Hydro Attack — Local services in South Island

On our recent visit to NZ we travelled in and out of Queenstown two times. The first time the kids and I enjoyed watching this ride from our apartment balcony. The second time we were in Queenstown I decided at the last minute to take the ride. What an amazing and unique experience it was. The staff at Hydro Attack are friendly and helpful. My ride was driven by Danny. The one thing that surprised me that getting in and out of the ride was the tough part and not the ride itself. This ride is an individual ride. The space is tight and requires a little bit of flexibility in the body. Anyways after a little bit struggle and under Danny's guidance I was comfortably seated ready for an awesome ride.

I had to remove my jacket to get a better sitting position. I was also wearing jeans which may have restricted a bit more movement. T shirt with Shorts or pants would be best for this ride. A life jacket is provided by the team. There is no getting wet in this ride.

I advised them that I want the full speed and all manoeuvres. Danny briefed me that initially he will do all manoeuvres and then I can advise which ones I liked or disliked. Loved all the manoeuvres however towards the end I told him not to do the left side tilt as the driver seat was digging into my calf. Again this is more related to my body type, flexibility and the posture inside the cockpit. Yup it very much feels like sitting in a cockpit of a fighter jet.

Anyways back to the experience, loved it loved it and just loved it. Enjoyed each nose dive (up to 2m deep) because once it dives in the way back up is even more awesome and gives a rollercoaster feeling when it dives out almost vertical. This gives approximately 2 to 3Gs of force and is a lot of fun.

The ride occurs in Lake Wakatipu which is surrounded by a few mountain ranges. So when the ride does a doughnut absorb in the views of The Remarkables, Cecile and Walter Peaks. The view of these mountains from the middle of the lake is just breathtaking. Loved every bit of this ride.

Danny does stop the ride after every few manoeuvres to do a status check which I think speaks a lot about their customer service skills. They are selling an experience so want to ensure they suit it best to your liking rather than just earn money.

They do record on go pro which is again optional to purchase at the end of the ride.

Highly highly recommend this ride.

Whenever I'm back to Queenstown, I'm certainly going back for a ride.

Thanks Hydro Attack for providing an...

What an absolute bunch of GC’s. Quite simply these guys made our trip and one little boy the happiest kid on the planet. Here’s the story.

Each year we are lucky enough to do a family holiday to QT. Each year our son has seen the “shark boats” and desperately wanted to go on one. This started at 4 and alll through the year for two long years he’s been talking about finally turning 6 and going on the shark boat. Well this was his year. We booked him in and he asked for the tiger shark. Now our boy is autistic so when he has an idea its not a thing for anything to veer from that. He had got himself prepared to go by himself (quite a big deal for this kid) but in the process was getting anxious about the ride. So when the tiger one wasn’t available he lost it. There were years and meltdowns. We were explained that he had a 15 min window to get on his allocated black shark and once that time was up there was not much they could do. But he wasn’t budging after us pleading with him that we would lose our money and they were booked for the rest of the day, he just got more upset. When the tiger boat came back he was beside himself he didn’t understand why. The crew had a chat and decided that one of them would take him out on their lunch break (the only time the tiger boat was available). I haven’t seen my son that happy in a long time. His dream had come true.

Thank you to the crew for going out of their way, recognising that this wasn’t a typical tantrum but a kid overwhelmed with disappointment and emotions he didn’t know how to process.

He still tell everyone about the shark ride and we will be...

Show up 15 minutes early

One of the strangest activities available, period. Was it worth it? Yes I do believe it was. Was it my favortie experience in Queenstown? No it was not. For that I would highly recommend the paragliding.

How to describe this. It's different from anything. Part jet-ski, part fighter-jet, part submarine.

It begins when you squeeze into the back of one of these things with a pilot up front. Wearing headphones (it's quite loud) you proceed skipping over the lake out into deeper water. The view is mostly to the sides and there's not much to see as the spray goes on the 'cockpit' and the pilot's back is taking up your forward view.

They take gopro footage of you so you can use that later. It gets warm in there so the driver stops 3 times to air it out.

It's fun to go on the side as the water covers the cockpit and you can see underwater. There isn't much of a view until you get to the shallow er part of the lake but even so there isn't much to see.

The most unique manuever happens when the pilot dives under water at which point the pressure increases inside the copckpit prompting the rider to want to equalize their ears. As you dive deeper the bouyancy of the craft eventually wins or the driver cuts power. Either way the thing leaps up out of the water like a whale breaching and flops back down. This can be a soft of a hard landing so I would not recommend this to anyone with back issues.

All in all would I do it again? Probably not but I'm glad I had a chance to experience this strange and unique opportunity.

The whole thing lasts around 15 minutes so it's...