Wild Rivers drew crowds for 25 years — its landlord wanted apartments

Wild Rivers opened in July 1986 on the site of the former Lion Country Safari in Irvine, California — 20 water slides and 10 pools, including twin wave pools and the 650-foot dark tube slide called the Abyss. For 25 summers it was a destination water park and, its operators said, the largest youth employer in Orange County, with about 1,200 seasonal staff.

The park owned its business but not its land. The Irvine Company, which had rezoned the site for residential use in 2006, ended the lease arrangement in 2007 and let it run out on 2 October 2011. A 'Save Wild Rivers' campaign, leaflets handed out on the final day and pleas to the city council and county supervisors for one more year could not move a landlord whose plan was about 1,750 apartments.

The final public day was 25 September 2011, with staff still asking guests to lobby for a lease extension as the gates closed. The park was demolished that winter. Eleven years later the name came back: a rebuilt Wild Rivers opened at a new site in Irvine's Great Park, with a soft opening on 10 July 2022 and a grand opening on 29 July.