Brian E. Clark Water park slides a winter thrill
Wisconsin Dells offers indoor fun
It was the day before Thanksgiving and the Kalahari Resort in the Wisconsin Dells was overflowing with visitors. So I wasn’t surprised that it took my 16-year-old daughter and me 10 minutes to make it up the tower to the start of the Tanzanian Twister water slide.
But it was more than worth the wait.
I should have known we were in for a thrill when the young lifeguard at the top of the slide asked me if I could swim, because there was a good chance I’d be dumped — upside down — into a deep pool at the end of the ride.
She also told me to cross my ankles, place my hands behind my head and warned me that I might get disoriented.
Then I sat down, grabbed the overhead bar at the entrance to the pipe and launched myself into the twisting, turning darkness of tube where I was told I might reach speeds of up to 40 miles per hour.
At the bottom of the tube, I shot out into what my kids like to call the “toilet bowl” and swished around and around the big fixture until I plopped down 4 feet, unceremoniously, head-first into the deep pool beneath the ride.
It took me a second or two to reorient myself, swim to the surface and hop out. Fortunately, another lifeguard was stationed at the bottom of the ride, just in case.
Then my daughter came flying down the Twister and fell, flailing and on her side, into the water. Then we found her friend — who had declined our invitation to join us — in the hot tub and headed off to the next ride.
The Tanzanian Twister may not be the hairiest slide in the Dells indoor water parks, because that is surely a subjective choice. But it’s a darn good one, said Sarah Hudzinski, spokeswoman for the Wisconsin Dells Visitor and Convention Bureau. When she rode the slide earlier this year, her nieces got a big kick out of seeing her land on her noggin’, too, she said.
While summer may be the busiest time of year for the Dells and its indoor and outdoor water parks, I think I enjoy winter here the best. That’s because the often-chilly weather outside makes the warm water all the more enjoyable — especially when I can see snow on the ground through the windows at the top of the towers.
In addition to the Tanzania Twister, here are some of the other top indoor slides at the Dells:
The Sahara Sidewinders, part of the Tufani Falls section of the Kalahari resort, are the nation’s only indoor looping water slides. The 60-feethigh slides drop riders into an eight-second, 250plus-foot-long journey from above the roof of the water park to a big splashdown at the end.
The Screaming Hyena, also part of Kalahari’s Tufani Falls, features a (yikes!) trap door launch that drops you into a nearvertical plunge of 60 feet reaching speeds of up to 25 miles an hour before you hit any turns.
The Black Hole at the Wilderness Resort is a two-person tube ride that has a 45-foot drop and plunges riders into a gigantic bowl where they make numerous highspeed revolutions before dropping through a corkscrew exit at the bowl’s center into the splash pool below.
The Hurricane, also at the Wilderness, is the Dells’ tallest indoor fourperson raft ride. It sends riders at a 45-degree angle down a 58-foot drop where they enter a funnel at a speed of 20 mph. On the way down, they experience fog machines, strobe lights and sound effects. Near the bottom, they are shot up the opposite side of the funnel and have a momentary zero-g experience before exiting into a splash pool below.
At the Chula Vista Resort, riders can get a bird’s-eye view of the water park on the Flyan Mayan Up-Hill Water Roller Coaster, which claims to be the world’s fastest and longest uphill indoor water roller coaster. And if you’re competitive, you can race your buds on the Matador Mat Racers slide.
One of the first things motorists turning off I-94 onto Highway 12 see in the Dells is the giant Howlin’ Tornado water slide at the Great Wolf Lodge.
Up to four people can ride in a raft (there’s also a two-person option) and plunge 30 feet down a 53foot-long tube before they’re spit out into a sixstory “tunnel of fun” and then down a final tube into the ending pool.
The Anaconda and Boa slides at the Mt. Olympus Water Park take single or double tube riders on a twisting journey through the water park. The Anaconda has five turns, some of them making complete circles, and a vertical drop of 50 feet over 405 feet. The Boa tube is a little less frightening with four turns and a vertical drop of 34 feet over 220 feet. Both end in a plunge pool and the Anaconda connects directly to the Lazy River.
More information: For more information on things to see and do in the Dells, see wisdells.com.
Getting there: The Dells are about 120 miles northwest of Milwaukee via I-94 and Highway 12.