Silverwood Theme Park

Reviews 3

N6

N617A

So... My sister and I are amusement park junkies (And heck I would probably be working on rides if we had any non seasonal jobs like that in our area...) and our grand finale of 2013 was here. And boy what a grand finale!!!! Just one year before we visited here we went to Disneyland. Then our extravaganza of 2013 took us to Enchanted forest, Puyallup fair, Wild waves, Oaks amusement park, The hillsboro OR fair and finally went to Silverwood! "Why are you mentioning all these parks man? This should just be a review about Silverwood!" Well I mention them because they are most of the PNW amusement parks! Well my sister and I LOVE all rides that DO NOT spin. Hate fast spin rides. (Trains, and just calm entertainment rides included.) Our absolute FAVORITE 2 rides though are drop towers and coasters. Well... While we do love smaller coasters we usually prefer the big ones. Wild waves had the only big coaster we had been on before Silverwood. Drop towers though... Oh my gosh... So let me start off by saying that both the Hillsboro OR fair and the Puyallup fair have drop towers but they are only open a very limited amount of time... (Were talking 4 days for the Hillsboro one and like 2 weeks for the Puyallup fair one... And let me say that the Puyallup fair one doesnt even compare as it is hydraulic and not a complete weighted drop.) Silverwood has the only full season "Traction" drop tower in the PNW at the time of this. And the 2 wooden coasters are just plain awesome!!!!!!! The train ride is SO fun and so is the log flume (Which Enchanted forest had.) It also just has this easy going charm to it that just makes the park so fun! Now yes some of the employees can be a bit snotty but oh well... No one is perfect. The lines were PITA long but the rides were... Honestly for us... Worth it. Now for the younger ones there is a kiddie section of the park... But it isnt really like say... Disneyland where the whole park is built of rides that everyone and their cousin can enjoy together... (Even tower of terror is a pretty easy going dropper.) I will say... For the junkies like us: Panic plunge has this hard pull on it that is pure gravity. The wooden coasters are just... Another world, Aftershock we didnt do but EVERYONE who rode it said it was the BEST, and corkscrew... Cmon... Who wouldnt enjoy that little classic? The best part of the park though? Camping. Camping. Camping. The admission is a bit of a pain... But if you go in September, Order tickets online... You could pull it off with a budget about $200 or so? (Including gas and self packed food.) Oh and I should mention that... Its best to go in September... And watch the weather. Anyways the park felt safe and we were actually getting bang for our buck. (The waterpark was closed and the admission goes down accordingly... Owners PLEASE do not change that. It would be unaffordable and IMO kind of a rip at that point. Just sayin.) But yea if you want a park that is honestly worth the visit I would suggest going here. I mean... I read some of the reviews on here and while I do say that sucks that it was a bad experience it isnt always like that. Take it from a guy who went to his favorite park in our 2013 extravaganza!

A

A Private User

The water park is fine, but the theme park is a rip off. Only 4 roller coasters and one was broken when we were there. Carnival games were $3 and up for one "throw of the ball" type games, and the drinks were more expensive than Disneyland. The park does not offer rain checks for inclement weather so make sure you check the weather. The pools are not really heated, so if its 55 degrees and raining, youll freeze. We made the mistake of buying a two-day pass. Unless its really hot and you plan to stay in the water park for multiple days, just buy the single day pass. You can do it all in one day and have plenty of time left over to do it again. Dont bother staying at the RV Park across the street. Their staff is incompetent and does not understand the concept of customer service. We stayed here in early July of 2010. We made early reservations and intended to end our Yellowstone trip at Silverwood RV Park. Based on my experience with the staff, I will NEVER stay at this park again. The park staff are incredibly unresponsive. They dont ever answer the phone (even though there were frequently two college-age staff sitting with their feet up in the office) and you must leave a message. We called repeatedly (through limited coverage in Yellowstone) to extend our reservation for one day. We received one message stating they had received our call and could extend, but had questions. However, when we arrived, none of the office staff had any indication we had called. We did manage to extend our stay, however were required to move our trailer. This wouldnt have been big deal if the campground was full...however it was empty due to the poor weather (mid 50 degrees). The morning of the required move, I asked politely if I could stay the one extra night given the emptiness of the campground. The staff told me flatly "No" and that their system couldnt accommodate such a change...and didnt even look at their system or try. Again, if the campground was full, I would understand; this was simple laziness and poor customer service. The site I moved from, and approximately 10 more, remained unoccupied for the rest of the day (I had to move by 10 AM) and were also empty the following morning when we departed. The site we moved to collected large amounts of water from the thunderstorms that passed through. The following morning I had to hook up on mud and avoid major mud puddles. (None of the roads are paved and there were many massive puddles/mud-holes throughout the park.) After we returned home, we got a call two days later from their reservation staff saying they had received our voice mail (from 7 days earlier!) asking us if we still wanted to extend our stay! Their incompetence knows no bounds! On the plus side, the bathroom was clean. Both sites had good water pressure. Even with all of the traffic noise from HWY. 95 (its RIGHT on the road and lots of trucks go buy all night - bring ear plugs!) I might have chosen to stay here again. However, the lack of customer service and general incompetence of their staff means I will never give them my $$ again.

SH

Shannon Freeman

This is a great place to go, overall but there are some issues. First the good stuff. Food prices are reasonable and you get enough food that you dont feel like youre getting over-charged. The ice cream shop in the midway area has ridiculously large portions. The signs advertise single scoops for $4 and some change and you think thats a high price for a single scoop until you realize you are getting a waffle cone and what is actually more like 4 scoops. The "kids cone" is plenty big enough for most adults consisting of two scoops for less than $3.00. The burger shop in the water park was good but the person taking orders that day was incredibly slow. We got our food in a fraction of the time it took to get through the ordering line. The refillable soft drink cups are worth the price. We got two of them for our family of four and felt like we got our monies worth with the free refills all day long. The train ride was entertaining and the kids liked it. Criticisms: The lockers in the water park are way too small. We almost had to rent a second locker. They dont have much in the way of a private changing area. I dont feel comfortable having my children changing in front of everyone. You don;t know whos a perv and who isnt. We had to use the toilet stalls. It would be nice if they would provide dedicated changing stalls for a bit more privacy. I would really like to see more food selections. I love fair food and they do have a little bit of it, funnel cakes and elephant ears and cotton candy and such but fresh hand dipped corn dogs would be great in addition to just more varieties of munchies and other tempting fair food that you might not be able to get every day. They also need to add more "in between" rides. Not everyone likes to drop ten stories or ride roller coasters and the classic carnival rides only entertain for so long. The magic show is a must see but this time it seemed a bit truncated, short and less spectacular. They also really need to train their young employees (mostly high school kids working over the summer) to express something close to a personality. A few of them seemed to be enjoying their work while most of them looked like they were completely dead inside. They need to be taught that even though their job can probably get monotonous and boring if they would act like they are having fun and actually engage the customers, they might actually REALLY enjoy their jobs. Silverwood has been a work in progress ever since it opened. They have been adding new things every season and that is a good thing. Maybe instead of adding "big" rides they can focus a little bit more on medium intensity rides for those of us that arent into the intense thrill rides.

Other organizations