I remember my first waterslide ever; it was this pair of crappy slides that used to reside in Keansburg, NJ. Before Keansburg Amusement Park opened their Runaway Rapids waterpark, a pair of old, wooden supported slides took their place. The two slides utilized mats which you sat on (as opposed to lay flat on like most mat slides) and had many twists and turns until dumping you into this small scummy splash pool. The slides weren’t too bad, but it was just those two slides and that’s it. You couldn’t really call it a waterpark or anything, just “the slides.” Not long after my first experience on a waterslide, I went to my first real waterpark, Waterworks.

Waterworks was a waterpark that took up a full block in front of Casino Pier in Seaside Heights, NJ, a popular Jersey shore destination. It was a very unorthodox waterpark with quite a few odd slides that hailed back to the days when slide manufacturers were still in the testing phases of waterslide building. However this waterpark wasn’t nearly as notorius as north Jersey’s Action Park in terms of using riders as test dummies. From the outside the place looked like a mess of slides of every color typical to waterslides: eggshell white, forest green, and light blue. Every possible space was filled up with some sort of H20 contraption.

The first slide that I and probably most patrons would notice was a pair of slides that weaved over and under each other, apparently called Super Twist. The slides went right over the park and then curved down into one of those ‘splash lane’ things. A splash lane is basically a flat portion of the slide that’s flooded with water. When a person slides into it, they slow down to a stop due to the water’s resistance. Anyway, it was a really weird looking slide, sort of looking like a DNA double helix. When I frequented Water Works back in the day, I was too much of a wuss to ride Super Twist…that’s damn shame as something like that would probably be frowned on by insurance companies of today.

Next to the splash lanes of the above slides were the splash lanes of two vertical drop speed slides. They’re not actually vertical, but they are pretty steep. They were just your typical speed slides where you drop down a large hill, maybe 70 feet or so, and fly into the splash lane. Absolutely no frills at all; it was just “here it is, ride it” much like every other vertical speed slide.

Behind the splash lanes of the aforementioned slides was a large pool; this harbored quite a few things if I remember correctly. On the right side of the pool were a couple of slides that started maybe 10 feet off the ground and simply dumped riders into the pool below. A newer map of the former Waterworks park lists these as “Cannonball Falls.” Not to be confused with the Mountain Creek/Action Park counterparts which are much more sinister.

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