Water slides are supposed to be fun, right? Well, yes, but some rides around the world offer extreme thrills more reminiscent of roller coasters than any trip to the local pool. We've rounded up what, in our opinion, are the world's scariest water slides, ranging from fast flumes with more twists and turns than the Amazon River to towering drop rides similar in size to some skyscrapers.
Click through this gallery to discover the world's 25 scariest water slides guaranteed to give you an adrenaline rush...
A slide that sends riders plummeting down a 125-foot (38m), 60-degree descent sounds terrifying enough on its own, but Scary Falls lives up to its name in more ways than one. Pride of place in Caribe Bay near the famously aquatic city of Venice, the ride also sees sliders immersed in near-total darkness. We'll give bonus points for the ending – riders shoot out of the side of a pirate ship at high speed.
This is the world’s tallest 'tornado-style' water slide – a slide with a halfpipe-style funnel. Indeed, Dubai's Aquaventure park is no stranger to records, as its more than 105 slides and experiences make it the biggest waterpark on Earth. Passengers on Odyssey of Terror sit in star-shaped rafts and, although it's not the steepest ride out there, the fun-slash-fear is prolonged by countless twists and turns before a final unexpected drop.
The standout features of this ride in Aquatica Orlando, a longtime Florida favourite, include transparent tubes, psychedelic paint jobs and a final plunge through an aquarium filled with leopard sharks, Commerson's dolphins and – for some reason – sardines. Fun fact: Commerson's dolphins are famous for swimming upside-down, but you’ll have to take our word for it as your flying visit through their habitat will leave little time for wildlife-watching.
This magnificent technicolour tower only opened in May 2024, stealing the record for America's tallest water slide as it did so. On the outskirts of Wisconsin Dells, it only took a year to build despite its remarkable height of 145 feet (45m) – taller than an average 13-storey building. The structure boasts five body slides, the tallest of which winds around the building four times like a red, orange and yellow snake.
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This ride will give you a new appreciation for the inflatable rings and rafts most slides provide. Such luxuries have been scrapped for the Hydro Racer – instead you speed down the twisting tubes and ensuing drop on flimsy-looking foam mats. Four riders slide simultaneously, so there's added pressure to go fast unless you're happy to finish last. The ride's website tells you simply to 'hang on tight' and 'hold on'.
At 230 feet (70m), this slide isn't one of the world's longest, but across its length you'll drop an intimidating 56 feet (17m) – most of it right at the slide's near-vertical start. The slide then passes under a low-slung bridge, but don't worry – the high speeds means you'll be stuck to the slide like glue. With other rides including the Viper, the Mamba, the Tarantula and the Scorpion, this South African waterpark certainly has a scary marketing department.
This ride in Waterbom Bali is fun for sliders and spectators, as many of the tubes are transparent, allowing friends and family to watch their loved ones scream their way around its many twists and turns. Its narrow design, paired with its incredibly tight turns, make it one of the park's fastest attractions, and riders rocket along in a blur. The slide starts high above the park, so take a moment to soak up the views out over Bali while you queue.
Set just below Pipeline in the same park, Climax is a drop ride – meaning that riders stand with their arms crossed on a trapdoor which then opens without warning. You’ll then plunge down a tube and be catapulted into an inverted loop under 2.5Gs of force, before shooting out of the ride's exit, where passers-by can get a good look at the expression on your face. The park rates Climax a full five out of five in all three of their slide ranking categories: drench, thrill and speed.
Full disclosure – this one launches in early 2025, and you’ll have to be on Norwegian Cruise Line’s Norwegian Aqua to experience it. But when it comes to water sliding on the seven seas, it's going to be hard to beat. The water coaster is perched on the ship's rooftop, but riders can expect three storeys of lift, with a high-tech magnetic system powering them along uphill sections which twist around the ship’s funnel. You're not that far above the floor, but you're a very, very long way above the sea.
Located inside Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, Florida, Typhoon Lagoon is overflowing with water slides, but Humunga Kowabunga is its steepest and fastest. It’s actually three side-by-side enclosed slides which each measure around 215 feet (65m). To ramp up the fear factor, most of this high-octane ride runs through the pitch-black interior of Mount Mayday, the park's towering (fortunately artificial) volcano. Travelling five storeys at 60 degrees, sliders pick up speed frighteningly fast.
Our third and final offering from Waterbom Bali, this serpentine ride is an absolute monster – an 820-foot-long (250m) odyssey that twists through the canopy while terrifying sliders with steep banked turns and unexpected twists. You can ride solo or with a friend (we'd advise the latter), and it's at its fastest in the final stretch. It's one to avoid if you're prone to dizziness – the numerous 90-degree turns regularly put the inflatable rafts into maddening spins.
This unusual ride blasts riders through dark tunnels and into bright-blue bowls filled with moving graphics depicting fish, whales and other marine life. It's high-octane stuff, and pretty disorienting, but once you've caught your breath the ocean scenes are strangely soothing too. You'll be spat out into a small pool next to the park's lazy river, so there'll be plenty of witnesses to watch you try – and probably fail – to get your bearings.
We're back in Disney's Typhoon Lagoon for number 13 – with the first water coaster ever built for a Disney waterpark anywhere in the world. The Crush 'n' Gusher still ranks as one of the best – a 400-foot (121m) thrill fest with more drops, tunnels and terrifying twists than you can shake a stick at. The good news? Passengers ride on two-person rafts, which means you'll always have a shoulder to cry on.
'Are you brave enough to slide on the monster's face?' asks the promotion for this vibrant slide in Portugal's Parque Aquatico Amarante. This 450-foot (135m) slide has one obvious flagship feature – a flat bank that riders are hurled up at high speed, adorned with spooky eyes and jagged teeth. We're big fans of the purple and pink colour scheme, but it does remove just a touch of the fear factor.
We love a water slide that offers a different experience every time, and the 361-foot (110m) KareKare Curl does just that. Rafts can be ridden by two to five passengers, and the weight difference means you'll hit different parts of the slide each time. After the first tunnel riders are sling-shotted up a 35-foot-high (10m) wall, giving them a fleeting feeling of near-weightlessness before they come splashing back down to Earth.
In the corner of Splashdown Quaywest a set of orange stairs leads up to a blue platform, on which you'll find the entrances to three turquoise-coloured slides. Lucky sliders will end up on either Surf Lagoon or Raging Rapids, both of which offer family-friendly thrills atop inflatable red rings. Unlucky sliders will have to contend with Devils Drop (pictured, left) – a 10-second, 65-foot (20m) near-vertical plunge that ends with an inky-black tunnel. Splashdown Quaywest is the biggest outdoor waterpark in the UK, and Devils Drop is its biggest challenge.
A word of warning: anyone prone to dizziness might want to steer clear of this ride. As its name suggests, it involves a series of loops and starts an eye-opening 60 feet (18m) above ground level. The ride takes around 22 seconds to complete (although it feels longer) and passengers travel at a speed of around 13 miles per hour (21km/h). That may not sound particularly fast, but when centrifugal forces are flinging you around turn after turn you'll be begging for some brakes.
The Edge incorporates all the elements you might expect from a scary water slide: an early drop, dark tunnel sections and a final wall that riders are flung up at high speed. It's also a dual roller coaster, with two routes through which rafts can race to the finish, plus psychedelic paint jobs that give the illusion of even greater speed. This water coaster is seriously quick, and the final halfpipe is one of the steepest you'll find on a water slide.
Daredevil's Peak is another ride only accessible to cruise ship passengers – in this case Royal Caribbean cruisers who visit the cruise line's private island, CocoCay. But it's still deserving of a mention – it was North America's tallest water slide (135ft/41m) when it opened in 2019, and one of its longest. Riders climb the tower then spend three rotations accelerating through a 761-foot (232m) translucent tube, as eye-popping colours flash by in an increasingly disorienting blur.
Props to the evil genius behind Medusa's Slidewheel, also known as the world's first rotating water slide. Part water slide, part Ferris wheel, the ride sends brave passengers in inflatable rafts speeding through enclosed tubes, turning uphill into downhill using gravity and momentum. Throw in a flashing, eye-popping colour scheme and you'll be wishing that your raft came with seatbelts.
Even the name of this trapdoor-style slide is terrifying. The ride starts 135 feet (41m) above ground (it once held the record for world's tallest water slide), and quite a lot of riders bail out at the last minute, perhaps unsurprising given that the ride towers over the treeline. The slide's website claims that riders go from zero to 62 miles per hour (100km/h) in just five seconds, almost freefalling down a 70-degree incline. If you have a heart condition, you are not allowed to ride.
This sprawling water coaster is the tallest in the world at 86 feet (26m), and fires riders through 950 feet (290m) of track, featuring five hairpin turns and five stomach-flipping drops which flash by at a top speed of 28 miles per hour (45km/h). By waterpark standards the ride is a behemoth, ticking off all the scary slide boxes and sure to leave you shaking in your swimwear.
Florida is the spiritual home of the American waterpark, and Summit Plummet may be the state's finest offering. Branded 'the most extreme attraction at Disney's Blizzard Beach', this 360-foot-long (110m) freefall body slide plunges 12 storeys through a dark tunnel into an explosion of spray. The park is currently closed for refurbishments, but when it reopens this snow-themed attraction will fill your veins with ice – despite the relentless Florida sun.
'Sharks at the waterpark' sounds like the premise for an extremely low-budget horror movie – but at the Atlantis Waterpark in the Bahamas, it's a daily occurrence. The Leap of Faith slide starts with an already-pretty-alarming drop which quickly gives way to the main course – a transparent tunnel through a lagoon filled with real-life sharks. You'll be pleased to know that in 2008 a reef shark even managed to jump from its enclosure onto the slide. Improvements were made to ensure it would never happen again. Or so we're told.
Here it is – the world's tallest water slide – and every single foot of it is channelled into one absolutely terrifying drop. Aptly named after a famously tall mountain, the slide racks up a total height of 163 feet (50m) – enough to land it a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records, and top spot on our list. Riders reportedly reach a top speed of 57 miles per hour (93km/h), and the view from the top is enough to see many riders back out and descend the 234 steps back to ground level.