Raging Rivers Waterpark, Grafton

 

Location: 100 Palisades Pkwy, Grafton, IL 62037  618.786.2345

Website: https://www.ragingrivers.com/

Amenities: In addition to the water park they have concessions and a gift shop. 

This waterpark is one of the most expensive around, but if you go after 3pm you can get a discount. Their normal hours are 10:30 am to 6 :00 pm.  It costs $5 to park. 

They have 8 attractions:

1. Breaker Beach Wave Pool- An 18,000 sq ft. wave pool that creates waves up to 4 ft. high. It seemed like the waves didn't happen as often as the waves at Six Flags. I feel like the kids were constantly waiting for the waves to start. I can't find anywhere what the times are. It felt like it went for 10 mins and then 20 mins off. Just in case you're curious this wave pool is half as big as Six Flags Hurricane Bay. 

2. Cascade Body Flumes- 500 ft. dual water slides that twist and turn down the big hill. 

3. Itty Bitty Surf City-  This area for littles features a small water slide, rain tree, splash pool, and tunnel. 

4. Treehouse Harbor- An interactive play area that has a bucket that spills water, has a tunnel slide, and lots of ways to manipulate the water. 

5. Endless River- 700 ft. long lazy river. It's not very deep and it's slow and relaxing. You must be in a tube. 

6. Shark Slide- You must have a tube, and you enter the shark's mouth and fly down a 45 ft. tunnel into a pool of water at the end. 

7. Runaway Rafts- A 600 ft. long slide through swift water and wild rapids to 3 pools. I didn't get to ride this because it's a 12-5pm attraction so keep that in mind. We got there right at 5 and they said sorry we're closed. I was pretty upset because no one told us that and we would have ridden it when we got there if we knew that it closed early. 

8. Swirlpool- Ride the tunnel flume into a giant vortex and then get dropped into a deep pool of water. One is enclosed and one is open. 

Height Restrictions:

Breaker Beach Wavepool - No height restriction.
Runaway Rafts - Must be able to carry own tube. One person per tube.
Shark Slide - Must be able to carry own tube. One person per tube.
Treehouse Harbor - Fun for all ages. Slide only for children.
Swirlpools - Must be 48" and taller and a strong swimmer. Deepest water in park, 7'.
Itty Bitty Surf City - For our small guests 42" and under.
Cascade Body Flumes - Small children may ride on parent's lap without a tube. Single riders may ride with or without a tube.
Endless River - Fun for all ages. Small children may ride with parent.

Here's my personal opinion on Raging Rivers. It's very overpriced. There are only 8 attractions, and we couldn't do 2 of them, so there were only 6 things to do, and we paid $67 to get in and $5 to park. There are several other places that have a wave pool, including the Lodge at Des Peres, Collinsville Aqua Park, and Six Flags. Just about every pool around has a lazy river and flume slide so they didn't really offer anything unique that would command such a high entrance price. It also took over an hour to get there from my house. I'm glad I can say that we've been there but we'll never be back. There are much closer, much more reasonable pools in the area for us to visit.  

I sorted pools by price last year and Raging Rivers is the 2nd most expensive behind Six Flags. The way they do pricing here is everyone over 48" pays $30 to get in. Most kids hit 48" around age 7. I had an 8-year-old and a 10-year-old so I would have paid $90 for the 3 of us for the normal daily rate, but we went after 3pm so we paid $22 per person instead of $30 per person. So we got 3 hours of fun on 6 attractions (one was closed and one was only for kids under 42"). The kids had a great time but the wave pool was really the only place they wanted to be. Keep in mind this place is built into a hill so it's a very steep walk to get to the slides.  They didn't want to keep walking up the hills.  It was very clean and the employees were very polite. I supposed if you live in the area and get a season pass it may be more reasonable, but for a one-day pass it's not worth it in my opinion.