H2Oasis Indoor Waterpark
Anchorage, Alaska, Jan. 6 - For about two years, Alaska's only indoor waterpark has been getting ready for opening day.
Outside, the temperatures may be near zero. But indoors, it's 70 humid degrees, and swimwear is the order of the day as the park's facilities undergo another round of tests.
H2Oasis is not quite ready for customers, but it soon will be. And one of the main attractions is sure to be the Master Blaster®, the only thrill ride of its kind in North America. You could call it Alaska's indoor water roller coaster. "It's a wonderful ride," says H2Oasis president Dennis Prendeville. "If you ride the master blaster, you won't forget it."
Although there are still ladders and tools scattered about, and some walls still need painting, project planners are confident the finishing touches can be applied in the next few weeks. "I would expect we could be open by the end of January," says Prendeville. It's taken about a year and a half to get to this point. Along the way, they've had to deal with plenty of problems. "We had some engineering licensing issues to wrestle with, we had some engineering issues of getting the drawings in a timely manner," Prendeville says. Then there were problems with permits and even the weather. Project organizers say they had to pour concrete for the wave pool in below-freezing temperatures.
The project also got bigger as organizers put in more rides and more room for the food court, arcade and other features. Originally supposed to cost $6.5 million, the facility will end up costing about $8 million. "The scope galloped along with the project, so that made it take longer to finish it," Prendeville says. "All in all, though, we're almost there."
Organizers say all the water rides are ready -- the kiddie play area, the Lazy River, and the Wave Pool, which is capable of making 3 to 4-foot waves. More than 350,000 gallons of water will run through the park, and once the facility is open, the water temperature will be kept at about 80 degrees. It's a place, organizers say where Alaskans will be able to go to escape the long winter. "You come in here and after just a few minutes it's easy to forget what it's like outside," says Rich Owens, Vice President of Operations for H2Oasis. There's still painting and last-minute touches to complete in the next three weeks, and some areas won't be ready for a couple of months. Although the park will be open by late January, the formal grand opening is set for sometime in March.
At first glance, an indoor water park in Alaska might seem like an off-the-wall idea. But indoor water parks, which began a few years ago in the Wisconsin Dells resort area, have exploded in popularity. It's not hard to appreciate their appeal; instead of hopping on a plane for an expensive escape to a tropical retreat, winter vacationers scrape the ice off of the family car and drive to a nearby indoor water park's tropical facsimile. If frost-nipped folks in the lower forty-eight think indoor water parks are a great way to shake off cabin fever, long john wearing Alaskans, who have to endure six-plus months of winter's woes, will probably jump at the chance to doff their layers of clothing.
Still, it's an eyebrow-raising concept. "It's a pretty bold move," admits Dennis Prendeville, H2Oasis president and CEO. "My bank would agree," he adds with a laugh.
Prendeville and his team aren't sticking a couple of slides onto a pool and calling it a water park. This will be a world-class facility, with a wave pool, a 575-foot long lazy river, a Pirate Ship-themed interactive children's play area, two enormous hot tubs, and the centerpiece attraction, a Master Blaster uphill water coaster. Developed by the waterpark wizards at Texas' popular Shlitterbahn, the wild Master Blaster technology uses blasts of water to propel riders up waterpark slides for a coaster-like experience. H2Oasis will be the first North American indoor water park to feature a Master Blaster ride.
Will they come?
While the park is creating quite a buzz, its backers have to be wondering whether their investment will go down the drain. Prendeville says that regional residents will be the primary market. There is no competition, but only 200,000 people live in the Anchorage area. Alaskans do enjoy swimming. "We better know how to swim," Prendeville says. "If we fall through the ice, we have to know how to get out."
But do they enjoy swimming enough to keep the 1400-capacity park busy year-round? Prendeville is convinced H2Oasis will make a splash. He predicts the high season will be during the summer months, when schools are closed for vacation. But Prendeville expects the colder months will be successful as well. "If you want to escape Alaska's winter, we've got the route." He's even installing a few tanning beds to help sun-starved Alaskans--daylight only lasts about six hours in the dead of Anchorage's winter--catch a few artificial rays.
Indoor water parks like H2Oasis are part of a larger trend to extend theme park-like entertainment beyond the traditional summer mindset. Who says the fun has to stop on Labor Day? Many seasonal theme parks have jumped on the Halloween hay wagon and kept their parks open through early November. Some even reopen for Christmas celebrations. Despite the snow that sometimes falls, guests at Tokyo Disneyland still hop aboard Dumbo.
So why should a pesky inconvenience like a wind chill temperature of seventy degrees below zero prevent Alaskans from zipping down some water slides? "We need some recreational activities, too," says Prendeville.
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