It’s A Tone Of Fun(nel)!
MidWeek’s screaming reporter is among the first to try the Tornado, newest ride at Hawaiian Waters Adventure Park. It had been staring down at me all day. Sitting on top of a hill overlooking the entire Hawaiian Waters Adventure Park, the 45-foot-tall red funnel called “Tornado” had construction workers all around it likes ants on a mound - and it was eyeing me
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It had been staring down at me all day. Sitting on top of a hill overlooking the entire Hawaiian Waters Adventure Park, the 45-foot-tall red funnel called “Tornado” had construction workers all around it likes ants on a mound - and it was eyeing me every where I went.
And I was eyeing it.
I would be one of the first to try the ride before it opened to the public.
“Great!” I kept telling everyone, but inside I was terrified.
Why am I going to be one of the first ones down it? I thought. Is this a new ride meant to snuff out members of the press who come poking around the park looking for a story?
In the back of my head, I cursed my editor.
Somehow, I summoned up the courage to walk up the hill to the ride after humiliating myself several times on various other rides at the park - the Flow Rider that gives the illusion of surfing, the Shaka that drops several feet down a V-like shape through a stream of water, and various slides such as the Lava Tube. All seemed insignificant in comparison to the task - and the Tornado- before me.
“It’s one of the newest, biggest and best rides the water park industry has,” says Jerry Pupillo, the park president and general manager. “And we were just purchased by Village Road Show - which is a leading entertainment company not just in Australia, but in the world - who put one in a park on the Gold Coast of Australia and had great results with it. We’re hoping to get similar responses.”
Other new attractions in the park have been added since it was purchased by the Village Road Show Limited, including “Dive’n'Movies.”
Guests will be invited to stay into the evening at the park to either chill on the beach at the Giant Wave Pool or laze about in an inner tube while watching new or classic movies - depending on the schedule - on a 30-by-20-foot screen accompanied by surround sound. The event begins in July and will run Fridays from 7:30 to 11 p.m. through the end of August.
“It’s pretty cool. We’re the first people to put (the inflatable projection screen) on the water,” says Cameron Beasley, the park’s operations supervisor. “Everyone else puts it on dry land or has it anchored to cement, but we figure it’s full of air so it should float.”
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Beasley also notes that nothing electrical will be in the water, and the projector is housed in a small shack behind the beach.
At the heart of the new attractions, however, is the Tornado.
The walk up wasn’t as interesting as it was terrifying. Piles of dirt still covered the sidewalk, plants still in their plastic pots waiting to be planted, bolts and screws littering the ground and the path ending about 30 to 40 feet before the platform where the ride begins. Carefully walking past the obstacles and hoping this would-n’t be the last time I walked sure-footed on the ground, I approached the entrance of the Tornado.
The ride itself is a giant, red funnel much like the kind you use to put oil in your car, turned on its side with a platform about 20 to 30 feet off the ground, where a wading pool lets riders situate themselves in a four-person raft shaped like a four-leafed clover. The pool feeds into a tunnel that slowly carries riders closer and closer to a 15-foot drop, sending the raft careening up and down the sides of the funnel at breakneck speeds. Fifty-five hundred gallons of water is continuously shot out of each side of the funnel, giving riders the maximum frictionless ride while getting them drenched at the same time. The building cost was about $2 million and was completed in about 12 weeks.
Anything for the story, I said over and over in my head, anything for the story. The passion I had for my choice of careers was diminishing with each step I took up the platform.
My concerns and overall cowardice were slightly diminished when I asked about the safety on similar rides built around the world.
“We’re fortunate, because this ride is state-of-the-art,” Pupillo had promised, saying it’s completely safe and has a good record everywhere it’s featured. “They’ve come a long way since some of the (rides) in the 1970s made out of painted cement. So, from a safety standpoint, it’s great.”
Comforting thoughts as I climbed the stairs with shaky legs, grasping the handrail like it was the last solid thing I’d have contact with. Feet still shaking, I placed myself in the raft next to my girlfriend, Tiffany, plus Pupillo and his vice president Takuya Ohki, who was nothing but smiles.
Grasping the handles of the raft for dear life, we were set adrift by a construction worker soaked to the bone from his ride down the maelstrom moments earlier.
As we floated through the tunnel toward the drop the raft turned slowly, making me face backwards. I initially panicked, thinking this is going to be bad, but I soon lost all thoughts as the raft suddenly gained a tremendous amount of speed and gravity seemed to be suspended for a few seconds. We sped down the red funnel, up one side, pausing briefly, then racing back down to the other side, me screaming like an idiot the whole time. It was a motion similar to the Shaka, but with more pull into the center of the ride.
We splashed down the bottom of the spout of the funnel into a pool about three feet deep. Everyone was laughing and saying how much fun they just had, myself included.
As fun as it was, I secretly hoped I wouldn’t have to do it again anytime soon, only to find MidWeek photographer Byron Lee waiting for me with a big, yet evil grin on his face. “You ready to do it again?” he said. “I need shots from different angles.”
So off I went up the hill for another go. And another.
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