of your party will get soaked while the other half will slip right by, and with the spinning raft you won’t know who until the last second. Was about ready to name it my favorite slide at Wet ‘n Wild, until…

Grade: C+

Disco H2O

I’m calling it: Disco H2O is the best water slide at Wet ‘n Wild Orlando. Really, I think what did it for me was the parody radio interview overheard on the staircase that’s too funny for anyone familiar with academic commentary on popular culture, but the slide that follows is plenty groovy in its own right. Unlike Brain Wash, which puts too much focus on the few key moments of air before fizzling out, Disco H2O is able to sustain continuous sensory action until we reach the landing pool, starting with an introductory light show, followed by an long plunge in the dark, and then boogying around inside a chamber filled with an overload of special light, music, and water effects. Almost hard to believe this is part of the same family of waterslides as the far nastier Storm on the opposite end of the park.

Grade: B-

The Black Hole: The Next Generation

…was closed for seasonal refurbishment on my visit (along with a few of the specialty lakeside attractions). A shame, as I’ve heard the enclosed special effects added in 2008 rival Brain Wash and Disco H2O. On the plus side, this would be the only ride in Florida that I would miss out on for this reason despite technically visiting during the off-season, so I’ll still consider myself lucky.

Summary

“You will not make any conclusions which we do not provide for you,” intones a soothingly authoritative voice before boarding the Brain Wash, which must explain how I came to the conclusion that, for whatever its flaws, Wet ‘n Wild is probably the most plain goofy fun to be found along Orlando’s International Drive.

Overall Grade: C

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