Splashin Safari Review

I would like to first say that Holiday World has to be one of the cleanest parks I have ever visited. Even with free sodas and people drinking them from plastic cups, there is almost no litter to be found on their ground. Holiday World also gives off a great family feeling with the owners, Pat and Dan Koch, walking around their park often to greet guests. These factors I especially enjoyed about their park.

I visited Splashin Safari during an annual roller coasters enthusiast event called Holiwood Nights which contains exclusive riding times on their roller coasters and a few of their water slides, including the world record holder for the longest water coaster, Wildebeest.

 

The Wildebeest is a thrilling water coaster with seven upward hydromagnetic sections. The water slide starts with a conveyor lift to the top while you sit in the inline raft. Once you reach the top, you are greeted by a ride operator, and a flood of water coming in from the sides of the tunnel. The slide races towards and over each hill at a very fast pace and soaking you at the same time. Because of the fast pace, you can get airtime on most of the hills. This water coaster always leaves people smiling and completely soaked by the time they reach the station at the end of the slide. The only downside to this amazing water slide is that the water temperature on it is the coldest throughout the entire water park, but this never kept me from riding it more than 5 times during the Holiwood Nights event.

Zoombabwe is a very tall and long dark family raft slide. This slide is pretty fast for a dark raft slide, and with all that speed it's surprising how long it lasts. The slide has air holes in it punched out in shapes of tiki faces and there are areas in the slide where extra water is added to slow down the rafts. This water slide also sits between the tracks of the Legend roller coaster, giving a unique view of passengers riding it. The downside to this water slide is that the walk up to it is pretty long.


Zinga is a purple and blue ProSlide Tornado that also sits in the area of the Legend roller coaster. This water slide starts with a speedy drop into a large tunneled helix, then it drops out into the Tornado section where you ride up the walls. This was a very fun slide to ride because of how fast you enter the tornado section and the floating feeling you get when you ride up the walls of the element. The downside to this slide is that it also has a long walk to get to it.


The Jungle Racer is a normal 10 lane mat racer water slide with three dips. This slide seemed to have one of the shorter lines in the park because of it's higher capacity and short slide duration. The slide simply completes three drops, the third giving slight airtime.


Otorongo is made up of three black tunneled inner-tube slides. Each slide is named from part of the slide complex's name: Oto, Ron, and Go. Oto (right) is a normal dark slide that does a few turns before landing you in the pool. Ron (Middle) is the dark slide with two quick drops before making a big splash in the pool. Go (Left) is the slid that completes a helix before dropping and landing into the pool. Each water slide has a water curtain where the tunnels end before you hit the pool.


The park's ProSlide Behemoth bowl, Bakuli, is a very large water slide and the hardest water slide to miss. It consists of a few left and right turns before picking up a lot of speed going down a large drop and into the bowl section of the slide. When done in the bowl, you go down a much smaller, but steeper drop then forwards into the pool. This slide is quite thrilling because of it's entrance speed into the bowl element. The only problem with this slide is that it sits within a lazy river and has only one way to get to it.

Splashin Safari was easy to enjoy because of their selection of water slides. Unfortunately the water park did not seem to have enough shade to go around. The majority of the water park is out in the sun, and this causes the pavement to become very hot on sunny days. Luckily Holiday World offers free sunscreen in many places throughout the water park so you can avoid sunburn. Along with this is the free drinks available throughout the entire park, including the water park. This is good so you can stay hydrated.

Splashin Safari was one of the best water parks I've ever visited, and the reason why is not just because of the water slides. Along with the great water slides are the nice staff, clean facilities, and the free sunscreen and drinks.

Water slide ratings (N/A= unavailable)

Watubee

AmaZOOM: 6/10

Bakuli: 8/10

Bamboo Chute:6/10

Jungle Racer: 7/10

Otorongo (3): 6/10

Safari Sam's Splash Land (8): N/A
Watubee: 6/10

Wildebeest: 10/10!

Zinga: 8/10

ZOOMbabwe: 7/10

Other Rides/Attractions

Amazoom (Blue) and Baboo Chute (White)

Bahari River: 7/10

Bahari Wave Pool: 7/10

Congo River: 6/10

Kima Bay: 7/10

Monsoon Lagoon: N/A

The Wave: 7/10

Overall Water Park Rating: 9/10

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