Kentucky Kingdom - Part 2 of 2

We covered the dry side of Kentucky Kingdom in the last part of the review. In this part, I'd like to focus on Kentucky Kingdom's water park, Hurricane Bay. If you would like to hear about the overall view of Kentucky Kingdom in the first part, please click here.

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Hurricane Bay is a water park that is connected to Kentucky Kingdom amusement park and is free with paid admission. It consists of multiple slide complexes and various standalone water slides ranging from easy beginner slides to many thrilling slides. Hurricane Bay was added to the park in 1992, opening with the original Big Surf Wave pool and later on added the water slide complex Mt Slide Hai.

The water park's original lineup, after its renaming to Splashwater Kingdom and before it's 4 year dormancy, included a basic slide complex with three inner-tube slides and a body slide, a ProSlide Tornado, a ProSlide Hydromagnetic water coaster, a water playground, a kids splash area, and a wave pool. When Kentucky Kingdom reopened for the 2014 season, the water park was put back to the original Hurricane Bay name and doubled in size with many brand new water slides added to the still-standing lineup.

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Kentucky Kingdom - Part 1 of 2

I made a promise to post a review of Kentucky Kingdom's Hurricane Bay water park a long time ago, so I apologize for it being so belated... in fact, I'm positive that Kentucky Kingdom's season will have finally ended while I'm still typing up and proofing this review. Oh well, better late than never... I guess?

We'll get to a review of the water park in the second part (a separate post). I'd like to talk about the whole park (and the dry-side of the park) in general here.

Hurricane Bay POV videos (Kentucky Kingdom and Hurricane Bay's water park)

For the past couple of months (as I tackle on a few college summer courses), I have made a few weekend trips to Kentucky Kingdom. From those visits, I've gathered some photographs and video of the park, and some tips on making the most of your visit. All will be posted in a review of the water park eventually. Until that time, feel free to enjoy the videos being posted to the Water Slide Database YouTube channel of the water park and the various slides within!

Furthermore, you can view more pictures and other tidbits of info about the park on the Water Slide Database website as well!

Enjoy!
-Marcus

Deep Water Dive at Kentucky Kingdom

As many of you have probably heard, Kentucky Kingdom in Louisville, Kentucky, has been going big with continuing constructing on their newest rides and water park attractions. On Saturday April 26, I made a visit by the park to get a glimpse of how far it had come, and saw the structure for the 121 foot tall Deep Water Dive standing tall and proud! Not only that, but the top section of the slide had been recently installed as well (which made press after requiring closure of one of the nearby airport's runways), and it turned out to be a capsule drop slide!

If you haven't heard about this gargantuan, Deep Water Dive is a 121 foot tall body slide built by ProSlide that will become the United State's tallest body slide once complete; beating Summit Plummet at Disney World's Blizzard Beach by a mere foot! It was only until I saw the slide did I know this was also going to be a drop capsule slide, so it shall be a very interesting experience once it opens!

Comparing it with the park's tallest dry rides, it stands about 20 feet taller than T2 suspended roller coaster (101ft), 21 feet taller than the park's brand new steel coaster Lightning Run (100ft), and 31 feet taller than one of the park's wooden roller coasters, Thunder Run (90ft). The only rides taller than it are the park's Giant Wheel (150ft) and the new FearFall tower (129ft), but even with those, the slide still stands out on its own!

I sure can't wait to try it out myself once it opens with the rest of the park! It's sure to cause some screams!

Kentucky Kingdom and Hurricane Bay website

New Year and Kentucky Kingdom

Greetings, and happy new year to all! We're now only four months away from May, when many of America's outdoor water parks re-open for another new season of sliding!

As mentioned in the previous blog post, there's plenty of new attractions coming to various amusement and water parks in the United States, with record setters like Verruckt at Schlitterbahn Kansas City, or unique one-of-a-kind slides like Colossal Curl at Water Country USA, or even grand re-openings like Kentucky Kingdom.

While I was still in the Louisville area, I had gone for a small drive by Kentucky Kingdom on December 31st to have a look at the progress made on the park. There wasn't much to see in terms of vertical construction, but plenty of land had been cleared for the water park expansion at the back of the park.
(The following photos were taken from outside of park properties.)

Different colored fiberglass flumes of various sizes were also placed next to each other in a field next to the park.

There wasn't much to be said for the zone where the park's future steel roller coaster Lightning Run would stand as well, but there were many pieces of metal rebar laid out in the area.

While there isn't a whole lot to see now, I read somewhere on the Kentucky Kingdom's Facebook page that construction may pick up sometime this month; although since I can't find the comment anymore to confirm this, we may have to leave this as a rumor until it actually happens. I will have to return to college by mid January, so I personally won't be able to keep up with progress on the park as it happens. The best source to find updates will have to be the official park's Facebook and Twitter pages.