I can’t say enough how much our family loved our Southern California vacation. We planned it and booked it ourselves through some research online and through that process discovered Knott's Berry Farm.
An amusement park, water park, marketplace, and hotel all in one space in Anaheim.
We spent three nights at the hotel and also spent a day exploring Knott’s Soak City Water Park. When it’s 80 and sunny in the summer, the kids couldn’t resist the brightly colored waterslides towering over the park’s gates.
My kids’ favorite slide of the day resided in the recent expansion, Shore Break Towers, standing taller than seven stories. Four of the slides in this tower were capsule slides where you climb in a chamber and then wait for the floor to drop out from under you and shoot you into a slide. My 7-year-old daughter, 9-year-old son, and husband all loved it–I waved to them from the ground!
So, what slide did I like best? That would be The Wedge, a tube family slide that can seat up to six riders. There was nothing more fun to me than being able to ride down the slide and watch the smiles and hear the laughter of my kids as I rode backward the entire way and didn’t know what was coming next.
My second favorite was also part of Shore Break. They had dueling slides that blended the fun of a water slide with that of a log flume. Each slide had a fun drop at the end that reminded me of the drop on a small log flume.
Also not to miss is Soak City’s version of the lazy river. Sunset River at a third of a mile in length is one of the longest and widest lazy rivers in the world. It was so great to be able to float along without experiencing the logjams that many other lazy rivers have.
This leads to one of my first tips–consider renting an inner tube for the day. Personal inner tubes are available from the Tube Rental stand located by the Tidal Wave Bay wavepool.
To fully enjoy a day at Soak City, consider renting one of their cabanas for the day that also includes four inner tube rentals. Their wave pool allows inner tubes to add to the fun, but on a busy summer day, inner tubes can be hard to find, so having your own rental tube for the day would make for extra fun!
My last tip is unrelated to Soak City, but still one not to miss. Take the easy connector path across the street to the marketplace and the amazing bakery. You'll be happy you did!
Learn more about Knott's Berry Farm by visiting www.knotts.com.
Disclosure: Our family received complimentary admission to Knott's Soak City to facilitate this review. However, all opinions expressed are my own.
