Raging Waters San Jose — Attraction in San Jose

Great slides and beautiful area, but annoying organization.

This water park has some very fun slides, many of which take single or double tubes. The park is beautifully located at a county park, with great views to a lake and some grassy hills. The season pass is very affordable (though parking, lockers and food do add up over time).

However, the place has some serious drawbacks, especially in terms of kid friendliness.

First, bathrooms are not kid friendly either in terms of how high the sinks are installed. A simple step stool could make it easier for kids.

More importantly though, you can't bring your own food to the park, which I find ridiculous. Food options inside are very limited, unhealthy and of poor quality. It's not a big choice: pizza, burger with fries, a ribs sandwich or a pretty mediocre salad. No healthy food for children and for adults as well. (Some people leave food at the car and eat it around the car). This is especially inconvenient when coming as a school group: Instead of a home-made lunch the kids have no choice but to buy some unhealthy fast food inside.

And buying the food is not as convenient as it should be if you don’t have a credit card. Cash is not accepted (as of mid 2022 so if your excuse is COVID - c’mon!), which is again a problem for a school trip: Parents have a choice of either lending their 7 year olds a credit card and hoping the won’t lose it or having their kids use one of the on-site machines to buy a gift card for cash. The latter has many problems, including the difficulty to load just the correct amount onto the card and causing unnecessary plastic waste.

It’s also very hard to find space to eat. The few tables that are available are always covered with people’s backpacks in an attempt to hold the spot for the day - and the park staff does nothing to discourage “camping” at these tables! I understand that lockers are pretty expensive (small for 18$), but it doesn't make blocking the tables for everyone else OK! If someone wants some private space, they should rent a cabana!

Park is getting older and older and some slides are not renovated. Last year the Barracuda Blaster, Bombs Away, Slide Creek Falls and Sidewinder (snakes slides) were closed. This season the Barracuda Blaster, Bombs Away, Slide Creek Falls reopened (Bombs Away were open on the weekend but not on a week day last time we checked), but the Sidewinder is still closed and now an additional water playground for toddlers and the Serpentines slides recently closed for maintenance.

Overall it could be a great place, but it could use some investment and a more...

We visited the park a week ago. While our kids aged 15 and 11 had a great time there were a number of issues with the park that are quite frustrating and irritating for parents that could be mostly mitigated if the park was more upfront about its operations, availability, and entry and exit requirements.

The good Parking was ample and it was very easy to get to. The cost was $6.00 for the whole day. The rides that were operational worked well and we had a lot of fun on them The park is safe with a lot of lifeguards and easy entry and exit. The park has lockers, one didn't work and stole my money but the next one did. Avoid locker 1317! The water was very clean

The not so good There were only two parking machines working for the entire lot. For an attraction, the size of raging waters being able to pre-purchase parking (and if you can make that really obvious when booking tickets) is just essential Many of the slides are looking worn out from the sunshine and the steps to get to some rides look in need of repair as the wood is getting weathered. Many of the rides are leaking water out of the pipes as it is pumped to the top of the slides - this should be a concern. A number of rides were not working. There was no update or information on this when booking the tickets meaning you only find out when you arrive. This is just not acceptable and led to longer lines at some rides. Bizarrely one ride, that looked fine all day, only opened at 16:00. Another ride that supports two slides in the kiddy area was only running on one side - why not both???? The food is horrible. The food at the park is mostly junk food, loaded with sugar and fats. There is one "salad" option that we could see. This is not acceptable for families like ours that believe in giving our children healthy and nutritious food. If you want to prevent all people from bringing in food, then you need to provide dietary options for all people. If I go again I will smuggle in food. It's also ridiculously over-priced. Seating and shade. The park has made an effort to supply seating and shade but there is nowhere near enough for all people meaning finding shade is at a premium unless you want to pay the exorbitant cost of a Cabana. The solution here is to bring your own portable shade and seating, a few people did this...

Some long waiting queues when there's not actually a long queue, we were at the top of 1 rie with 2 slides and the staff member at the top would only use 1 slide at a time and wait for the person to leave the pool. Also, I went airborne on this slide, I guess everyone does aswell but it's just asking for injury.

Waited an hour and a half again in not the worlds longest line but just an incredibly slow line, for a burger and some chicken strips. Now, I've seen longer queues at sports events etc. If this was a sports event, I would have missed most of the action because I had to get some food.

Understaffed, some attractions closed and opened up in order to move staff around all attractions. For example, the wave pool was only open for an hour or two and the never ending river was open all other times.

Had to wait until i got home to use the toilet as there was no toilet paper when I went towards the end. I considered finding a staff member to ask for some but when it's that understaffed I didn't have high hopes.

Felt ill that night, I guess waterparks are easy places to get ill through no fault of their own but the water in the wavepool atleast really wasn't up to any standard, need to get those little cars that clean pools during the night to remove the dirt.

On top of all this, I gave it an extra star because I actually had fun on the rides and when I wasn't waiting around for extended periods of time.

Advise people to go early if they're in big groups to get a couple of sun loungers before everyone else does. Use the stamp to re-enter to your advantage and don't even bother getting food here, go somewhere nearby. We only found this out at the end of the day when we searched online for it, it isn't advertised anywhere inside. Would enjoy more next time only after knowing the negatives of the first time going and not knowing the park like the...