White Water Canyon rapids ride celebrates 35th anniversary season in 2020

One of Kings Island’s most popular family attractions will be celebrating its 35th anniversary season when the 364-acre amusement and water park opens this summer.

White Water Canyon, designed and manufactured by Intamin, Inc., Zurich Switzerland, has been making a splash on Kings Island guests since its debut April 13, 1985. The attraction is located in the Rivertown area of the park and nestled around the Kings Island and Miami Valley Railroad train ride and Mystic Timbers roller coaster. At two points, the raft goes under the railroad, through 60-foot long tunnels.

Each ride guests take on White Water Canyon is a unique experience. It’s never the same ride twice because as the water churns, it creates foaming white water – like river rapids – and each raft seeks its own course. The raft spins, floats, bounces from side to side and rocks up and down, at different times along the course. It’s always a fun, thrilling and memorable experience with guests often times getting totally soaked.

The rafts, made of fiberglass with rubber bumpers and weighing 1,000 pounds, are powered only by the force of the current through a 1,680-foot long channel where more than 100,000 gallons of water per minute is pumped through by three, 200-horsepower pumps. A natural ravine serves as a reservoir for a total of five million gallons of water.

The channel walls are lined with over 5,000 tons of limestone rock. The largest single rock weighs eight tons.