The Underwater Water Slide: Fly Over at Durinrell TikiBad

Have you ever wished to experience being transferred from one pool of liquid to another via a pipe?

Had you visited the Dutch water park known as Durinrell, also known as Tikibad before 2010, you would have had the chance.

Half water slide, half war crime, this was a unique water slide that was filled to the brim with water, leaving riders completely submerged throughout the journey.

Image: XtremeRidesNL

Known as the Fly Over was an underwater water slide, which is exactly how it sounds, and transported riders from one pool to another using the water as propulsion. Built in 1994, riders dove underwater to access the slide, using gravity to transport them upwards via the Communicating Vessels Principle. Riders would be completely underwater for about 15-20 seconds.

This is how I imagine those 15-20 seconds felt like while riding the slide.

The slide was built to drain water in five seconds or less in case a rider got stuck in the slide or had a medical emergency, but the threat that a panicked rider may inhale water before being rescued still remained. In spite of safety concerns however, there were never any reported incidents with the ride.

Nonetheless, it was met with little enthusiasm and fear from the general public, and was closed in 2010 due to the maintenance costs associated with it.

Images and video of the slide are quite rare, one of the only good bits of information comes from YouTube.  We've embedded Theme Park Crazy's YouTube video of the ride below: The slide is at 6:40 mark.

Thanks as always for reading!