A sad visit to [Wild Waves] in more ways than one

Life takes you crazy places, some places you’d never expect. I find myself living in Portland Oregon, a very unfortunate circumstance for a coaster enthusiast. I moved to Portland about a month ago for grad school, and was prepared for my time here to be… well difficult with respect to getting new credits. I know that Oaks park exists, and I hit that in the first 2 weeks of living here. I know Enchanted Forest exists but that’s hard to get to, and not really worth it just for those roller coasters. And of course I know about Wild Waves and its impending demise. So of course after moving to Portland in August, it’s in the back of my mind that I basically have 3 months to get to Wild Waves before it’s too late. I wasn’t sure if it was worth the trip or not, but the fact that it was now or never kind of forced my hand. So I planned a weekend trip up to Seattle, and tried to make the most of it while I was here. Take the afternoon Amtrak up through Washington on Saturday (a lovely and scenic journey btw), hit the Mariners game Saturday night, and venture out to Wild Waves on Sunday.

So I arrived to Wild Waves on Sunday 9/6 at around 12:15 AM. I hit the Space Needle in the morning and figured I wasn’t in much of a rush to get to Wild Waves right when it opened, since there were only 4 credits and a handful of other rides. I arrived to Wild Waves and was greeted by a nice lake right when you walk in. The water park kinda smacks you in the face upon entry, and the coasters and dry rides are scattered about the perimeter of the park. So I found a map, looked for Timberhawk, and made my way up the side of this hill back to where Timber hawk was hidden away. I was greeted by an atrocious looking line, but I was at least glad the ride was running. I had heard this ride can be down a lot of the time and so at least I was gonna get the credit even if it took an hour wait.

Credit #1: Timberhawk Ride of Prey, 5.5/10. And take an hour it did. This line was pretty awful, despite it actually moving decently well. Why did it take an hour you might ask? Well they were only running 1 train (I think they might only own one train), and they were doing 5 minute dispatches. I timed it, and I waited in line for 52 minutes and 8 trains dispatched during that time including mine. As for the ride itself, I found it painfully boring. It was smooth though! But I didn’t get much airtime at all besides a few small floater pops here and there. The drop was completely forceless, and it felt like it meandered around a lot. But hey, it wasn’t uncomfortable at all and was shockingly quite smooth.

So that took an hour and I wasn’t really expecting to be waiting that much. So next I kinda snaked around the back of the park until I found the Wild Mouse, which I had also heard was SBNO. But today it was up and running, albeit with 2 tiny trains. So this line maybe had 40 people in it, so it didn’t look awful, but it took 40 minutes to get through.

Credit #2 of the day: Klondike Gold Rusher, 4.5/10. This is a perfectly inoffensive little ride. I suppose it is a little bit jank but not the worst ride ever. The way they run it is much worse than the ride itself. Only loading 1 train at a time and only one “party” per train. So if you have a group of 2, then the back row of that train would go completely unused because you can only have one “party” per train. Anyways, this wild mouse was just that, a wild mouse, but it pissed me off more than usual because I waited an hour for it.

At this point I had been at the park about 2 hours and had only been on two things. I had a train to catch back in Seattle leaving at 5:40, so I was a little anxious about catching that. I hadn’t planned on spending much time here, because honestly I didn’t expect very many lines at all. But between the awful operations and a decent crowd, it was clear my time at this park would be quite brief. So I figured I better not mess around with the kiddee coaster, and I better go get the last real credit, Wild Thing. I made sure to keep along the perimeter of the park so as to explore every nook and cranny, and eventually arrived at Wild Thing. This was the least awful line of the day, and it only took about 15 minutes which was a pleasant surprise.

Credit #3: Wild Thing, 5/10. It’s an arrow loop and corkscrew. At best it will be nothing special and at worst it will be a rough mess. This one I’m glad to report was not that rough and just kinda boring. So yeah you go through the inversions then turn into the breaks, not much too it. At least it wasn’t rough. It’s also a quite pretty ride.

I forgot to mention that between the Wild Mouse and Wild Thing, I stopped for a chocolate chip cookie which was actually really good. It had either just been made or just heated up and it was really gooey and warm and delicious. So my limited food experience at Wild Waves was a positive one.

At this point I decided I would rather play it safe with the train, and maybe catch the end of the Apple Cup, rather than try and re-ride Timberhawk or get on a flat ride. Speaking of flat rides, (and honestly anything to do besides the roller coasters excluding the water park) there’s not much here. There actually would be a decent selection, if half of them weren’t already permanently closed. I don’t know how long these have been sitting abandoned for, but there were several rides here that had clearly not been touched in a while and had no intention of ever operating again. That includes Timber Axe, a Zamperla Ranger which looked quite fun, a sky coaster, a Bayern Kurve, and a log flume. That left only a couple of flat rides that were still open, and the limited selection included the world’s lamest Ferris wheel, a tiny drop tower, a scrambler, and some comically tiny kids flats. From what I managed to gather from walking around this place, the water park was fully operational, and also completely packed.

So that leaves me to my final thoughts about Wild Waves. Yes I only rode 3 things, but I did walk around the entire park and got a decent feel for it. It’s a very nicely landscaped park. There are lots of pine trees scattered about, and the back half of the park over by Timberhawk was up on a hill and kinda nestled back into the woods. So that was a great vibe, kinda discovering the place as you walked back into the woods. But I’ll be honest, other than the landscape this place kinda sucked. The lines and the operations were awful. The ride selection isn’t great at full capacity, and with half their flats permanently closed it was even worse. And my biggest complaint about this place, is the price. A one day ticket cost $68. That’s completely insane. I went ahead and paid it because I was already in Seattle when I looked at the website to buy tickets. But I was completely shocked when I found out that was the getting in price. I mean you could get into literal Cedar Point for less. And asking that much money for a very pathetic, very closed ride selection is just a complete joke. I really hope it’s a “last season screw it” hike in prices, and that it wasn’t like this all the time. Throw in the fact that I had to take a $70 Uber each way from Seattle to get here, and yeah this is 100% not worth the money. Do I regret going? Well honestly kinda, but I suppose I had no way of knowing this place would kinda suck, and this was my last chance ever to explore it for myself.

So sorry to end on a sour note, but yeah Wild Waves in Federal Way Washington… isn’t great. It’s extremely expensive, the operations are awful, and the rides are ok at best. But it’s beautiful to walk around as it’s only redeeming quality. And you have about 2 months left to get up there and experience it for yourself. I always recommend everyone go out and experience stuff for themselves rather than conforming to the opinion of the masses. But be warned, if you do decide to make the trip up to Seattle, it won’t be a cheap visit.

So anyways I’d love to hear everyone else’s thoughts about Wild Waves in Federal Way, Washington. Did I just catch it on a bad day? Are all these flat rides newly closed due to the parks circumstances, or have those been closed for a while? Did I miss out on some signature flat ride that makes this place worth it? I’d love to hear from the community about this place.

TL;DR I went to Wild Waves in Federal Way, Washington because I wanted to experience it before it closes forever on November 2nd. I only got 3 rides in, and all 3 were the main roller coaster credits. They were all pretty average, which wasn’t unexpected but still disappointing. I found Timberhawk to be the most disappointing, because while it was smooth, it didn’t have any forces at all. The operations here are also terrible, and make the lines take forever. Another huge problem is that it costs $68 to get in, and it is 100% not worth the money. I didn’t go in the water park, but it was extremely crowded and seemed popular. I didn’t eat much here but I got a cookie that was really good. And the main redeeming quality about this place is that it’s gorgeous, nestled in the woods of Washington.