When the temperature soars above normal, the best place to “chill” out is naturally one of the many water parks. Summer in Atlanta is especially hot, which makes it a good thing that Six Flags has Whitewater. Whitewater boasts over 50 attractions and is one of the Travel Channels 10 best water parks. Does it live up to the hype, or is this park all washed up?
Water parks outside of Orlando seem to get something that Orlando and Florida parks don’t. Shade is good. The map at the front of the park will show you all the different rides, what it doesn’t show you is how the slides and the park itself winds in and out of the shade, using the terrain to it’s advantage. Because of the natural hills and rises, Whitewater doesn’t make you suffer too much from stair fatigue.
The best thing about Whitewater are the slides. It has such a different variety of rides. The insane Dragon’s Tail which sends you soaring over three dips into a pool offers a shaded thrill. Over on the other side of the park you can take a plunge from Cliffhanger or get the family together in Tornado. If you have kids, or do not like the big thrills there are three separate kids play areas. Also there are slides like The Rapids, and the various different tube slides.
There’s almost nothing negative at all about this park. It’s gorgeous, it’s spacious and most of the lines move pretty quickly. However, there are a few down sides.
The biggest downside is the lack of OPEN eateries and shops. There are plenty in the park, but only half of them were open…in the middle of July. That made for really long lines for drinks and food.
The other big downfall was the fact that quite a few slides were in disrepair and closed. Most of these slides were for the same ride, which took what would have been a quick moving line and made it long. Forgivable for one or two, but we counted no fewer than five. The other problem was that every hour or half hour the park closed the wave pool for 15 minutes. My guess is that they were worried about bacteria..as there were a large amount of people at the park, and the temperatures were well over 100 degrees. Safety’s fine, but explain that. We were told it was closed for maintenance, hourly checks, due to capacity, and one life guard even told us “because we feel like it”.
And the biggest bane of all of course is the Flash Pass. This is a useless system that does nothing for the park except drain money from it’s guests while not serving that big of a purpose.
But, on the bright side, the employees all seemed very friendly (with very few exceptions) and the park was just gorgeous to behold. And the most important thing, everyone had fun. And after all that’s really all that matters isn’t it?
More from Whitewater
For more information including tickets, visit the official Whitewater website.
