Volume 3, No. 5. March 14, 2003
New
Arrivals
It’s
a waterpark!
Wilderness Hotel & Golf Resort in Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin, announces
the arrival of the Wild West Waterpark, February 28, 2003. Measurements: 70,000
square feet (6,503 square meters), one 500-foot-long (152-meter-long) family
raft slide with five-person rafts, one six level play structure with 750-gallon
(2,839-liter) tipping bucket and 100 interactive play devices, and one interactive
wave pool with 20 water blasters and 10 geysers. Delivered by Badger Pools,
National Rock & Sculpture, NBGS International, ProSlide Technology, Pro
Tile, Stevens Construction, WaveTek and Wizard Works.
The resort was sold out for the weekend. All 443 hotel rooms and the 150 condominiums,
cabins and villas had been booked from Friday evening, February 28, through
Sunday, March 2. If that didn’t convince Joe Eck, director of sales and
marketing at Wilderness Resort, that his new waterpark was going to make a further
impact on the resort’s occupancy, the fact that Thursday night, February
27, sold out, too, was final proof.
“People wanted a pass (to the new waterpark) for the next day,” Eck
said. “There’s no other explanation as to why we would sell out a
Thursday night.” The new waterpark, Wilderness’ third indoor waterpark,
had generated about six weeks of publicity prior to its scheduled opening, but
the resort’s waterparks are available only to resort guests. Wilderness
officials had planned to open Wild West at 4 p.m. (16,00) in conjunction with
that Friday evening’s guest check-in. But with the Thursday night bookings,
the resort moved up the opening time to noon on Friday.
Good thing. Guests waiting to get in lined up from the waterpark’s door
down the hallway, a line estimated at “probably a quarter of a mile,”
Eck said. “We’ve never had a line before.”
They’ve never had a waterpark quite like this one before, either. The ProSlide
five-person raft slide, called The Fantastic Voyage, drew everybody’s
attention as soon as they entered the park. After taking a spin down Voyage,
the guests generally headed for Ransack Ridge, NBGS’s largest such
play structure.
What guests then discovered was the park’s true gem. In the Wisconsin Dells’
year-round competition of one-upmanship among the resorts, Wilderness has scored
big with The Surge, the only indoor, interactive wave pool. On each side
of the wave pool stand 10 water blasters that pedestrians use to shoot streams
of water at swimmers. TNT boxes on the deck trigger geysers located throughout
the wave pool. “It’s your chance to squirt your brother or knock him
out of the tube,” Eck said.
Wild West also gives Wilderness the Dells’ total indoor waterpark square
footage title; the new park’s 70,000 square feet combined with the resort’s
two other indoor aquatic centers makes for a total of 157,000 square feet (13,935
square meters) of indoor waterplay area.
THE LOOP is written and produced by Eric Minton, Minton Enterprises, LLC. To see more examples of Eric Minton's work and Minton Enterprises services, visit www.ericminton.com.
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