Six Flags Hurricane Harbor Concord — Attraction in Concord

When Water World came to Concord, I felt special, more so because I was a resident of Concord and this was the first water park out in our area. My older sister worked the first 2 years it was open so consequently I was there everyday with my season pass. Fast forward, my son just turned 14 this past weekend and he had been wanting to go to Hurricane Harbor. I saw online that there was a birthday package that gave you an entry ticket, meal, snack, and beverage. I did try to rent a Cabana but was too late, the website said they were sold out (I tried to do this 3 days prior to our reserve ticket date). I knew there would be a long line and the park would be packed so we got there 10 minutes before the park opened and there was already a long line outside the entrance. We waited in the line for about 15 minutes until we got actually into the park. The place was packed! I'm not quite sure why they don't do what Disneyland does and only allows online reservations so that they can manage the amount of people in the park. Considering we got there right when the park opened, we could not find a shaded area but was able to find a grassy area with enough chairs to make our own spot. But I did watch thousands of people walk the park thousands of times trying to find seating for themselves and their families. It got to the point where people had to set up chairs literally on the walkway. I witnessed a whole section of empty cabanas... Why would the website say sold out when they weren't? I would have paid the $200+ just to ensure that my party could have a spot to sit at. Plus it would have lessened up all the people that were sitting along the walkways, bridges, at the food tables. The food buying process is insane! I waited in line for a total of 2 hours to get my son and his friends their meals. First problem, no one at the register knew about the birthday package!? I had to explain to them how it worked, and I wasn't even getting paid that day. Second problem, since they didn't know really about the birthday package, they also assumed that there was not a beverage included. So my son and his friend stood in line and then were told that their meal did not include a beverage. Which then I had to stand in line for another 45 minutes, because his friends weren't there to negotiate getting a beverage or not. But since I paid for it, I was going to make sure they got it. Third problem, we stood in line to get our meals at noon and they did not have hamburgers. When we stood in line for the second hour they did, which was odd because the first group of people in our party were not able to get hamburgers, they only had the option for chicken. The lines for the food are so long because a person goes up there, orders their food and then waits for their food at the counter. So essentially they are holding up other customers who could have ordered food and then maybe given a number so that they can step out of line and then wait until their food is ready. Any other process than what they were doing would have been helpful. But instead people are standing in the hot sun for literally an hour just to get food that has no lids and no containers, just put on open plates. I should have stayed in line for the snack option but I was already ready to get off my feet The kids seemed to enjoy the actual water activities but did complain about the long lines for the slides, needing to rent the inner tubes, that's weird, and several rides being closed. They did complain about the wave pool not really producing waves but I heard the smaller kid area seem to be a hit. I did get into the lazy river which was freezing! But rather enjoyable once my body got used to the temperature. All in all, probably won't be going back in a while, and if I do I will have to go like I'm going camping with all the supplies needed to make our space comfortable. I'm thinking a better employee training process, maybe even a new food ordering process, and some sort of park capacity strategy would be useful to change people's experiences at...

Where to begin.... TLDR I don't write negative reviews very often (hardly ever) but this park ranks on my lowest of low experiences. I can usually see the best in situations but I guess I'm still so shocked at how poorly Hurricane Harbor is/was managed and I can't help but report on this. This was the only time we had been to HH and we won't be going back.

Pros: my kids liked the Splash Water Island.

Cons: My group arrived on a Sunday morning 6/23/24 at about 10:45am thinking that arriving after start time would help us enter faster - wrong. We waited in the heat for around 40 mins in line. My brother had graciously rented a "premium" Calypso cabana (for $325) near the wave pool and we figured (as with other water parks) that if you rent a cabana, you get to checkin at the front early and head straight to the cabana spot in the park - wrong. We had no priority checkin which is a joke considering how much it costs.

One thing to note right away - everyone had to walk through a metal detector that wasn't being monitored. At all. We could have walked in with weapons and no one would have noticed. It felt so unsafe.

The cabana was supposed to have a fan, storage locker, access to a snack shack, and access to the wave pool - wrong. None of those things happened. It was a nice looking pergola with some nice chairs - but no fan, no storage, and incredibly inconveniently located within the park because you could not access the wave pool (literally right in front of us) because the ladder down to the pool had a "no access" sign in front of it. The lifeguard said it was for water rescues only (?) which I doubted was true. No one would choose to hoist a person up a ladder like that when rescuing them (in 3 foot deep water).

As far as the park goes - we noticed right away that no one was in the water (at this point it was after 11am). Why? Because (as the lifeguards explained) there weren't enough lifeguards to man the pools.. literally they weren't at their posts so people had to wait a full hour after the park opened to even touch the wave pool. How is that possible? The park opens at 10:30am. We all stood there in the heat looking at the water thinking about how expensive the tickets and cabana were... not able to get into the ACTUAL water!?

We had come for a work-related event which was held in a covered picnic table section near the entrance of the park. The tables were dusty as if they hadn't been used in months. When we arrived we immediately stood in line for food - which was to accommodate 275 guests. Entering the food court was immediately disappointing. No A/C, it felt hot and cramped. There were to be hotdogs and hamburgers, with toppings and ice cream. My daughter wanted a hotdog so she grabbed a bun and waited for the hotdogs, which had run out. We never did see more hotdogs even though we waited and waited. There was no ice for the drinks until someone from the company complained. How is this place even up and running?

Then there were the hoards of people streaming into the park. Is there an occupancy cap? Fire code? People were tripping over each other in the heat looking for shade - I don't think I'd seen that many people in a park at once. It truly felt unsafe. If there was an emergency, it would have been a disaster.

Half the rides weren't open. HALF. For maintenance. Half of the lifeguard's jobs were to keep people out and away from the rides. Again, for the price you pay, you would think that maybe one ride could be out - but half of them?

The wave pool? Three feet deep and the waves were about 6-10 inches high. I'm not even kidding. People were just standing around knee to waist high looking for waves. It was comical.

The lazy river? White murky water (you can't see your feet) which I HOPE is filled with chlorine because I don't want to think about what else it's filled with. The river was so crowded you could barely move without hitting someone.

My word limit is up here - and I could keep writing a book about this place... bottom line.. wait for new management...

What a disaster this place is. I cannot believe that the Six Flags organization finds the state of this park to be acceptable. I visited this water park on June 23rd, but I waited to write my review until now because I have been in the process of disputing the credit card charge for the cabana that I rented. I won my dispute because I was able to prove that Hurricane Harbor’s advertised description of the cabana is NOT what you will get in reality. I rented a cabana for 7 people for a total of $368.45.

The website claims that the cabanas include: Comfortable Seating for the Group Lounge Chairs Storage Table Ceiling Fans Bottled Beverages

There was no ceiling fan. Hurricane Harbor currently has no cabanas with ceiling fans, yet their website clearly states that the cabanas have ceiling fans.

There was no storage table. What we found was just a table. There was no ability to store our valuables in a storage table. Yet their website clearly states that the cabanas have storage tables. I found that none of the cabanas for rent have storage tables.

There were no bottled beverages provided. When I inquired from a staff member as to where I could get the advertised "bottled beverages" that I would receive as a purchaser of a cabana, I was told that I was entitled to free bottles of water, but unfortunately the park was out of those bottles of water and I would not be receiving any of the advertised "bottled beverages" that I was entitled to.

Additionally, the description of the cabana advertises “Access to Cabana Club Snack Bar Exclusive to Cabana Guests”. It took me a while to find the "Cabana Club Snack Bar Exclusive to Cabana Guests" because none of the park staff came over to greet us or explain any of the benefits that we would receive as purchasers of the Capri Cabana. I finally found the "exclusive" snack bar only to discover that the “exclusive” snack bar consisted of some bags of chips and bottled sodas and water. This was extremely underwhelming. Furthermore, the snack size bags of chips were SEVEN DOLLARS?!?!?! I didn’t ask how much the soda or water was.

When I expressed my disappointment to the staff member who was manning the "Exclusive Cabana Club Snack Bar" that my cabana was not as advertised, he responded by saying, "I know it's horrible". He refused to help me rectify the situation. I then spoke to a second park employee and asked if I could speak to a manager, I was told that "he is a little busy right now". I was never able to speak to the elusive manager.

If you rent a cabana at this park be sure to DISPUTE THE CHARGES with your credit card company.

Aside from the cabana situation, there are many other shortcomings that I can report. All of the 1 and 2 star reviews on google that I have read are extremely accurate. I have never attended such a poorly managed amusement park. Some of the problems I saw were: inadequate numbers of lifeguards to staff all of the rides, price gouging for all food, half of the rides were closed, no waves in the "wave" pool, extreme overcrowding, complete disregard of safety since no staff member paid any attention to the metal detector at the park entrance, complete lack of cleaning in the restrooms at any point, overflowing toilets, complete lack of rule enforcement, inadequate supply of inflatable tubes, complete lack of customer service, etc., etc.

Oh, and don’t bother emailing them. They won’t be helpful. However, they did offer me 4 free tickets to attend again. HA! Like I would...