Keansburg Amusement Park - Runaway Rapids - Saturday, July 27

The plan was to head out and play some pinball in Asbury Park...hang on the beach...and just relax.

But NOOOooooo!

Apparently due to my late start, Asbury Park was PACKED due to it being a sunny summer Saturday with an evening concert at the Stone Pony Soundstage and a Tattoo Festival...this was not going to happen.

What made it even worse was that it took about four hours to drive from Long Island to get there. Traffic Everywhere.

My next idea was to try Seaside Heights. NOPE! Accidents-a-plenty on the Garden State Parkway. I know...get off and go to Point Pleasant. I have never been there and it's something I have always wanted to check out.....NOPE! traffic slammed into that area. Not moving!

I figured I should just bail out and head to Coney Island...but decided to go to Keansburg.

I got a spot for 8 bucks in the unpaved dirt lot...paid for a waterpark wristband and was chilling on a lazy river tube ten minutes later.

Runaway rapids is an interesting operation. They have two or three hour options and they close early at times which are posted at the website. Today was such a day. 6:30 PM. That gave me an hour and change. But then comes the "Take Away Game."

Signs in the park explain that on certain days (which aren't mentioned but solely at the parks decision) different areas, pool, slides would close earlier than the rest of the park. They were already announcing the closure of the deepest pool...knocking out two attractions.

More would follow.

The park has a mid size river (about 1/3 of a block long with a few polyurethane fish to hit, a few towers to climb and the hardest hitting tipping bucket I have ever seen. It's not that big, but compared to others, there is no "blocker" or "splitter" to divert the force of the dump - so the water drops hard and often. It knocked over a little kid who was laughing as he fell. (I loved it - felt great on my back.)

One of the towers has three slides where you get to the top, choose which slide you want, mount the tube and go. It seemed very inefficient to do that. If they split the line 3 ways, they can triple capacity.

The food was all processed and just really bad. I had a pretzel. I tossed it after two bites...I just couldn't do it. It wouldn't go down.

If it sounds like I am being critical...I also must say admission was 20 bucks. The overall experience was not too bad for twenty bucks.

The amusement park next door had a few adult rides that were...ok. There was a Pharaohs Fury, A swing ride (which felt great on my bare feet by the way) a looping roller coaster that almost destroyed my back last year, and a new haunted house that I didn't enter. I don't like them and I hate "jump scares" so no.

The bumper cars were good, but the wristband only allows for 3 rides. The poor guy running them had to reset the cars after each one by pulling them out to the platform or sending them back to the corners. The ride was 3 minutes long...but the cleanup and setup in between each run was about 15 min. Get this guy some help!

The food did not look good from any stand...so I didn't purchase anything.

I did take a walk on the fishing pier. That was the best dollar I spent this year. They repaired all of the damage caused by Hurricane Sandy and now have lights that work. Well don't Fishing Pier people. That thing is a half mile long and you folks maintain it well. (Portable toilets, cutting boards, draw buckets and even the "snack cart" is back making proprietary runs up and down the structure. I know that most of you aren't into fishing...but it added to the day. By the way...nobody was really catching anything...just a short fluke came up while I was there.

So I ended up in Keansburg and I salvaged the day a little.

Three more hours later in the car...I was home!

Thank you for reading this.