White Water Canyon

Original entrance sign located where Mystic Timbers now stands.

***White Water Canyon*** is a river rapids ride located in the Rivertown section of Kings Island. It is one of three water rides in the main park, along with *Congo Falls* and *Race For Your Life, Charlie Brown*. In this ride, riders board a circular vehicle on a man-made river with a tube to keep riders afloat. Similar rides of the same name exist at fellow Cedar Fair parks, Canada's Wonderland and Kings Dominion.

## History

*White Water Canyon* opened in 1985 as the second water ride at Kings Island after *Race for Your Life, Charlie Brown* (then known as *Kings Mill Log Flume*) opened in 1972. Unlike its predecessor, White Water Canyon is a river rapids ride, in which riders sit in circular rafts with seats facing each other. The raft's design is intended to spin, tip and sway in the direction it is heading, causing impact with various areas of water to splash onto riders. The ride was notable for having one of the longest queue lines at the entire park before being beaten by *The Bat*, which opened as *Top Gun* at the time. Due to the ride not operating during Halloween Haunt as a result of colder weather, the queue line was often reused as a Halloween maze in conjunction with the *Kings Island and Miami Valley Railroad*.

In 2016, a new queue line located next to the building that formerly housed *The Crypt* was constructed in order to make room for the construction of *Mystic Timbers*, which later opened in 2017. As a result, the queue line to *White Water Canyon* no longer serves as a backdrop for Halloween Haunt mazes. The *Kings Island and Miami Valley Railroad* passes through this queue line, and a set of train stop lights were placed on the path, activating when the train crosses.

## ​Ride Experience

In this ride, guests are seated in rafts that sit up to six people, with three pairs of seats sharing one seatbelt for each pair. Single riders and small groups are often grouped with others to accompany as much space in the boats as possible. The raft then travels down a man-made river, splashing the riders multiple times as it impacts with various currents designed to slow the raft down. Riders also pass by an attendant in Tower 2, who will greet the riders and spray water at them from geysers that are pointed upward. Towards the ride's exit, guests are also allowed to operate a geyser to spray riders for a small fee at the area near Tower 3. The ride then concludes by going up a lift hill, where it returns to the loading station.

## Trivia

* The rafts originally had the Paramount's Kings Island logo on them prior to Cedar Fair's purchase of the park. The rafts then removed the Paramount symbol on the logo before completely changing the logo to the current logo the following season in 2008.
* Due to the temperature dropping in the region during fall weather, this ride is closed during the Halloween Haunt event in September and October. Its queue line was formerly used to serve as a backdrop for mazes such as *Headless Hollow* and *Tombstone Terror-tory*​. However, with *​*the construction of *Mystic Timbers*​ leading to a new queue line location, there are no longer any mazes for the queue during the Halloween Haunt season.
* The *Kings Island and Miami Valley Railroad* entrance is rerouted into the entrance of WWC during Winterfest, to have more of a queue, as part of a light show reciting the Christmas carol, *The Twelve Days of Christmas.*