Volume 2, No. 14. July 26, 2002
New Arrivals
It’s
a waterslide!
Chula Vista Resort in the Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin, announces the arrival
of The Gator Tail, July 1, 2002. Measurements: 35 feet high (11 meters),
300 feet long (91 meters) and a 50-foot-long (15-meter) switchback ramp. Delivered
by Amusement Leisure Worldwide.
Two
years ago Chula Vista President Mike Kaminski saw a new slide design by Amusement
Leisure called “Backlash” on which tube riders would curl down a trough
and into a ramp where they would reverse direction and speed into another trough
to the run-out. “I said, ‘I’ve got to have one,’” Kaminski
said. At the time, though, his resort’s waterpark was of the indoor variety;
outdoors he had only a medium-high slide structure next to the swimming pool.
So,
Kaminski built a whole new tower with four slides: a 60-foot-high (18-meter)
speed slide, a 240-foot-long (73-meter) twin racer, both by Amusement Leisure,
and a Water Fun Products Sidewinder that Chula Vista calls the Switchback
Canyon. The resort got the bulk of the new attractions open for Memorial
Day, allowing Kaminski to boast that he now has one of the largest outdoor resort
waterparks in the Midwest. The Gator Tail opened a month late, but still
it allows Kaminski to boast of having a one-of-a-kind.
His
is just the third Backlash in the world, the second in the United States after
the prototype at Big Sky Waterpark in Columbia Falls, Montana. “I needed
to do something outrageous to set us apart from the other resorts,” Kaminski
said. “I wanted the really new, upcoming, different kind of rides.”
He also decided, given his indoor attractions and the existing slide structure,
that he needed to widen the demographics of his waterpark offerings. “Hotels
don’t typically get into extreme stuff,” he said.
Hotels don’t typically build their own waterparks, either. Chula Vista’s was constructed solely by Kaminski and his maintenance staff. “That’s fun for the maintenance guys, and they take more ownership in the park,” he said.
©2002, Minton Enterprises LLC
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