GET WET

From Niagara Falls to the Hudson River, from Peconic Bay to the Finger Lakes, New York has been blessed with natural waterways of staggering beauty.  Never content with the status quo, however, we’ve built dozens of man-made wet and wild attractions that give Mother Nature a run for her money. Anyone who’s ridden The Helix at Seabreeze’s Raging Rivers Waterpark or the Big Kahuna at Darien Lake knows exactly what that means. The Erie Canal may have been New York’s first outstanding feat of nautical engineering, but it’s hardly our last.

Over a dozen water parks can be found across New York, offering summertime (or year-round) diversions for thrill seekers and families alike. And yet, in a state this big, there’s always room for more. This year, you’ll be happy to know, there are two incredible new developments at New York’s water parks that are sure to bring out the big crowds.

These two new attractions are both at the same park, Great Escape Lodge and Splashwater Kingdom in Lake George. There, adrenaline junkies can get their latest fix on the Mega Wedgie, a brand-new ride whose whimsical name belies the chest-pounding effect it produces.  The Mega Wedgie starts out with an 80-foot, gut-dropping descent through a dark tunnel that hurls riders into a large, multi-hued bowl. Spinning around and around the conical saucer at an ever-increasing clip, you are eventually funneled into a corkscrew center and dropped into a splash pool below. Except for the testimony of a few hardy “test pilots,” widespread reaction to the ride won’t be out until its debut in May, but officials at Six Flags are confident the ride will make a big splash (pun fully intended).

You probably won’t find many adrenaline junkies at a place called Wiggles World, but you will find kids, lots of kids. Indeed, if this new attraction brings in only a fraction of the 22 million families that have bought DVDs of the Wiggles’ popular Disney television show, it’ll be one of the biggest draws in all of the Adirondacks—and easily recoup the $3 million it cost to create.

Wiggles World will feature, appropriately, Wiggles-themed rides, The Big Red Car and The Big Red Plane among them. The Yummy Yummy Café will serve up kid-sized treats. The Wiggles themselves—Sam, Murray, Jeff, and Anthony—will perform at the park on a date to be announced. And supporting Wiggles characters like Dorothy the Dinosaur, Captain Feathersword, Wags the Dog, and Henry the Octopus will perform daily in the “Get Ready to Wiggle” show at the Wiggle Theater. Then, parents who’ve reached their daily quotient of wiggling can take turns running over to the Mega Wedgie with the other grown-ups.

If you can’t make it up to the Adirondacks this summer for New York’s latest in water-park entertainment, don’t worry. With plenty of parks offering surf and sun across the state (see inset), you can get wet and wild wherever you like. Plus, two major, indoor water parks are in the works for 2009 and 2010. The Cascades Indoor Waterpark and Aquazonia Indoor Waterworld—both slated for construction in the Greater Rochester/Finger Lakes region—will bring even more year-round fun soon enough!