What did you think of Hurricane Harbor?

[FRD714]

Now that the season is almost over and most of you have had the chance to go to HH, what did you think of it. Rate it from 1-5 with 5 being the best.

I give it a 4. I never went to HH, but it looks pretty cool. The only thing I noticed about it was that it was always crowded.

[kahmooza]

One

[coasterinsane]

5 even though i love roller coasters me and my friends would go there thinking we would only do a slide or two, by the time we finished in there it was pitch black and time to go home.

[Aero737]

Any reason behind rating it a one kahmooza? You make your point a while lot more valid if you at least make an attempt to state your claim and explain your choice.


I never rode any of the slides, swam in any of the pools, or ate at any of the attractions, but I did stroll through it once and the theming is something else. The real palm trees ruled. Inside Hurricane Harbor, it's hard to believe your in Northern Illinois at an amusement park.

Based on the theming alone I would rate it a 4.

[Trailblazer Tony]

The slides were good and worthy of a 4

Skull Island was the best hour of the day when i went there so definitely a five on that one.

The only downfall is the crowds which have nothing to do with the park.

Finally, the themeing would set it over the top for me and i would without a doubt give it a five stars, if not more

[FRD714]

I will have to try HH out next year. The slides just look awesome and skull island is the coolest thing I have ever seen.

[greatamerica2003]

I think I will give Hurricane Harbor a 4 1/2. Not quite a five and I will tell you why.

Theming. I thought it was SUPERB. It shows that Six Flags CAN INDEED create a wonderfully themed environment. As the company strives to get back to a family image it's very important. Grandma and Grandpa tend not to ride rollercoasters, but attend shows and admire flowers, plants and general atmosphere (something that the Marriott years were known for). That being said, HH is a sunny and hot place and not always shady. But the carribean town theme with real palm trees and a tiki bar is simply amazing. As well as a diverse selection of food rather than regular park fare. I hope this type of thinking will spill into the rest of the property.

Attractions. You can get waterslides just about anywhere. I am not saying that they aren't thrilling and fun, because they definetley are. The body slides are nice and fast, the tube slides are as well. The family raft slides are a hit (one gives airtime on par with a rollercoaster) but they all pale in comparison with SKULL ISLAND. It was very hot they day we went, but standing under the dump buckets was more thrilling than any waterslide. Good job Six Flags, you scored on this one. The downers were that the wave pool was not large enough and the waves weren't all that great, and there wasn't a "quiet" pool to relax and cool off in. 2006 maybe

Access. I think everyone will agree with me that getting to HH isn't much fun, and that the entrance should be a by the Sky Trek Tower. The walk is far into the park, and everyone thinks that they did this only to scam you on skill games and merchandise. While this is partly true, thats not the entire reason........

Think of it this way. Great America opens at 10 am. Hurricane Harbor opens at 11 am. So for an hour you have people beginning to stream in to wait for HH to open so they can stake a claim on some chairs. While this is happening, there are still more coming in the front gate to enter the park. What were to happen to the Carousel Plaza area if there were 2000 people jammed into it while more were coming in during the 10 to 11 period. Its the busiest time of the day for the front gate! You wouldn't be able to move there would be so many people! By having the entrance farther into the park, you eliminate the bottleneck effect in Carousel Plaza. And the same happens at night. Can you imagine 4000 people all walking into the front gate area at once while folks are still entering the park after grilling in the parking lot? A nightmare waiting to happen. You let them out where the park can better disperse the crowd. So its a 2 sided coin.

So there it is. A great first season for this, and a wonderful idea long time coming. A family attraction that made a ton of dollars in a place dominated by teenagers who don't spend much money.

[kahmooza]

Well Aero the author said rate it. Which I did.

I would just prefer new rides. Let alone short lines for the ones we got. With the water park we get no new rides for some time to come. Their coasters are getting outdone big time. If you don't think they are now wait until 5 years from now all they do is add some more weak has-been flats and waterpark stuff. They will lose the coaster race big time. Especially if they have the new one in, old one out policy going on.

Longer lines for coasters, especially at night when in the good old days they would get shorter. That I know the majority agree on.

I am just as close to WI Dells which has waterparks that put HH to shame. So HH does absolutely nothing for me. They are going to try to cram all waterpark folks from Chi town and Mil town into that little area. Good luck with that. $$$ is what the park sees, screw customer satisfaction right? When HH closes for the season the rest of the days in the year are getting down right aggravating.

Will they extend the daily operation schedule during pre Memorial day and post Labor day? Doubtful.

Not to sound selfish but it was just a bad idea. The park may have done this because they can't go over RB's height, or maybe just because they knew what it would do to attendance. I don't care for the idea that I can't get to the park at 1 or 2 in the afternoon and be able to get in to HH. I also don't care for HH only being open until 7pm. I also don't care for all the times they make everyone get out of that lame wave pool every 15 minutes for some safety thing. Or how about having half the slides closed every time I went in there? Maybe its the lack of having lockers spread throughout the harbor instead of all one place (I may have missed some I don't waste money on them anyways).

Will I still get a season pass in 06? Of course. Will I enjoy the park as much as I used to? Nope. (Thanks to HH)

Theres my justification for giving HH a one. Critique away; I know you will .

[mschulz5]

Longer lines for coasters, especially at night when in the good old days they would get shorter. That I know the majority agree on.

Longer Lines for the night hours, but I don't know if you noticed, but during the daylight hours, the lines were considerably shorter than they had been in the past. Would I trade 2-3 hours of short lines for 8-10 hours of short lines? Hell yes I would.

[DejaVuGurl1203]

Five. I thought they did a great job with the theming and all the slides are amazing. It will be even better with the tornado next year. Though lines were horrid most of the time, it was still worthwile. And taking the lines away from the theme park is even better, when I'm not at the water park..

[Rusty888]

i thought it was cool when i got to do a photo shoot cause my cousin worked there and there were no lines at all, but the lines were to long on regular days so i give it a 4.

[Bobby]

I thought that the water park was okay. I was there on opening day of the water park and they were still testing some of the slides. I got in line for the Wahoo Racer and they were still testing that and i recieved the go ahead from the people that were testing it. So to my knowledge i was the first person from the general public to go down that slide. So in that sense the water park was cool. The water was warm on opening day but I went on the following weekend and the water was very cold. My complant is that they made the water park way too small. They land is large but everything is very spread out. The wavepool is not deep enough.

I thought that is was so funny during peak season they were not leting people who rented tubes bring them into the wave pool. lol Also the wavepool is not deep enough.

[Gangsta Fruit 26]

I will give it a 3. I don't like waterparks. I would way rather ride a roller coaster. I'm mad that they didn't get a new coaster. They should have torn down Whizzer and put in a B&M Floorless in its spot.

For being a waterpark it is pretty good. The theming is pretty cool. It makes you feel like your in the Carribean or something. But the Noah's Ark is much better. There are more slides and better ones too. All the slides in HH are all the same. And that thing about the wave pool closing every 15 minutes is retarded.

So I kind of agree with kahmooza.

[Binks Drake]

I'd give it a four. I have to agree with Bobby up there, the slides are way too spaced out. They could have made it smaller and saved a bit of money. It could be good planning for future expansion, but I doubt it. There's a reason SFI is not in the business of building parks anymore.

[rct2wizard360]

They could have made it smaller and saved a bit of money.

It hits capacity easily enough as it is. Let's not make it an hour to get into a packed water park.

I'd give it a three out of five.

-Slides were great
-Lazy River great
-Skull Island, okay
-Staff not as up to par as even large local pools.
-Theming was excellent.

[themanoftheland8]

I would give it a 3. Living in Wisconsin, I have gone to Noah's Ark, and I feel that Noah's Ark has much better slides. In HH, the slides in my opinion were nothing like they could be, and the waits were way too long. Also, I think they should build another wave pool with higher waves (they have the space to do it). Finally, I think they should get more of a variety of slides (hopefully they will next year).

[basketballa1344]

Ok funny thing about the theming and the palm trees: they had to spray paint the trees to keep them green. About the crowded factor, you have to remember that it was the parks first year open so everyone wanted to see it. I never actually visited the park but I did work in it a significant amount of the summer. The lifeguards and such were pretty good (remember the guy they saved when he had a heart attack). Also, you have to figure out the best times to go for it not to be crowded. Some days it started out cooler in the morning so less people would come to the park that day. Also, once schools started opening back up, the park would only get like 800 people if that many.

[Drkstarboard]

1

One word: sucks

[kahmooza]

Well, average vote so far is 3.58

[FRD714]

Dont tell me you just figured that out with a calculator. Well thanks for the avg. anyway.

[EagleFan344]

Never went there

[FRD714]

^ Well, you can rate it anyway. Im sure you saw it when you were at sfgam. Just say what you thought about it.

[EagleFan344]

Uno

[kahmooza]

3.39 avg

14 votes into 47.5 total points...(for my future reference)

[FRD714]

^ Thanks again! Judging by the avg, id day HH is rated an OK at this point.