After spending the morning running errands, Erik and I arrived at Enchanted Village. As a kid, I remember Enchanted Village having two entrances, one at the North (EV) end and another at the South (Wild Waves) end. Now the old EV entrance is just used as Season Passholder processing, and everyone has to enter through the Wild Waves end. During the Summer Season that doesn't seem like a big deal since the entire park is open to everyone, but in the off season, with Wild Waves closed and drained, it seems silly to make everyone park at the end of WW and trek all the way through the water park. Especially since we were ALL going to the Enchanted Village end.
The employees waved us all the way down to the South end lot. (The older, northern lots are for employees and delivery trucks now.) We got to the end and noticed that if we kept going, there were neighborhoods on the end of the parking lot. We took an immediate left after the lot and parked on the side of the road - FOR FREE! A much better deal than the $7 Enchanted Village was charging for their lot. We walked through the parking lot (which is now paved! I remember it being a dusty, gravel lot in the pre-Six Flags days.) Another thing I liked was their brightly colored Disney-esque signage in the parking lot. It reminded me of the signs that you see driving around Walt Disney World.
I'd pre-purchased our tickets at Safeway for $16.99 each, so we didn't have to pay the gate admission of $29.99. (With Wild Waves closed, can you say RIP OFF??) They were offering to upgrade one-day passes to a 2004 Season Pass, which also allowed you to return in December 2003 for Holiday with Lights. Season Passes are only 79.99 for this park, but I was going to check it out before giving them any more of my money.
We walked up to the ticket booths and saw this looooong list of rides that weren't working today. (Wish I'd taken a pic.) If memory serves, the list included Klondike Gold Rusher, The gambler, Dry Slides, Timberaxe and at least two other flat rides. I'm not a fan of Wild Mice, but wanted to ride Klondike, so that was a disappointment right off. Then we looked up the hill to Timberhawk (one of my reasons for wanting to visit) and it looked like it wasn't running either! We had agreed to come back another day if it was down. I stopped at the booth and asked if Timberhawk was running today. The ticket seller said as far as he knew it was, and added sarcastically "There aren't THAT many people in the park to ride it." So it was probably sitting in the station. Then, as if triggered by some unseen cue, we heard the first Timberhawk train rattling down the track. Great! We were going in!
Amber in front of the park entrance
We stepped up to the turnstiles and saw the first of the Fright Fest "haunts." It was a pretty graphic vignette of a skeleton dummy being electrocuted. His face had a shocked expression and when the electricity surged through his body, his bloody bones rattled and a white light came on inside his chest. Ick. I handed over our tickets and they gave me back the stubs. There were no Park Maps visible here, so I figured we'd get one on the Enchanted Village end of the Park.
Entering Wild Waves, lots of things were as I remembered, but integrated with new play areas. The wave pool is to your immediate left when you enter, then you see the new kiddy play area. At the top of the jungle gym was a sort of decapitated pirate head thing that I assume fills up with water gradually and then flips over and splashes out on whoever is standing underneath. There were things to climb on and poles and slides and then more clamshell-looking slides. It was all cute and new and very plastic.
Pirates welcome us to Hook's Lagoon
A little farther down were the zip lines and fast slides that shoot you through a tube and straight down into deep water.
After that, we came to the four old water slides that I remembered loving as a kid. They're very family friendly and lots of fun. My favorite slide is the one that spirals most of the way down before dropping you into the shallow pool at the bottom.
Behind the old slides were two new sets of slides. One that looked like a speed slide; long, straight, fast drop.. and the four new colorful slides that were called the Konga River Run.
At the end was the entrance to the Raging River inner tube ride.
Off to the right hand side is May Lake where they rent Paddle Boats in the summer. As a kid, I remember they also had an ugly crane with attached bungee jump. Thank goodness that eyesore was gone! The lake has a couple of fountains, but neither was running this day.
Near the North end of May Lake was the old ticket booth from the days when Enchanted Village and Wild Waves were separate admissions. It was empty now but had a giant skull with flashing eyes decorating the roof.
Just past the ticket booths were a few oogie "haunts." The first was some bizarre lab experiment gone wrong. There were deformed aliens in tubes, a sickly looking torso puking this green liquid into a trash can, and a lab that looked like it had exploded or been ransacked or both. The next oogie scene had my favorite sign all day! Hehe..
Enchanted? There must be pixies back there flipping the switch on the electric chair.
Bordering the North end of May Lake are several tents that house the Midway, along with a few video games. Most of the tents were closed at this point though.
Midway games with the Wild Thing in the background