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By Kathryn Bender, Star-Bulletin
Customers enjoy the wave pool yesterday at the Hawaiian
Waters Adventure Park at Kapolei. The pool sits next to
the "The Shaka," a new ride being built that will take
enthusiasts in rafts down a steep, watery slope at
speeds up to 40 miles per hour. The park plans
to add a new ride each year.

Isle water park
hopes to keep
riding high with
‘The Shaka’

The new $400,000 attraction
is set to open by Memorial Day

By Russ Lynch
Star-Bulletin

BUOYED by strong business, the owners of the Hawaiian Waters Adventure Park at Kapolei are topping the $18 million they have invested in the 25-acre park with a new $400,000 ride and say they plan to add a new ride each year.

David Busch, park director and president of Horizon Amusement Group, the Sacramento, Calif.-based company that manages the park, said the park has had nearly 400,000 visitors since it opened May 28 and about 75 percent of them were Hawaii residents.

To mark the opening of the new ride, called "The Shaka," which the company hopes will be open by Memorial Day, May 29, the company plans to promote the park heavily in the tourist industry, Busch said.

The park will be closed next week as the ride's construction gets started.

Hawaiian Waters, the eighth park that Busch's business has opened across the country, is a long-term investment, he said. The owners intends to go on developing at Kapolei until it is using all of the 25 acres leased from the Campbell Estate, he said. The park, owned and financed by a mainland partnership called Harrington Investments LLC, currently uses 20 acres.

Steven Mayer, who arrived in late February to become the park's new general manager after 13 years of adventure park and sports experience on the mainland, said "The Shaka" gets its name from its shape, which suggests the popular local hand gesture. Here's how the ride works, according to Mayer: Four stories high, the U-shaped "Shaka" launches guests in rubber rafts down a steep, watery slope at speeds up to 40 miles an hour. They reach the bottom in a splash of water at such speed that gravity increases four times normal and they zoom up the other side. They seem to be heading for nothing but blue sky but before it can overshoot, the raft stops and zips back to the bottom and part way up the first slope, repeating until it eventually stops at the bottom.

Mayer, who directed the startup of three water parks in Arizona and California, managed one in San Francisco and for three years was assistant general manager of the Phoenix Firebirds AAA baseball organization, said the ride is like some of the structures used in the "Extreme Sports" TV show, only it's wet.

Busch said the experience is one of "controlled fear." There are only six such rides in the world, he said.

The Kapolei park already has a range of slides and attractions for the young and old.

Mayer said it has 210 employees and soon will hire 150 or more temporary workers for the spring break and summer seasonal rush. He said that while the admission fee is $29.99 for those 15-years-old and up and $19.99 for ages 4 through 11, there are promotions and deals locally that let residents get tickets for less.

The company also sold about 9,000 annual passes, which go for $129.99, or $99.99 each if you buy four, he said. Island families make a lot of use of the park, Mayer noted, and the average stay is more than six hours. The park is also steadily gaining business from Japanese travelers, he said.

Busch launched the park business with some classmates from the University of Southern California. "We've been doing this for 27 years," he said.