Cowabunga Bay rises from the horizon like the skyline of a small city, seemingly plucked from a cartoon world. Networks of interconnected aerial walkways—gleaming in blues, yellows, and purples and bordered by protective nets—run between 11 flume and fully enclosed slides. Balconies at the top of winding stairs overlook palm trees and pools. A giant yellow bucket dumps gallons of water down a staircase at regular intervals. Rising above the slides, towers, and nearly a million gallons of water are giant sculptures—a grinning tiki mask, giant pairs of colored sunglasses, an old-fashioned wood-paneled station wagon, and the cow that surfed over the moon.

CPR-savvy lifeguards supervise as visitors plunge down Mondo's 800 covered feet of near darkness, twist and turn through Hang 10, and rush around Bombora's figure-eight shape before screaming hello to a 45-degree drop. Riders glide into a water-filled run-out at the end of each slide, rather than a deep pool; this ensures safer landings and discourages sharks from gathering to beg for leftover hamburgers from the water-park grill. At a separate children's area, small visitors dart between jets of spraying water and glide down three slides—one, called Squiggler, stretches 200 feet.

Those who'd like to take the thrills down a notch can wade into the 2,500 square feet of water at Cowabunga Beach. Or, they can grab an inner tube and float down a 600-foot lazy river, where surfboards, tiki statues, and a '67 Volkswagen Beetle spray passersby with streams of water.