The water slides at Wild Waves ran for the last time on Monday, Sept. 7. Everything still operating until the park closes for good on Sunday, Nov. 1, is the theme-park side: the rides, the carousel, the coasters and Fright Fest. That side is older than the name on the sign. Byron Betts opened it in 1977 as Enchanted Village, seven years before anyone in Federal Way could ride a water slide there. So the Wild Waves you can visit over the next four weekends is basically the original park, with nearly 50 years of additions on top of it.
The Half That Already Closed
The water park was the addition. Betts saw that kids stopped caring about Enchanted Village once they reached about 12. He told The News Tribune in 1983, "We want to give them something else so we don't lose them." His answer cost about $6 million. It included a 24,000-square-foot wave pool, a speed slide that hit nearly 25 miles an hour, and warming pools heated to 100 degrees for chilly Puget Sound summers.
Enchanted Wild Waves opened in August 1984. At the time it was the largest water park of its kind north of Los Angeles. Forty-two summers later, the last one ran from May 23 to Sept. 7. In September, the park's marketing director told KIRO's MyNorthwest that the water slides would likely be scrapped. If the slides you remember are the colorful tubes you can see from I-5 near the King-Pierce county line, your last chance to ride them has already passed.
The Half Still Running Is Older Than the Park Itself
The opening-year Enchanted Village covered 12 acres. It had nursery rhyme displays, a petting zoo with goats and sheep, a ventriloquist, a picnic area and Betts' historic merry-go-round. The petting zoo and nursery rhymes are long gone. The merry-go-round is still there, and it's the oldest thing on the property by decades.
It took a long route to Federal Way, and the two main accounts of that route don't agree on every date:
- 1906: Built in Abilene, Kansas, as a 50-foot carousel with 36 horses.
- Bought by Weston Betts: The Historical Society of Federal Way dates the purchase to 1921 and says he put the carousel in a kiddieland at Redondo. The News Tribune puts the purchase about 120 years ago.
- 1930s and 1940s: Ran at Redondo Beach, just up the shoreline in what is now Des Moines.
- 1950s through 1970s: Moved among Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle, Point Defiance Park in Tacoma, and Betts' Lollipop Park in Bellevue.
- Arrival in Federal Way: The historical society says Byron Betts moved the carousel to the newly opened Enchanted Village in 1977. The News Tribune gives 1980.
Byron Betts ran the Point Defiance merry-go-round before he built Enchanted Village. In other words, the carousel came before the park. The park grew up around it.
What Each Owner Left on the Midway
Over the next four decades, the rides that make up the theme park today arrived in layers, each owner adding a few.
Federal Way developer Jeff Stock and a group of investors bought the park in the early 1990s. The News Tribune puts the purchase in 1992 at $8 million, and the Federal Way Mirror says Stock bought the site in 1990. Under that group, the park grew from 45 to 70 acres and added 10 rides, including the Wild Thing, a steel looping coaster. Wild Waves calls it the park's first roller coaster.
Six Flags bought the park for $19.3 million in 2000. Stock kept the land. More than 10 rides went in over the next three years, including Timberhawk: Ride of Prey. It's a 75-foot wooden coaster, and Wild Waves calls it the largest wooden coaster in Washington. After that, the park passed to PARC Management in 2007, CNL Income Properties in 2010, EPR Properties in 2016 and Premier Parks LLC in 2017.
So the carousel dates to the Betts family, the Wild Thing to the Stock era and Timberhawk to Six Flags. The operator blamed rising costs since the COVID shutdown for the closure.
Planning the Last Four Weekends
From today, Oct. 5, the park has four weekends left: Oct. 9 to 11, Oct. 16 to 18, Oct. 23 to 25, and Oct. 30 to Nov. 1. That's 12 operating days. The official schedule runs two programs side by side.
| Program | Days | Hours | Runs through |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fright by Night | Fridays | 6 to 10 p.m. | Nov. 1 |
| Fright by Night | Saturdays and Sundays | 2 to 10 p.m. | Nov. 1 |
| Booville | Weekends | 2 to 6 p.m. | Nov. 1 |
On weekends, the hours from 2 to 6 p.m. are the gentler stretch for younger kids, with Booville running and the park still in daylight mode. The monsters are "unleashed" at 6 p.m. every night, and rides keep running after dark. Friday visits are evening-only.
A few details to sort out before you go:
- Most visitors need a reservation. Season-pass holders reserve for free, one reservation at a time. Single-day tickets bought before the reservation system started don't need one, and neither do consignment tickets, Get Out Pass, BECU and other eligible partner tickets.
- Pricing: The ticket page lists general admission from $59.99 plus tax and child or senior admission at $41.99 plus tax.
- Season passes are no longer for sale. Sales ended Sept. 7, but single-day tickets are still available.
- The VIP Fright Fast Pass covers two haunted attractions and four rides: Timberhawk, Wild Thing, Brain Drain and Scrambler.
The Fast Pass list includes both coasters from the history above, so it's the shortest route to riding each of them one more time.
Expect the crowds to be heavier than a usual October. Sean Randall, the Northwest representative for American Coaster Enthusiasts, was at the park in early September for the club's annual Preservation Conference. He told The News Tribune:
"I would say the last month is the busiest I've ever seen that park in my life. I think everybody is wanting to go and experience their last time at the park."
He was talking about the last weeks of the water season. Since then the park has started requiring reservations for its "Final Fright Fest" to keep wait times down, which suggests the operator expects October to be just as busy. Pick your night early, and if the date matters to you, pick it before the final weekend.
Wes Petree, the park's director of sales and marketing, told The News Tribune that dozens of full-time workers and hundreds of seasonal employees will be looking for jobs after the closing. Some of the people running those haunted attractions are working their last shifts there too.
What Happens to the Rides, and to the Ground Under Them
This is where the age of the rides matters. In September, the marketing director told MyNorthwest that some theme-park attractions would go to other parks. He didn't say which ones or where. The coverage we found doesn't name a destination for the 1906 carousel, the Wild Thing or Timberhawk.
The land has a clearer path. Stock still owns the land under the 70-acre park and plans to lease it to the development company Panattoni. Panattoni would oversee a warehouse project called Podium I-5 and manage future tenants, with Stock keeping the final say on those deals. Stock told the Federal Way Mirror he also looked at a hotel or convention center. That idea drew little interest and would have taken three to four years, and he wanted something that could be built faster. "I'm trying to make it good for the city," he said.
The city's public record shows where the application stands:
- May 8, 2026: Application filed for a 1,034,818-square-foot warehouse.
- June 5: Application deemed complete.
- June 12: Notice of Application issued.
- June 29: Public comment period closed.
- As of Oct. 5: No SEPA decision or hearing date has been posted. The latest entry on the city's land-use notice list is dated Oct. 2, and the June 12 notice is still the only one for Podium I-5.
The city's notice shows that the project still needs a Use Process III decision, a SEPA threshold determination, and concurrency, street-modification and stormwater approvals. No tenant has been named. City documents say that for this type of building, the usual split is 98% warehouse and 2% office. Warehouse use on more than 25% of the property has been allowed since 2023, when the City Council passed council bill #870.
For anyone who drives past the site, the most concrete detail in the file is the road work. City staff decided in January that the project would need street frontage improvements along Enchanted Parkway South, which is State Route 161, as well as Milton Road South, South 369th Street and 19th Way South. After Nov. 1, any changes on the ground will show up first on those streets, once the city rules on the application.
If you live near Enchanted Parkway and want to know how a pending change on the Wild Waves site could affect your home's value, AMP Properties Group NW can give you a quick, straightforward read. Get an Instant Home Valuation, or if your timeline is short, ask about our Sell Fast for Cash program, which closes in 7 to 14 days.
