Knott's Soak City — Attraction in Buena Park

This is a very busy water park during the school summer break months. During summer break, Monday to Thursday is slightly better. There are 7 types of slides around the park. 1 family style raft, 1 mat racer raft, 2 types of single tube raft slide, 1 single or double person tube raft slide, 1 drop tubeless slide, and a regular tubeless slide. All slides except the family and racer slides have three to four different slide courses. There is also a lazy river that is about 15 minutes long, a wave pool, a big kid play structure with a dump bucket, and a play structure for toddlers. Two major food venues, a couple of snack huts, and a couple of places to get your child and adult drink on.

The slides overall are good. If you are an extreme thrill junkie, there is nothing here for you. They are solid and safe slides that are perfect for all ages. None of these slides take any extreme risks. The park opens at 10. Starting at 11, the lines can be 30 or 45 minutes long. Get to the park at 930 and go on these lines first. You can easily get 4 or 5 slides in that first hour before the lines get crazy. The ride operators are good, but remember that they are just teenagers. Hats, glasses, and shoes have to be held onto.

The lazy river is just that. Lazy in a good way. There is a single sprinkler bucket halfway through the course. It is perfect if you want to be lazy. There are two entrances. One is on the outside edge of the river and the second on the inside of the river. The second entrance is the island with the storm watch slide. After 1130 on a busy day, the lazy river gets packed, and it can be a few minutes before you get a tube. Life jackets are available for use. There are plenty of lifeguards on the river.

Wave pool can be used any time. The waves seem to go for about 5 minutes every 15 minutes. There can be a lot of people in the deepest parts, so please bring your patience or just don't go there. I have yet to have any negative interaction when bumping into kids, adults, and teens. But being courteous in a sea of people being tossed around helps. There are life jackets available for use. There are plenty of lifeguards on hand.

The big kid play structure is a ton of fun if you are a kid or an adult in a kids body. There are two medium-sized dump buckets a larger dump bucket that dumps every 5 minutes or so as it fills up. The water does come down pretty hard, but it only lasts a few seconds. There are two very minor water slides, but they take forever. Expect to be in that line for 20-30 minutes. It is good for kids who are too scared to go on the big slides. It is also safe for adults to go on these slides as well. The play structure has dozens of interactive water features to spray people with. Not all of the features are working, but it is enough to keep the kiddos entertained.

There is a very small kid play structure as well with two little slides. I did not spend any time there other than to look at it while I was on the lazy river. It looked fine, though.

Food and getting through the food lines are where the 5 star becomes a 4 star. At Longboarders (the main restaurant), you can find chicken strips/sandwiches, fried fish, hamburgers, fries, onion rings, and mixed veggies. For these items after 1145, the lines are crazy long. It can take 30 to 45 minutes to get this food. There is a quick line if you want salads and sandwiches. But you need to go inside to find it. I liked the fish personally. Fries are meh, and the onion rings are decent. Expect to spend a little less than $20 per person in 2024 dollars when you include a drink.

There is a pizza place that is near the entrance that serves pizza and the suc, but the line can be long and slow. Any food joint after 1130 runs the risk of taking forever.

Other miscellaneous food options include slushies, soda fountains, beer, and dipping dots that I noticed.

There is very little shade on the beach chairs, and some people bring their own umbrellas.

A fun park if you have kids or are a big...

My son and I have had season passes for 10 years and this will be the last year we have them as this is no longer a great time. Knotts has gone downhill in the experience they offer. We have the parking pass and the drink pass only now and refuse to get the dining pass as we don't make an effort to go much anymore. We arrived after the park had opened and we wanted to go to the waterpark on this visit. It was a weekday and busses were there with kids. It took 2 hrs to get parking. It took almost an additional hour to walk and get inside as the the area where they check your bags for anything not allowed in the park is past the entrance area and over to the opposite side. If people are disabled or have trouble walking from remote parking to the far side of the entrance this will be an issue for them. They should have someone to assist guests that need special help to not have to go so far away to enter as I saw another lady struggling to walk to where you need to get checked. Once inside my son needed to use the restroom I waited outside. The park was overcrowded with people as you would expect. There was a woman who looked to be over 40 with 3 teenage girls who started to splash water from the fountain onto her. This grown woman began screaming and running backwards without looking to see who was around her. She was a big woman who knocked into another lady which caused the lady to fall down. People went over to help the lady that fell to get up. The woman being silly didn't say anything she just stared at the lady that fell. The park has no one working to watch over how people are behaving to prevent people from getting hurt from ridulous behavior. All kinds of rude and boisterous activity occurs reguraly at both parks and there is no one to step in to stop people. It continued to occur throughout the day with lots of people running around small kids and not paying attention to their actions or language. Later my son went to get drinks for us twice as it was a hot day. The lines were long as you would expect and to get drinks you had to wait in the line with the people who were getting overpriced food. A large pizza I believe was $50. A slice of pizza with fries was $20 I think. All of it was tremendously overpriced for bad food. As you walk through the park you find they have drink stations to get drinks only especially if you have a refillable cup. None of these stations were open. Why are they not open on a hot day? Because many people just have drink cups and they want you to buy their food not jyst get refills on drinks!

This visit was what we have experienced before and has become the norm. Many selfish rude visitors and a park that does nothing to make the experience enjoyable and affordable. We may return for a final visit before they close for the season but this place is no longer an enjoyable experience. If you come with small children keep them close to you because bad behavior could harm little ones when water is involved or high stairs need to be climbed. I think I would say that there are better places to spend the day with children then going to Soak City which is sad as it was once a...

After reading all these reviews, we were kinda worried, but we ended up having loads of fun. Reviews and a little bit of planning made out trip fantastic. We purchased the tickets from Costco, it cost us around $25/person (not bad when people compare it with Disney, which I think is not a fair comparison). All reviewed were complaining about food so we packed home made food and kept in our van. We had igloo filled with cold water and beverages. We reached right at 10 AM, we found a lot of empty beach chairs, we grabbed the one at a better spot, but yes, quickly they go away so better arrive early. We finished the most important rides by 1:00 PM. When kids were hungry we went outside and ate in our van, people can go go to picnic area which is shaded. The staff was very vigilant, straight face but not rude. If you care about your family, you will appreciate how hard they work. I hope these young lifeguards are paid well, as they do an excellent job. At important play areas, I saw the senior staff members getting an overall view of the situation. They looks like underworld don (obviously they are not), but they again have a straight face wearing dark sunglasses. Point is, staff dont look friendly (no smiling faces) but I felt safe that my kids are safe. We did not spend any time, energy or money on food, so no complaints and no comments. My daughter is 4, she is little less than 42", we were worried that she will miss most of the rides and will not have fun, but we were wrong. She enjoyed and repeatedly said, dad, I would like to come again. My son 9, had the same good experience. One important point we noticed, the water park was pretty full with people, we went to the restroom couple of times and we found it almost empty every single time, now if you wonder where they are they going for natural calls??....you got my point. It sounds disgusting but I think that's what people do in water :(. We did not bring any valuable item with us, some brave (yes, I call them brave), were taking their smart phones in the water to take pictures. In Tide Wave area, tubes were available in morning but by the time we went there, no free or rental tubes were available. My kids asked for tubes but since we dont have does not mean we can't have fun. I took my kids near to 4.5', we had good fun. Yes, we could have more fun with the tubes but as long as kids enjoyed, we are happy. I think couple of things made our trip better, we read reviews, we were prepared (pros and cons), good timing (even though it was Sat, we reached at 10 AM and not went on a long weekend), and a little bit of luck :). Hope...