http://www.sixflags.com/parks/america/index.asp

Six Flags America Announces the Largest Expansion in the History of its Popular Water Park

So Big, So Exciting, We Had to Re-name it...
“SIX FLAGS HURRICANE HARBOR”

Ultimate Makeover Creates Bigger, Better Water Park

Largo, Maryland — Get ready to be swept away on a tropical adventure! Six Flags America announces the largest expansion in the history of its popular water park! The park's ultimate makeover includes three exciting new attractions, new restaurants, new shops and a facelift so dramatic, the park needed a new name - Six Flags Hurricane Harbor!

Making its public debut on Saturday, May 28, 2005, the new
Six Flags Hurricane Harbor will feature not one but TWO new, high-adventure family thrill rides - Tornado and Bahama Blast - and an all new interactive kid's section called Buccaneer Beach plus a fun, tropical Caribbean theme throughout the park. Ya Mon, it's going to be a great summer!

From the moment Guests walk through the gates at Six Flags Hurricane Harbor, they'll be amazed by the transformation! Bold, bright colors, expanded retail areas, enhanced Guest services, and Caribbean-themed restaurants and snack shops will greet
park-goers. The entire water park will have an “island-feel,” putting sun-seekers in the mood for fun in the sun all summer long!

“This truly is an ultimate makeover,” said Janet Porter, vice president and general manager of Six Flags America. “Our creative team has selected three huge new attractions that can be enjoyed by family and friends and designed a whole new look and feel for Hurricane Harbor.”

For thrill-seekers, two new wet and wild adventures highlight the Six Flags Hurricane Harbor makeover. Tornado, the award-winning attraction that has the entire industry abuzz will hit land Memorial Day weekend. Uniquely designed, Tornado resembles an enormous 60-foot tall household funnel turned on its side. The experience begins 75 feet in the air as riders who are willing to brave the storm, journey down a 132-foot-long tunnel in 4-person cloverleaf-shaped tubes. These unique tubes navigate the inside of the tunnel, splashing back and forth on 5,000 gallons of swirling water. When riders arrive at the vortex of the Tornado, they're sent through the "eye of the storm" into a cool catch pool below! Ride the Ultimate Storm...Tornado!

Bahama Blast is the second new extreme tubing experience that will have Guests cheering for more! This 4-passenger inner tube adventure begins at the top of a 55-foot-tall tower. The wild, wet fun sends riders twisting and splashing along a 517-foot-long, triple-dip course as they maneuver through a spiraling slide of mammoth proportions. The fun is intensified by a serpentine section of closed, dark track that bursts into an equally exciting and adventuresome section of sunny, open track, culminating in a refreshing splash into a cool catch pool. It's a blast...a Bahama Blast!

Also new this summer at Six Flags Hurricane Harbor is a one-of-a-kind children's area with two pools just for toddlers and families! Designed especially for the little fish in the crew, Buccaneer Beach will feature unique, interactive water activities that Mom, Dad and the kids can all enjoy together! Buccaneer Beach will include a pirate ship perfect for would-be explorers, a tiki water curtain, lush palm trees, whimsical slides, rain curtains, spouting interactive water features and a tipping bucket filled with gallons of water play. There's even a treasure-load of deck space and new lounge chairs so adults can relax while their tiny pirates look for gold. Every attraction in Buccaneer Beach is tailor-made for our tiniest guests!

As part of the ultimate makeover, Six Flags America is adding a unique feature never before seen in this part of the country — private water park cabanas! Guests will have the opportunity to rent a private cabana poolside for the day, enabling them to have wait service for food and beverages, personal shade structures and reserved seating at the area's largest water park, Hurricane Harbor.

“This renovation represents the single biggest expansion in the history of our water park and is in direct response to consumer demand for a bigger, better water park,” said Porter. “Renaming the water park Hurricane Harbor not only allows Six Flags to bring the Caribbean experience directly to the Baltimore and Washington, D.C. markets, but also continues the evolution that began with the park's transformation to a Six Flags branded theme park in 1999.”

With the addition of Tornado, Bahama Blast and Buccaneer Beach, the new Hurricane Harbor will feature more than 25
fun-filled water attractions including Hurricane Bay, a million gallon wave pool; Mako and Hammerhead, two high-speed water slides; and the popular Crocodile Cal's Caribbean Beach House. With so much to see and do, Six Flags Hurricane Harbor will be the largest and most thrilling water park in the mid-Atlantic region!

Admission to Hurricane Harbor is FREE with theme park admission. Six Flags America will be open weekends beginning April 9th. (Operating times vary; check sixflags.com for exact times.) Weekend operation continues in May, with additional operating days on May 13, 20 and 27th. Daily operation begins May 27 and runs through August 28, plus September 3-5 and 10-11. Hurricane Harbor water park is open May 28-30 and daily June 3 - August 28 and Sept 3-5.

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If you can't stand the heights, get out of the line.

Great news for SFA. SFNE's 2003 HH expansion was bigger, but this is still great. I like the private water park cabanas feature. Probably in 2/3 years HH will get a Proslide Rocket like what SFNE did this year. I wonder why SF changed their mind and announce SFNE's and SFA's rides today instead of tomorrow like they were going to do in the frist place?

As long as they give the the same general makeover to Paradise Island at SFA as they did at SFNE when their waterpark was converted to Hurricane Harbor, I'll be happy. Hurricane Harbor at SFNE is just absolutly beautiful and SFA's waterpark was badly in need of a makeover. I'm sure you'll see future additions to SFA's new HH once the park sees the response the improved waterpark gets. I mean, they've added several new slides to SFNE's waterpark and it's been drawing in the crowds like crazy. A master blaster type slide could be in the future, but the delema most likely would be where to put it. Without expanding behind the wavepool, I don't know where else they would build in the waterpark. I'm pretty curious to see where the 2005 additions are going to be put in...

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If you can't stand the heights, get out of the line.

Not another Tornado! When will this end? Six Flags should actually try to make their waterparks unique. Not just add the same two rides into every one of their water parks. Well Six Flags will keep doing this until all of their waterparks are loaded with Proslide rides. Someone should invest in Proslide right around now. (if they even hav public trading)

The thing is, none of the large waterparks in the area around SFA (Dorney, PKD, Water Country USA) have a similar attraction. It will be a hit on it's own. For example, a masterblaster slide at SFA would do similarly as well considering there is nothing anywhere around that has anything similar.

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If you can't stand the heights, get out of the line.

^Exactly the point in putting in the tornado,now granted the Bahama blast slide appears to also be a newer model not seen at other waterparks in the region.

The locations of the two new slides are as follows:Tornado will be located in between tahitti twister & black hole/bonzai pipeline,while Bahama blast will be located on the opposite side of Tahitti twister,more near the parking lot.

I was really hoping for one of those near freefall speed slides, but these sound like fun too.

For all those who didn't understand that, the park's website has the new park map up, and if you're still wondering where everything fits in, I decided to help out with this overhead pic:

Pic Key:
Red Outline: the private poolside cabanas
Blue Outline: Buccaneer Beach
Yellow Outline: Tornado
Purple Outline: Bahama Blast

Also check out the parks website to see what names many of the attractions have been changed to.

Attached Thumbnails

 

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If you can't stand the heights, get out of the line.

The only thing I would change would be, put Buccaneer Beach next to Cals Caribbean Hideout. This keeps the little tots from running into me as I make my way to and from the main park.

Funny.... How the water park use to be the main park and now things are reversed.

The only reason Buccaneer Beach is where it is, is because it's just an expansion of the current Kid's Cove area of thne waterpark.

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If you can't stand the heights, get out of the line.

They should really put thousands of lounge chairs and a new changing facility like they did with SFNE in 2003. HH will be crowded. SFNE's HH when I went there in 2003 and the years before that, it took me like 5 mins. just to find a chair. It will be the same as in SFA, I bet. I think they are going to put another HH expansion soon. With 3 new HH attractions, they didn't even bother to put more lounge chairs only private ones. Hope they put a lot of theming like SFNE did in 2003. I looking foward to see how it looks this season. By the way, I'm only compare SFNE's HH to SFA's HH because SFNE and SFA are the only SF to re-name their water parks to HH and to expanded it this big.

^^LOL just how much time do you spend at HH per visit anyhow?

If I want to get wet I just take a spin on TSC or PBR,SWF is a bit too wet for my liking,same with RR....after all one shower a day is more than enough for me.

At east with all the focus being on HH this year it should reduce the crowds for the coasters & now that the expansion willl be completed they can hopefully turn their marketing attention toward boosting the parks coaster count by 07.

Yeah, seriously, who cares about water ride? They haven't had a coaster in 4 years, and it looks like it's going to be 5. Their last addition was a water ride. Well, hopefully it can help raise funds for a coaster soon.

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I don't feel like manually adding my Track Record, so I'm just going to tell you it's 210.
Towson '09

^Remember that it's corporate who decides where the rides are going & what they'll be,not really the individual parks,which is why parks like SFMM,SFGRADV & SFGRAM have been rather spoiled in that dept. lately.

There may be somewhat good news in the coaster dept. at SFA,I heard today that two coasters might be getting new paint this year,which ones they are I don't know yet but I'm sure Mind eraser is probably one of them.

Now I'm hopeful that we may finally see a coaster added by 07 because we really need one,06 will probably be an off year as that's been SFA's trend with Batwing added in 01,off year in 02,PBR in 03 ,off year in 04 & HH being added/expanded in 05 so I'm quite sure we won't see any additions made in 06....let's hope I'm proven wrong but if I'm right then let's all hope 07 will be our year to finally recieve a new,much needed coaster.

Actually, I spend quit bit of time Paradise Island, that's where I dump the wife while I ride coasters. Then I come back and take a dip or two in the wave pool to cool off before heading home. If the lines aren't long for the slides, I might ride one or two of those also. I can spend five or six hours at SFA and have hit the water park and ride all of the coasters.

As quoted from in the press release "There's even a treasure-load of deck space and new lounge chairs so adults can relax while their tiny pirates look for gold." I'm assuming that not only will there be a ton of new lounge chairs around Buccaneer Beach (the area this quote is refering to), but a ton of new lounge chairs around the entire waterpark.

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If you can't stand the heights, get out of the line.

My bad I didn't see that. I always go to a water park. I only go to theme parks during the summer so I would rather go to a pool where you don't have to wait in line then rather going to a water ride in the theme park side and waiting 30 mins or more. Makes more sense.

BatwingFan SFA, what's up with you. SFA doesn't not need a coaster yet and be happy that SFA is getting something. Their next coaster will probably be a family coaster like a Spinning Coaster. They need more flats, and developed Gotham City before putting more coasters. Common SFA, you guys need to put more restrooms, shops, a better atmosphere, and resturants in Gotham.

They really need a new restroom in gotham city,the eating establishments there are fine for now & the area could really use a few flats perhaps in the area adjacent to JJ,or over by Batwing/Superman to fill in the bald spots in that section.

Nantucket can also use some more flats.....a spinning mouse would go fine over on that side of the park though & they could also use a new coaster over in coyote creek behind the rapids somewhere to draw more peeps to that area of the park.

Anyone gonna try & get any construction pics of HH? too bad it seems like the parks isn't doing a webcam like at SFGRADV or SFGRAM this year & as for wanting a new coaster what can I say? I just enjoy riding coasters & flats a bit more than the water rides,now if they add a new flat in 06 like say a frisbee over where the enterprise was I wouldn't complain.

By the way did SFA admission increased? It's now $39.99 was it the same last year?

Last year it was $36.99 or at the most $37.99 plus tax with a parking fee of $9.00.

The parking fee went up to $10.00 this season so I guess the general admission price went up as well,they gotta generate extra revenue somehow to cover the expansion costs after all.

Anyone want to wager on which slide gets completed first? I'm putting my money on Bahama Blast being the first to finish construction,Tornado looks like it'll take a while just to get the support framework up let alone the main funnel itself.