Who Remembers Wacky Waters Water Park in Davenport?

 

Wacky Waters was the place where your parents handed you twenty bucks at 10 in the morning and basically said, “Good luck surviving.”

Then they disappeared for six hours.

The park opened in Davenport in 1984, off Interstate 80, and for Quad Cities’ kids it quickly became the greatest place on earth besides maybe Aladdin’s Castle at the mall.

Before Wacky Waters, summer mostly meant sweating in somebody’s backyard kiddie pool while mosquitoes carried off small pets.

Then suddenly there were water slides. Not normal water slides either. These things looked like they’d been designed by a man who hated chiropractors.

The Daredevil and Thunderbolt towers were gigantic. At least they felt gigantic when you were nine and wearing jelly sandals. You’d stand at the bottom staring up while another kid shot out the end like a human missile and skipped across the water face first.

Naturally, your brain went, “Yep. I should do that.”

The stairs were the first challenge.

Metal stairs. Bare feet. Ninety-four degrees outside. Somewhere around step forty, you questioned every life choice that led you there.

When you reached the top, a sunburned lifeguard who couldn’t have been older than twelve, waved you forward with the emotional investment of a DMV employee.

The next thing you knew, water blasted directly into your eyeballs and nose while your spine briefly exited your body.

People loved it.

The wave pool was pure Midwestern chaos.

A warning bell rang every few minutes, and everyone started drifting toward the deep end like zombies hearing a dinner bell. Then the machine kicked on and it became Lord of the Flies with inner tubes.

Kids disappeared underwater. Teenagers tried to flirt while getting punched in the face by floating tubes. Dad’s lost prescription sunglasses. Moms lost their voices screaming at kids to stay out of the deep end.

The park expanded over the years. It added more slides, bumper boats, zip lines, and a mini golf course in the 80s and 90s.

Kids nagged parents to hold their birthday parties there. A couple got married on top of a slide in August 1986. Then they rode down afterward because apparently normal wedding photos weren’t stressful enough.

By the early 2000s, the place was looking rough. The paint faded. Bigger parks like Adventureland and Six Flags pulled crowds away, and pretty soon Wacky Waters couldn’t compete.

The park shut down in 2006. For a while the empty slides sat there baking in the sun. Then they were gone.

People still talk about that place, though. Mention Wacky Waters around anyone over forty and watch their eyes light up.

Everyone’s got a story.

Almost drowning in the wave pool. Getting stuck on the slide behind a guy who weighed four hundred pounds. Burning their feet so badly that they had to run on towels. Or throwing up after eating two hot dogs, then riding the Thunderbolt six times in a row.

It wasn’t Disney World. That’s probably why everybody remembers it.