Description
Elitch Gardens Theme & Water Park in Denver, Colorado, is a fantastic destination for families looking for a full day of fun and excitement. This one-of-a-kind park combines the thrills of a theme park with the refreshing splash of a water park—all for one admission price!
Kids of all ages will love the wide variety of rides and attractions. Little ones can enjoy their own special area called KiddieLand, where pint-sized rides like the Crazy Bus and Balloon Race are perfect for pint-sized adventurers. Older kids and parents alike will find plenty to do, from family-friendly rides and roller coasters to water slides, a wave pool, and a relaxing lazy river.
The park is designed to be welcoming for everyone, with attractions that range from gentle to thrilling, so families can choose their own level of adventure. During the summer, the water park is included for free, making it easy to cool off and splash around. There’s also a dedicated kids’ play area and plenty of entertainment throughout the day, including shows and seasonal events like trick-or-treating during Halloween.
Elitch Gardens is easy to get to, located right in the heart of Denver, and offers amenities like shaded cabanas, food options, and family-friendly facilities. With breathtaking views of the city and over 130 years of fun, it’s the perfect place for families to make lasting memories together.
https://elitchgardens.com/theme-park/,https://www.colorado.com/denver/elitch-gardens-theme-water-park,https://airial.travel/attractions/united-states/denver/elitch-gardens-theme-and-water-park-5rJfxZH4,https://crunchybeachmama.com/visit-elitch-gardens-in-denver/,https://elitchgardens.com,https://multiculturalkidblogs.com/2019/10/28/fun-in-downtown-denver-with-kids/,https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elitch_Gardens_Theme_Park,https://elitchgardens.com/water-park/,https://elitchgardens.com/attractions/?types=water-park-attraction,https://elitchgardens.com/attractions/?types=family-rides,https://www.expedia.com/Elitch-Gardens-Theme-Park-Auraria.d6071539.Vacation-Attraction,https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g33388-d145860-Reviews-Elitch_Gardens_Theme_Park-Denver_Colorado.html
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18 Reviews on “Elitch Gardens Theme & Water Park”
I, like everyone else apparently, bought a season pass for the 2009 season. After going twice I feel like I need to relay some valuable information. While I understand this is a family attraction, there are those of us that don’t have any children and are of legal drinking age. My friends and I drink responsibly and all agree that amusement park rides are a little bit better with a slight buzz. I go to the only place in the entire park to get margaritas for my friends, wait in a long line only to find out that you can only buy ONE drink at a time. WTF? So you have to all stay close and all go together so you can all get your ONE drink and wear a wristband. This is at $6.50 for a 12 oz. marg or $7 for a beer. You would think at those prices they would let you buy however many you want. I guess I could sum it all up in one word- Pregame. If you plan on staying all day maybe a trip to the car for a midday picnic would be your best option.
So, tonight I went to the amusement park for their fright fest, and I looked on the website and it said it started in September, so I was so excited, and when I saw the mount of Haunted Attractions on the website, I was even more thrilled about my experience. I arrived a little before 4, and I was already disappointed.
First off, let me begin with the decorations. They looked like something someone would use at a school Halloween event and had no fear or thought put into them. COME ON PEOPLE, THIS IS HALLOWEEN FOR GOODNESS SAKE! Put some effort into decorating your theme park. The only real exciting decoration is a cellar door that is really out of place in a cemetary that leads to “zombies”.
Next up, I waited until 5:00 for any real excitement to start and there were two shows meant to happen, but only one show and it was a lame one. How lame? How about three zombie actors dancing to Marilyn Manson’s “Sweet Dreams” and “Tainted Love” for not even a good ten minutes, and this was their opening day.
Ok, remember how I said there were a lot of Haunted Attractions on the website posted? Well Elitch Gardens has made me a liar. They only had three, one of which was a show that was booked all night. I get that it is their first night, but come on!!! $15 dollars for three measly little haunted attractions?! What a rip off! The only one genuinely scary was the Flesh Factory, and that’s because why? THEY ENJOY FRICKIN FOLLOWING YOU AROUND AND GROWLING IN YOUR EAR!!!!! The rest was pathetic, and this leads to my next point.
When you go to a theme park and see people with a chainsaw and zombie makeup and a discolored eye, they are at least supposed to ACT!!!!!!!!!!! There were only two actors that scared the guests. One was a guy with zombie makeup, a white contact lens, and a chainsaw, and the other a regular zombie. Now these guys need to work on their acting badly. I was on my way to the Boomerang roller coaster and the normal zombie tried to scare me by jumping in my face yelling. Talk about pathetic acting, and as for the chainsaw guy, I met up with a couple friends later in the park, and he scared one of my friends when we were headed to get their tickets, then he was socializing with us until we got to the haunted attraction kiosk, and scared her again, and this girl was paralyzed. Now then, I admire that he scared her, but you are not paid just to hang around with one group up to near the entrance!!!!
All in all, if you’re going to go to fright fest, or even elitch gardens, it is a rip off in general. Bad food, expensive rides and drinks, and no fun. If you think that you can enjoy a nice cheap day and night at Fright Fest, then I’m sorry, but think again. This place is, was, and always will be, a rip off, a joke, and a sad, ugly, run down piece of crap.
Edited June 14, 2013. Dropping my rating from 5 stars to 1 stars. Went today at 6 pm (a Friday) expecting the park to close at 9 pm like my season pass book said. At 7:45 pm I was telling my wife we had plenty of time for some adult rides. A park employee overheard me and said the park was closing in 15 minutes at 8pm. I showed him my park schedule I got with my season passes and he said it has been changed, just recently. An hour cut off each day. Showed my the new schedule with a sticker placed over the original times. Very lame of Elitch’s to reduce the park ours. No notice, even though they have my email from season pass purchase. Frankly I like going from 6 to 9 pm since it is not as hot and crowded and was a big factor in the season pass purchase. We will not be spending $320 on season passes next year. Clearly they do not have enough attendance and are not selling enough over priced food to justify keeping the park open. Well change your hours next year so people know in advance.
Do not waste your time or money…Unless you are willing pay these A$$es more money for a “VIP Ride Pass” do not even attempt to go! I took my family and we all attempted to ride a ride together, even letting others go on the ride before us (planning it so we can all go at once), then some people came up the exit ramp, got into the car that my son and I were going to get into, thus ruining the whole plan for my family and I riding the ride together…why? they had “VIP”. I voiced my opinion and security escorted me out instead of attempting to defuse and talk to me, good thing my wife and kids were there, otherwise that Denver PD officer (who also antagonized the situation) who thought he was the Barney Fife of the amusement park would’ve been picking himself off the ground bleeding and I would’ve spent the night visiting the jail.
Instead of posting a whole new review, let me tell you what I sent to the General Manager of Elitches today:
Hello,
Unfortunately this is not a positive review. My family and I have been to Elitches many different times for the past few years, and to be frank the earlier visits were vastly better than this recent one.
The first time we visited, the rides were amazing and more importantly WORKING, the food was good and PLENTIFUL, and the people personable and NICE…
This past time, however, was the the exact opposite. Several rides were broken or unavailable; the food was either completely sold out (which shows a severe lack of prior planning for the day) or we personally watched as the employees popped zits within the batter for churros (beyond horrible, disgusting, and a clear violation of health policies!); finally it seemed as if none of the employees wanted to be there. There was literally only one person that seemed to TRY to make the park enjoyable for the customers (don’t know his name; was a young man singing at the swings different songs to get the people on the ride involved. Seriously the best employee ever!). We had a bad experience trying to buy food three different times, all at three different places with different employees. The first two were completely sold out of practically EVERYTHING, and the employees were gruff and short with us from telling people over and over that they were out; the third place the employees were just plain SLOW and rude when we asked for condiments.
I am sorry to have to complain, as I am not a person who generally does so. I prefer to leave good reviews as it helps boosts businesses, however the zit popping into the batter pushed me over the edge and I feel I have to say something before someone gets seriously ill. Having worked in a large industry, I can understand how hard it can be to manage everyone within a large corporation, however I do feel that management is severely lacking. Many of these problems would be solved with competent employees to watch over the young kids that end up getting hired for the low-wage jobs that run the food and park services.
I hope you are able to use this review to correct some of the problems we saw at Elitches in Denver, as the place can be a great and fun trip for the family. However, as it stands now, I refuse to pay 40 dollars a person to go to a place where the lines are impossibly long, the rides are broken, the employees are rude, and the food is filled with god knows what.
Good Luck, as your going to need it!
Elitch Gardens has really gone down hill. The entire place looked dirty and run down. Everything is too expensive. We got to the park around 10:30 a.m. on a Saturday, we went to get a soda around 11:30 at one of the little places back by the Tower of Doom, I bought two 16-20 oz fountain sodas, it cost me $10. I went to fill my cup with Pepsi and there was no syrup, it was just carbonated water. I turned to the guy working there and told him it was out of syrup, as he sat himself back down he said “Ok, I’ll tell my manager”. I then asked if I could get my money back since they didn’t actually have any soda, he said just a minute, and disappeared around the corner. He came back about 5 minutes later and said “Ok, I changed it, it should work now.” So basically, the “I’ll tell my manager” thing was just so he didn’t have to do his job. This was actually the only bad experience with an employee that I had. All other employees, though extremely understaffed, were very polite. We stood in line for 30 minutes to get a beer because the park only had one employee working the little place and the line was back around and out, same with when we went to get a funnel cake. My son and I were the only two at Fanny’s Funnel Cakes when we walked up they were changing cashiers, we ordered our funnel cake but by this time there was probably about 20 people in line and ONE guy working the cash register AND making funnel cakes. Another thing we noticed was that at 12:30 NO PLACE had any food yet. It was 12:30 on a Saturday, exactly what time does park management think that people eat?
All of the rides that I saw were manned by one person as well. One person to run the ride and walk around and check everyone’s safety and let people in and out.
We didn’t go to the water park because with how gross and dirty the amusement side was, we didn’t want to chance getting sick from the water park.
Won’t be going back.
My family and I visited Elitch’s in Denver this past Saturday the 22ed and we were extremely disappointed with the poor customer service and the cleanliness of the park.
Every person we had the misfortune of interacting with acted like they were forced to be there and had no sense of urgency in their actions.
To put more detail to it, we visited the food court at lunch and had to wait almost 30min to pay for our food. When, what appeared to be a supervisor with a radio walked by I asked him if he was going to fix the mess of a line. He stated that he was trying and that it was not usually this bad and walked away. 10min after his disappearance another register opened that only took credit and food passes not helping the situation at all.
At another point I took my grandson to get ice-cream and there was another line with an attended serving that was moving like he was chained to the counter and that anyone asking for anything was inconveniencing him. It took another 20min to serve the 5 people in front of me.
Over all, the park was very dirty with trash all over the place and all of the tables were filthy and sticky like they had never seen a clean towel.
The tag line for the park is ” Not seeing Elitche’s is not seeing Denver” or something like that. That park is not a representation of the City I love and is a far cry to the Elitche Gardens that I grew up with.
I am not complaining for free tickets like some do. I just wanted someone at the corporate offices to know what mess they have and hope they care enough to fix there employee morale problem and get that park straightened out.
My family and I went to the park last weekend and had a fabulous time! It’s totally decorated for Fright Fest and looks awesome. They do Halloween stuff for kids during he day and then open the Haunted Houses at night. We took the kids trick or treating for free candy in KiddieLand and they got to decorate pumpkins too! The rides were super fun and we even convinced our 10 year old to ride Tower of Doom! We sprung for the Rapid Ride passes, which were totally worth it since we were able to skip the lines. All the employees were very friendly too – the young man working Ghost Blasters was really goofy and entertained the kids and the staff at the Orchard Cafe went out of their way to help me fill a bottle with hot water for the baby. All in all we had a spectacular day at the park (which is right downtown btw and super convenient) and my husband and I are hoping to come back one evening to check out all the scary Fright Fest attractions!
As a director of a summer camp for middle schoolers, Elitch Gardens is as good as it gets. They have a multitude of rides and water slides, their staff is friendly and professional, and they go above and beyond in making each experience special and fun for our kiddos.
Staff have helped us find lost glasses, helped us get a kiddo rehydrated on a particularly hot day, let a kiddo who suddenly had to use the restroom head to the front of the line at a ride (he was next in line and said he just couldn’t wait to use the restroom). Our kids take selfies with Elitch’s staff, they like them so much.
Our camp would not be the same without Elitch Gardens, and I just can’t thank them enough for making what could be a daunting field trip for us camp counselors a really fun, exciting way to spend our day with the kids!
This park is really fun and a great family experience, however, it is evident that their only objective is money. “VIP” and “Rapid ride” passes enable higher-paying people to cut the lines. This may seem like an excellent idea, but the rest of us get to wait around while we watch these other people enjoy the rides over and over again. This causes lines to back up and not make any progress towards the ride. When alerted of the situation, staff members were rude and displayed fake ignorance to the situation. May I remind you that it is already very expensive to get into the park, and that many people cannot afford the “VIP” and “Rapid pass” passes for the ridiculous prices they are set at. No one pays to get into Elitch’s just to wait in line. Very fun, but not worth it.
We had a great a great day at Elitch’s. I had my 9 yr old and 13 yr old sons. My 9 yr old is in a wheelchair and my only complaint is that it was a bit confusing about where to go to get him on some of the rides. For instance, the Ferris wheel is his favorite and the workers seemed very confused when I brought him up the exit which is where I was told to go. We felt we were in the way and they weren’t very nice about it. And by the wave pool was difficult to navigate with his chair as well. Kind of disappointing for him and difficult for me trying to get him through! We still had a great day, though and most of the other employees were friendly and helpful.
If I could give this place no stars I would. Sunday was one of the worst days we could have had.
Let me start off by saying, we had planned this day for awhile. Arranged a sitter to watch our toddlers.. just to have a whole date day and be kids and ride roller coasters. Something parents don’t get to o often.
We showed up right at 10am (they open at 10:30) just to fight extremely long lines. During that time, we had two very large groups jump in front of us.. one group of ten 20 somethings and then an entire family of 14.. I said something to both groups and nobody seemed to care as they each had someone representing them all in line. Mind you we were a group of two. Rude. We finally got into the park at 12:30… by then feeling like we waisted half of our day in a line.
Eager to get our day started we went to go grab a drink, again waited in a line at the bar for about an hour. Finally got a beer so we headed over to the lazy river, hopped on a tube and were ready to relax… nope. They make you get off the ride if you don’t pay for a clear tube. We then waited in another line to go buy a clear tube to enjoy some time.. took another 30 minutes. By this time I’m a little frustrated. We were able to relax in the lazy river for a little bit. That was the nicest part of our date. We decided to head into the park, to ride roller coasters.. every line was looking at an hour and forty-five minuet wait. By this time it was about 4pm. The entire day seemed waisted by lines, understaffed bars, and rude people.
This was not the place we enjoyed as a kid. I wish we could have had a fun day like we had planned, but we ended up extremely disappointed. Kind of heart broken to be honest… If you want to spend $200+ to wait in lines and be treated poorly.. then come here. If not, take your money else where.
This is probably the biggest amusement park in the region, and has some very fun rides. For a family with young children, they could probably spend a full day here without running out of things to do.
However, for everyone else, it’s likely that they may grow bored of riding the same five or so thrill rides and exciting roller coasters much sooner than that. Also, splurging and purchasing the “VIP Rapid Ride Pass” for another $40 probably is not worth it unless you arrive late in the day when the lines are long. Additionally, buying this pass is no guarantee you’ll skip the line: on my most recent visit they had virtually no attendants to let people from the “Rapid Ride” lines onto the ride.
All in all, it’s a fun park, but maybe not worth the money for families without younger kids.
I have been a season pass holder for 2 year and this place has turned into a huge dump! You can never get what food you want because they always seem to run out! And if you are able to get your food good luck finding a clean table to sit at! They hire a bunch of dumb teenagers that don’t give a rats ass about anything! It is so dirty and smelly (like sewer) bathrooms are gross they hardly get cleaned. Most ride are “broke”! It is over crowded you have to wait in line up to an hour for food or drinks! They have double standards they give some guests special privileges like refilling last years cups with soda and not charging but the one time your son with the premium dinning plan bring the wrong cup no exception is made! And if you are a cute guy and can flirt get ready to get free food! Also expect security to laugh in your face when you ask a question! They are so rude and not trained they are worse then rent a cops! And when you contact supports or management all they say is sorry for this inconvenience. NOT what can we do to make your visit better! So needless to say we will not be back unless Elitches starts training there staff better and actually starts caring about there guests!
Elitch garden is busy for the most part but Colorado is very over crowded. What do you expect? It’s season pass is worth it, saves you tons of money. It’s two for one. Water park and Amusement park in one place. Theatrical plays, magic shows and more… not to mention the free concerts and movies at the water park. Free or 99 cent refills and meal plans. You can’t beat that. Also, would like to add the fire work displays they do for Memorial Day, Independence Day and Labor Day. Fright fest, haunted house for Halloween!
This place was the worst, most trashiest amusement park I’ve ever been to. First time going and I will never ago again!
We literally watched drunk adults stumble through the park acting ridiculously and had three men doing hard drugs on the left side of the boomerang roller coaster entrance. Countless people in the boomerang line were watching in disbelief, it was beyond obvious what they were doing and when the family in front of us went to get security, they never came! And we were in that line for over an hour 1/2.
Save your money and go anywhere else. This place is straight garbage.
This place is some hot buns, whenever I go here with my kids in the summer, we frequently encounter delinquent teenagers who think they are the sh*t. They are constantly bugging and bothering other people with their foul, racist language. I know that the park cannot control this to a full extent, however there is more. A season pass here is higher than my electricity bill, tickets here are incredibly overpriced. Most of the time all of the rides are closed, and not to mention their food is a one-way ticket to salmonella poisoning. I would not recommend this amusement park.
The worst park and rides ever. I’m from Colorado and remember the good old days at elitches on 38th Ave. That was the best of times. This eliches park is a joke. It’s dirty , filthy and trashy place. To much violence at this park. There is fight there all the time. My grandson and his friends got beat up there last year and the security there didn’t care. Beware do not leave your kids there without adult supervision. Security at eliches is a total joke. Will never return to elitches. Gangs and violence there.