The "Large Wall of Water" Ride

With the aid of a super-nifty title, Drew posts about all the name-changing going on in the Wisconsin Dells. It seems that the "Great Tsunami" ride that opened there in July will be given another name along with a ride called "The Hurricane."

Drew's comments are on target:

On one hand, I fully understand and even support the decision to rename "The Great Tsunami" wave pool. And I suppose it beats the option of making "The Great Tsunami" more authentic by adding floating corpses. However, renaming "The Hurricane" seems less compelling somehow. There's got to be a limit. People die in blizzards, but Dairy Queen soldiers on. The convenience store near my home sells a fast-food item called a "tornado," but I've never considered that insensitive to people who live in trailer parks.

Yes, and doesn't McDonald's sell something called a "Flurry"? I don't think they were trying to be polite, because a loosely connected band of snowflakes does carry with it certain death. I just think they were trying to steal Dairy Queen's idea and give it a different name.

Certainly naming a ride "Tsunami" give the ride a pretty mythic air...which makes me wonder if I was just easily excitable as a child because I loved the ride at Geauga Lake called simply "The Wave." Sounded scary enough to me at the time. I mean...it was scary! A giant pool of water that sucked out in a sort of slow unsuspecting way and then there was a loud buzzer noise and a wall of water came washing over the pool - Hold on tight or plug your nose!