Are you just waiting to hit some of the best water parks in the country? If you’re like many water park fans, you are seeking more than just your average, garden-variety water park. You are likely hoping to find some of the most extreme water parks in America.

What is an extreme water park? An extreme water park is the type of water experience that takes the concept of the water park to the next notch. An extreme water park either has some of the most intense water thrill rides around. These can include very tall and/or long slides, large pools, usually includes water parks where special visual and/or sound effects are used, and also can include any park where a significant number of its rides are considered thrilling by most measures.

While many water parks in the United States can be considered “extreme,” let’s look at five which especially help to define the idea of what extreme water parks are.

Wet & Wild
Orlando

Offering high-speed, high-adrenalin, white-knuckle thrills Wet & Wild in Orlando brings the water park experience to the extreme. With rides that include a six-story drop (Der Stuka), 65-foot funnel (Brain Wash), three different courses combining 1700 feet of thrills (Mach 5), 76-foot drop nearly straight down (The Bomb Bay), music (Disco H20), and twists and turns combined with wild lights and sounds (The Black Hole: The Next Generation).

Disney’s Blizzard Beach
Orlando

Thrilling water attractions and masterful theming by Disney brings extreme water park thrill seekers to a ski resort in subtropical Florida. The snow-laden Mount Gushmore is a major attraction in and of itself at Blizzard Beach, but the spot-on addition of a ski-resort chair lift which brings guests from the ground up to the fun on the mountain is an absolutely unique addition to this incredible water park. Summit Plummet is a chilling thrill slide that stands 120 feet high, is 360 feet long, and plummets riders through a tunnel at up to 60 mph.

Wisconsin Dells
The Dells

Proclaiming itself the “water park capital of the world,” The Wisconsin Dells offers an incredible thing to northern residents – 85-degree days in the winter! That’s right! Talk about “extreme” (or just plain old ingenious), Wisconsin Dells offers an indoor water park so that even during the chilly Midwest winter days, spill seekers can still get wet on a number of wild and thrilling water rides.

Schlitterbahn Waterpark Resort
Houston

Wunderbar! If extreme water parks is what you are looking for, don’t forget to head Houston’s way, too! It is no wonder as to why Schlitterbahn is the top-attended seasonal water park in the country – innovative and thrilling tubes, slides, rapids, and rides rule. From slides built around what is billed as the “world’s largest Coke float” to a 70,000 indoor/outdoor convertible attraction that allows for climate-controlled water fun, Schlitterbahn and its Houston-region water parks offer many extreme experiences you will not soon forget.

Six Flags’ Hurricane Harbor
Los Angeles

If you’re looking for extreme water park thrills on the West Coast, look no further than Six Flags’ Hurricane Harbor. The Tornado plummets you 7 stories into a funnel measuring 132 feet long. Black Snake Summit is a collection of five extreme slides – two are the tallest enclosed slides in southern California.

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