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The waters of Wild Waves Theme and Water Park have calmed, receded and been drained forever, but for one more week the local amusement park will thrill and entertain with its legendary Fright Fest. A spooky, night-soaked, Halloween-themed October festival that has, for a long time, Fright Fest has offered haunted houses, darkened roller coasters and the opportunity to wear a fun costume outside of trick-or-treating or bar-hopping.
Fright Fest, for many in the Pacific Northwest, has been a long-standing autumnal tradition and on Sunday, Nov. 1, it will be sealed in its coffin forever. For the people who have been coming to this family-fun institution that has been standing tall in Federal Way for (nearly) 50 years, the full closure of the park is a bit of a sad one. Sad, but also it seems, inevitable.
For the park’s penultimate Sunday, I decided to make a trek along Enchanted Parkway for my first Fright Fest in a long time. How long? Why, since the Bush administration, my dear. Back then, I was a young teen that had always had a love for Halloween and the macabre and had just begun my journey into the world of horror cinephilia – so the idea of going to a scary night at Wild Waves with my best friend and her family was not something I could ever pass up.
I was so excited to go and it ended up being a great night that I always think back on fondly: I remember phantasms in the Enchanted Village trees, scare actors creeping from the shadows, twisted horror monsters around every corner, the exhilaration of the Wild Thing roller coaster in the dark and the most impressive haunted house I have ever experienced.
Fright Fest is a weekend-only exhibition from 2-10 p.m., with the major eerie attractions coming out after dark. My spouse accompanied me for this adventure and it turned out to be his first ever Fright Fest – he had gone to the water park many times as a kid, and he wanted to see how much the park had changed over the years before saying goodbye.
We decided to walk the grounds and reminisce about our memories of the park:
“That’s the flower bed where I vomited after this ride.”
“This is where I had my first taste of Dippin’ Dots after being too scared for that ride.”
It was a walk down a wooded memory lane, and as we tried to decide what to do first, we found the park’s emptiness in parts (some rides were already completely de-commissioned or just gone) and the heavy use of generative AI to be a disappointment and a small cut into our nostalgia, leading to comments of, “Yeah, it makes sense why this place is closing down.”
These comments came up a lot throughout the evening, mixed with feelings of dejection at all of the fun things the park has to offer, even now. Thankfully, the coasters were still working: As a lover of roller coasters that flip you upside down, I immediately got in line for the Wild Thing, delighted by its enormous campy spider adornment that I remember from childhood, as I waited a short while for my turn. My spouse is not a lover of these types of roller coasters so he dipped out for a corn dog and a commemorative Wild Waves cup – I’ll be back in time to see you spin, I am promised.
Originally named “Loop Corkscrew” from when it was at its original location at Rocky Point Park in Rhode Island, the magnificent roller coaster we call the Wild Thing made its Wild Waves debut on June 24, 1997 where it was painted lime green and blue, and then changed to yellow and blue in 2010.
Overjoyed with the corkscrew track and the vertical loop, I left the Wild Thing with a hop-skip in my step, ready for the next big ride. The adrenaline had kicked in and I was ready for next coaster, one that my spouse was willing to go on: The Timberhawk: Ride of Prey. A wooden rollercoaster, the Timberhawk made its debut on June 7, 2003.
When we first arrived just before 5 p.m., the Timberhawk was not open yet, but by the time we strolled up the hill to our fate, the line was massive. Getting into the queue at 6:11 p.m., we had no idea that it would be just under two hours before we would buckle ourselves in. I was glad that the sun had gone down by the time we had gotten on the ride, since one friend who had gone to Fright Fest the weekend prior had told us that riding it in the dark of night was the way to go.
The wait was long but it was so worth it – I had never been so scared during a roller coaster in my life. As my spouse put it perfectly: “It’s notably more terrifying when you can’t see what’s coming next.” What a thrill!
And with a height of 75 feet mixed with a speed of 50 mph and a few huge drops, thrilling is an understatement. As the coaster climbed and climbed to its maximum height, we all looked to our lefts as the bright, full Hunter’s moon revealed itself behind some gray clouds, followed by an emission of howls and yelps, many of us barking at the moon and feeling like wild animals about to be unleashed from a cage/two-hour long queue – bring it on!
What happened next can only be described as a series of literal freefalls – how many? Couldn’t tell you. But as the dark kept us on our toes so did the bars and straps thankfully kept us in our seats as legitimate screams of fright left our bodies. I cannot tell you how much fun it was to experience.
By the time we had left the Timberhawk, it was well after 8 p.m. and a text from a friend who was also at the park told us that our next venture was likely not to be: I had been hoping to experience one of the park’s haunted houses, to relive the memories from my teen years, but our friend had told us it would mean another two-hour wait…something that was untenable for a park that was closing at 10 p.m. We were disappointed and annoyed but overall felt our time – and my two rides – had been worth the high price of admission. So we ventured through the dark, finding a Dippin’ Dots stand and decided to take in the Insidious Circus, where daring acrobats showed off their superhuman skills.
It was a good night. Bittersweet, but good. As we made our way to our $25+ parking spot, we took one last look out over the darkened acres, stippled with different illuminations and screams and shouts of fellow nostalgic patrons, and saw the swan song of a nexus of our, and so many others’, childhoods in the PNW.
It’s sad to see Wild Waves and Fright Fest go, but we get it. Times are tough and things are expensive. But at least it’s going out with a (few hundred) hearty screams, and not a whimper.
