Tsunami Surge at Hurricane Harbor Chicago is the world’s tallest water coaster.
Standing 86 feet or 26 meters tall, this colossal water coaster is at Six Flags Great America’s
formerly attached water park and it features several steep drops, water-powered uphill
slopes, and some aqualucent visual effects in the tunnels.
On paper, this sounds like it should be one of the world’s best water coasters.
But is it?
Find out in this review of Tsunami Surge!
This master blaster slide was built by WhiteWater West and it’s a near clone of Massiv at
Schlitterbahn Galveston.
The slide has the exact same layout and elements.
Tsunami Surge just stands taller than Massiv to take the record as the world’s tallest
water coaster.
And on that note, I could not find a copyright or park provided POV for Tsunami Surge, so
I will be using the Massive POV for the on-ride shots throughout this review.
Tsunami Surge stands next to the parking lot and it has a commanding presence.
It stands over all the other water slides at Hurricane Harbor.
And it holds its own on the skyline against Great America’s roller coasters.
And on that note, the stairs leading up to Tsunami Surge is one of the best vantage points
of Great America’s roller coasters, particularly the adjacent Maxx Force and Raging Bull.
But back to Tsunami Surge, you do have to climb all the way to the top of the tower
to ride this water slide, lugging your raft up with you.
It’s a stark contrast to the most recent water coasters from ProSlide that are complete
circuits with a more traditional station similar to what you find on a roller coaster.
Unlike most water coasters that disallow single riders, Tsunami Surge actually allows single
riders as long as you weigh between 110 lbs and 300 lbs.
Alternatively, you can ride in pairs as long as the combined weight is under 400 lbs.
And your group will be weighed at the top to verify you meet the weight requirements.
Regardless if you ride alone or in pairs, you ride in a double tube.
I rode alone and it may have led to my biggest issue with this water slide; the lack of speed.
I felt like I was going to stall out on almost every turn.
Maybe I would have had more speed through the turns with more weight, but it would have
led to another issue.
This water coaster uses water jets to propel riders uphill as opposed to conveyor belts
or magnets.
While it’s really cool being blasted in the back by torrents of water, the jets really
struggled to get the rafts uphill on the longer ascents.
Especially if there was a lot of weight in the rafts from what I saw.
So forget about getting any airtime atop any of these hills.
All you get is a wall of water crashing over you.
Tsunami Surge begins with a really steep drop for a water slide.
I expected it to give airtime, but it unfortunately did not.
It still felt quite fast and zippy for a water slide though.
After that, you head up the first of several ascents.
This was one of the larger ones.
You then crawl around a turn with this neat ring effect.
This is one of the three tunnels with the aforementioned aqualucent effects.
They looked nice and added some variety from the typically mundane interior of a tube slide.
But as I mentioned earlier, you almost get stuck in there.
When you emerge, you zip down a smaller drop- again getting no airtime- and then you charge
up an equally small hill.
Since I had a really light raft, I crested this hill with some decent speed and the drop
that immediately followed gave a tiny pop of airtime.
The raft then shoots up another short ascent into another turnaround.
Like the first, this one is glacially slow and features another visual effect- this one
being strips of rainbow lights.
I like how the slide added different visuals instead of reusing the same one repeatedly.
The fourth drop was another large drop and rode like the first one.
It was another steep drop free of airtime, but it had some decent speed at the bottom.
The raft then shoots up another sizable uphill ascent, slowing down at the apex.
You then crawl around the final turnaround, passing through another ring of lights before
hitting the grand finale- a triple down.
Because you slow down so much on the turnaround, the first two dips have no airtime and just
work to rebuild your speed.
This does lead to a tiny pop of airtime on the third and final drop though.
So at least the ride ends on a high note!
The raft then skims across the water, ending your 950 foot or 29 meter long journey.
So what would I rate Tsunami Surge?
I would give this water coaster a 6 out of 10.
I expected more from this water slide given its record-breaking height and steep drops.
But the slide simply didn’t have enough speed to deliver the wild ride I expected.
However, this is still a decent water coaster.
Anytime you get a sizable drop on a water slide, it’s a good time.
And the fact the third hill and triple down have tiny pops of airtime are gravy.
I also enjoyed the visuals, both the height at the top of the slide and the aqualucent
effects in the turnarounds.
I think this is a middle-of-the-road water coaster based off of my experience and I’d
love to know if others got a wilder ride with a heavier raft.
If you’re a die-hard water coaster fan visiting Six Flags Great America, I would say it’s
worth the time to pop into Hurricane Harbor for this slide.
Just keep your expectations in check.
And if you’ve yet to try a water coaster, I definitely would hop in since they feel
so unlike the other water slides out there.
While Hurricane Harbor isn’t directly attached to Great America anymore, it’s just a 2-3
minute walk from the main entrance and included with a lot of memberships and season passes.
So those are my thoughts on Tsunami Surge, the newest water slide at Hurricane Harbor
Chicago.
Have you been on this water slide or Massiv?
What are your thoughts on this water coaster?
I would love to hear what you think down in the comments.
If you enjoyed this review, I’d appreciate it if you gave this video a like and you considered
subscribing since there will be a lot more roller coaster and amusement park videos here
at Canobie Coaster.
Thanks for watching!