Friday, March 30, 2007

Old Wildwater Kingdom Picture



EDSA Cloward Engineers have worked on designing water features for everyone from Universal Theme Parks to private Golf Clubs. They also did work for Dorney Park's Wildwater Kingdom back in the day. Their website has the above photo.

They firm did engineer work on the Wildwater River lazy river attraction, the former tank-tag, the former go-carts, and the former mini-golf course.

I am obsessed with this photo. There's so much to see! Let's start looking around. Click it for a bigger version, I actually made it a little bigger then it originally was.

· Very top of the photo you can see the parking lot that was between the two parks. This is now Talon and the main midway area of the park. Obviously the parks were still separate admission at this point.

· Look at the Wave Pool. Why is the water not going all the way up in the middle like that. Did this part used to be raised and thus make the water not reach up that far? I'm very confused.

· Upper left you can see the Tank Tag and Boat Tag. Did Tank Tag have a ramp on the side of it? You can see a raised portion but I don't remember that.

· No Aquablast! Also on the kiddie area there in the middle you can still see the kid's version of Riptide Run that was on the hill. Last I knew the slide was still there - just filled in with dirt and mulch with plants in it.

· Torpedo Tubes. Okay so in some newspaper articles back when these were added they always wrote that it had 3 slides. Well I had only ever known it to have two, what was there up until this past winter when the whole thing came down. But there were 3! Look:

I know that this looks like a green blob, but look on the right side of the loading area at the top of the tower. There's totally a third slide! It looks like a somewhat smaller, totally enclosed, tube that dives down, does a 360 degree spiral, then quickly empties into the pool below. I've never seen any other pictures of the ride that shows this. If anyone has any older pictures and wants to contribute by all means let me know!

· At the bottom is the mini-golf area. When that part of the park was separate admission I used to love to go play there during the summer.

· Bottom right corner - the big Pepsi Can! That thing was so funny, wasn't it also a waterfall that dumped into the lazy river? I remember that after it went up the local South Whitehall people decided that it was a sign or something and was too close to the road and eventually it was removed.

That's all I see - anyone else?


4 comments:

Unknown said...

The Picture of the PARK is great. I was a lifeguard there for four years and I can explain some things to you.
- There was 3 Torpedo Tubes slides and the one was a body slide with no tube this ride was called Rattler and a lot of people got hurt on the ride. Actually they use the slide for the Locnos Monster by Steel Force during Halloween. The slide lasted I think 5 years.
- The Wave Pool was shaped like that actually in the middle was a hump. That is why the water does not go up, and the reason is because of the surfing aspect of the pool. They use to have competitions and crank the waves up to 10 Feet.
- Tank Tag ramp was being completed because it was a area in which you would get in the tanks without getting hit with balls.

I hope this help you out and everyone who reads this post. I love your Dorney Site it is great

NewsPlusNotes said...

Thanks for the info! I really appreciate it.

Like I said, I never knew for sure about the 3rd Torpedo Tube slide. That's some great info you gave on it. It looked like it would have been fun. Plus I always wondered what slide they used for that monster during Halloweekends. Now I know!

I knew they used to have surfing competitions at the wave pool but never knew the pool itself was any different back then.

Thanks again!

lilshambo said...

I must say the overview picture of the waterpark is pretty good. But I thought you might be interested in pictures my dad took when he was a medic at the park. I think they are from the first year the waterpark opened, but I could be wrong.

NewsPlusNotes said...

Thanks for the comment!

I am *very* interested in whatever pictures you may have of old Wildwater Kingdom!

If you would like me to post them on NewsPlusNotes I'll happily give you credit. I'd really love to see them!

NewsPlusNotesATyahoo.com -> replace AT with @ (trying to not get the address picked up for spam)