The Raging Waters water theme park located in East San José has announced it will not be reopening for its 2024 season in a Sept. 6 Instagram post.
The closure has left San José high and dry without its iconic summer cool-off spot that has splashed its local residents for the past 37 years.
Palace Entertainment, the owner of the park, announced the closure a few days after the end of the 2023 operation season, leaving fans of the park or locals no opportunity to visit one last time.
The 23-acre water park is located right off of the shores of Lake Cunningham, featuring several water slides, a wave pool and lazy river. The closest water park is located 12 miles away at California’s Great America, an amusement park that’s been in the area since 1976 and is marching toward its own closure within the next 10 years, according to a June 2022 SFGATE article.
The owner of the park said the closure was a “business decision,” according to a Sept. 6 article from NBC Bay Area.
Employees of the park arrived to work for the day to find their job no longer existed, according to the same article.
Benny Boveda, a lecturer in San José State’s Department of Marketing and Business Analytics, said this move deprives the locals of a popular spot to beat the Bay Area heat.
“A water theme park tends to be very appealing to families with young children and young adults because it gives a relief from the summer, especially if the community does not have an abundance of public swimming pools,” Boveda said. “I know they have to pay to get in, but it provides a product of relief.”
The City of San José has four public swimming pools available, but only for a few afternoon hours a day during the summer for its residents to recreationally swim, according to the city’s webpage.
Boveda said declining attendance numbers during the coronavirus pandemic shrunk the revenue earned at these popular day-entertainment venues.
He also said despite Raging Water’s closure, there are still fun theme and water parks in the greater Bay Area area for people to enjoy, including California’s Great America, the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk and Gilroy Gardens.
“You also have potentially other options where people could do that summer escape,” Boveda said. “I know that it requires travel to get to, but there are some other options that people could maybe prefer.”
Junior computer science major Maria Sanchez Rodriguez said Raging Waters wasn’t too expensive to enter and said the park’s location for her was optimal.
“I’m from the East Side of San José, so Raging Waters has always been close and was a part of my childhood,” Sanchez Rodriguez said. “I was planning on going again, but I’m sad to find out I won’t be able to.”
She said Raging Waters was a chill place to cool off during the summer, and that it was affordable compared to Great America’s water park.
“[The] lazy river, wave pool, [and] water slides were all so fun,” Sanchez Rodriguez said.
The lazy river was the source of a memorable story for business administration senior Marianna Arellanes Aldaco.
“While I was in the lazy river, the water bleached my shorts,” Aldaco said.
Boveda also said the closure of Raging Waters will rid the area of a prime spot for high school students to go and work their first job, and that it will likely sit abandoned or fenced up for years to come.
“It was part time, beyond summer jobs — we just closed one more of those choices,” Boveda said. “Where are those youth going to go to trying to find employment?”
Boveda also said the closure would be a misuse of the land to replace an iconic recreational spot with housing and the local community deserves to have at least something in its place.
“The community needs something else other than just housing,” Boveda said. “[San José can] create a park, even if it's just not a theme park, but some other way where families and young adults go outside and enjoy the time.”
