Waldameer Park to Open, Rye Playland to Stay Closed, and Hurricane Harbor Phoenix Closes

© Waldameer

Pennsylvania's Waldameer Park and Water World will open to visitors on July 3rd, marking the start of their 2020 season.  The park will not able able to open all of their rides in order to accommodate COVID-19 restrictions, but the vast majority of the park's attractions will be available.

Guests visiting the park will be required to wear a face mask, at least for those age 3 and up.  Pennsylvania has continued to have face masks required at all businesses, regardless of type, during the pandemic and Waldameer will be no exception to that rule.

In order to monitor attendance levels guests will have to purchase their tickets online ahead of time and select the date they want to visit.  The park will not be selling any tickets at their entrance gates.  This also means that non-rider free admission will not be available in 2020 but the park plans to bring it back in 2021.

© Playland

New York's Rye Playland amusement park has made the tough decision to stay closed for the 2020 season.  The park is part of the Westchester County parks system, and that general area was one of the first in the country to be heavily hit with COVID-19 cases.  In order to continue to keep the public and employees safe the decision to not open the amusement park this year was made.

From the park's website it looks like other amenities surrounding the park, such as the beach and mini-golf, are currently operating on limited schedules with plenty of precautions in place.

© Hurricane Harbor Phoenix

Six Flags Hurricane Harbor Phoenix was already open for the 2020 season, however due to the dramatic increase in COVID-19 cases in Arizona the park has announced that they will be closing for 30 days.

The state's Governor has ordered all water parks and tubing enterprises to stay shuttered until at least July 27th - calling that date and "aspirational" goal.  To me that means it could easily go longer depending on what the number of cases do.

It's a mixed bag of good news with bad so far this summer, everyone keep safe!