tz
/ July 16, 2026
Elitch Gardens Theme & Water Park sits on about 65 acres along the Platte River in downtown Denver, Colorado, combining roughly 40 rides — including six roller coasters — with the adjacent 20-acre Island Kingdom Family Water Park. It’s one of the few U.S. amusement
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tz
/ July 12, 2026
Enchanted Forest Water Safari is a water and amusement park in Old Forge, New York, tucked into the Adirondack Mountains. It opened on July 7, 1956 as The Enchanted Forest of the Adirondacks, a storybook-themed attraction built on 35 acres of reclaimed swampland, and was
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tz
/ July 11, 2026
Morey’s Piers has been a fixture on the Wildwood boardwalk since 1969, when brothers Bill and Will Morey Sr. purchased two boardwalk lots in North Wildwood and opened a single attraction: a 40-foot fiberglass slide called the Wipe Out, where riders paid a quarter to
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tz
/ July 11, 2026
Darien Lake is a large amusement park and resort in Darien Center, New York, roughly midway between Buffalo and Rochester and about 45 minutes from Niagara Falls. The park opened in May 1981 as Darien Lake Fun Country on a sprawling property that today covers
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tz
/ July 11, 2026
Elitch Gardens is Denver’s 65-acre theme and water park, and one of the oldest continuously operating amusement parks in the United States, with roots stretching back to 1890. It’s also a park whose future has been in the news almost as much as its rides,
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tz
/ July 11, 2026
Adventureland is a family-owned-turned-corporate amusement park in Altoona, Iowa, just northeast of Des Moines. Founded by Jack Krantz and opened in August 1974, the park grew from a modest local attraction into one of the Midwest’s most-visited theme parks, spread across roughly 176 to 180
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tz
/ July 11, 2026
Waldameer Park & Water World sits at the base of Presque Isle State Park in Erie, Pennsylvania, where it has drawn lakeside crowds since 1896 — making 2026 its 130th season. Originally a picnic ground called Hoffman’s Grove, the site was leased and renamed by
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tz
/ July 11, 2026
Lake Compounce isn’t just a nostalgia trip — it’s a fully modern amusement and water park that happens to trace its roots back to 1846, making it the oldest continuously operating amusement park in the United States. Straddling the Bristol-Southington line in Connecticut, the 332-acre
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tz
/ July 11, 2026
Ocean Breeze Waterpark sits just two miles south of the Virginia Beach oceanfront, and it holds a title no other local attraction can claim: the only full-scale water park in the Hampton Roads region. What started in 1974 as a small slide operation called Jungle
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tz
/ July 11, 2026
Wild Water Adventure Park sits on 52 acres in Clovis, California, just outside Fresno, where the Siggers family has run a summer water playground since the property first opened for recreation in 1974 as Serena Vista Lakes, a tranquil fishing and camping spot. Greg Siggers
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tz
/ July 11, 2026
Holiday World ’ Safari sits in the town of Santa Claus, Indiana, where retired industrialist Louis J. Koch opened it in 1946 as Santa Claus Land, making it one of the oldest theme parks still operating in the United States. The park was rebranded Holiday
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tz
/ July 10, 2026
Myrtle Waves has been Myrtle Beach’s largest water park since it threw open its gates on June 1, 1985, and heading into the 2026 season it’s still splashing away on Mr. Joe White Avenue, just off the Grand Strand. Four decades in, the park is
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tz
/ July 9, 2026
Michigan’s Adventure sits just outside Muskegon and holds the title of the largest amusement park in the state, spreading across roughly 250 acres alongside its adjoining water park, WildWater Adventure. What began in 1956 as a small petting zoo called Deer Park has grown into
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tz
/ July 8, 2026
Valleyfair has been the Twin Cities’ go-to theme park for 50 years, growing from a 26-acre park with 20 rides in 1976 into Minnesota’s largest amusement park — headlined today by the 207-foot hypercoaster Wild Thing and the newly expanded Superior Shores waterpark. Ownership changed
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tz
/ July 3, 2026
Six Flags Hurricane Harbor Arlington is North Texas’s biggest water park, sprawled across 47 acres directly opposite Six Flags Over Texas in Arlington’s entertainment district. It’s home to a roughly one-million-gallon wave pool, a lineup of thrill slides that drop riders six stories, and a
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tz
/ July 2, 2026
For 35 summers, Breakers Water Park was the place Tucson-area families went to beat the desert heat, floating in a wave pool the size of a small lake and racing down slides that kept getting taller and faster. Then, almost overnight in early 2018, it
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tz
/ June 30, 2026
Soak City is the 35-acre water park inside Kings Island in Mason, Ohio, and it’s included free with every Kings Island ticket and season pass — no separate water park admission required. With 36 water slides, two wave pools, a lazy river, a dual-racing water
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tz
/ June 25, 2026
Noah’s Ark Waterpark in Lake Delton, Wisconsin — at the heart of the Wisconsin Dells resort corridor — has carried the title of America’s Largest Outdoor Waterpark since 1987, when the opening of The Wave gave the park enough scale to claim that distinction. Spreading
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tz
/ June 24, 2026
Aquatica Orlando opened on March 1, 2008, as SeaWorld’s dedicated water park — a 59-acre Pacific-themed playground built for roughly $50 million adjacent to SeaWorld Orlando. The park attracted about 950,000 guests in its debut year alone, ranking as the fourth-most visited water park in
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tz
/ June 23, 2026
Disney’s Blizzard Beach is the rare water park where the theming is as memorable as the slides — a fictional Florida ski resort that melted into 60-plus acres of raft rides, a 120-foot free fall, and a lazy river with its own ice cave. It’s
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