SAN DIMAS, Calif. — A lot of 40-year-olds would be content to celebrate their birthdays with a nice dinner, but not the Raging Waters amusement park. To help ring in its 40th year, California’s largest water park is celebrating with an intense new offering that whisks intrepid water lovers through a tube at 26 feet per second after they’ve plummeted through a hatch door.

What You Need To Know

  • Water park season gets underway this month

  • Raging Waters in San Dimas opens Saturday with a new ride called Bombs Away, which whisks people through a tube at 26 feet per second

  • Knott's Soak City in Buena Park also opens Saturday, and Wild Rivers in Irvine is now open daily

  • Buccaneer Bay in La Mirada, Six Flags Hurricane Harbor in Valencia and The Wave in Vista open May 27

Called Bombs Away, the dual drop slide has another option for visitors who want to feel the rush but would prefer a more leisurely descent. A second drop tube plunges them through a more gently meandering tunnel before spitting them out 300 feet later.

Bombs Away is a new water slide at Raging Waters that whisks intrepid water lovers through a tube at 26 feet per second after they've plummeted through a hatch door. (Photo courtesy of Raging Waters)

“It’s all about connecting with family and friends,” Raging Waters director of marketing Jesse Amos told Spectrum News 1 on the eve of the water park’s season opening Saturday.

The park will operate through the end of September.

Pictured here is Cook's Cove at Wild Rivers water park in Irvine. (Photo courtesy of Wild Rivers)

The 60-acre park is already home to more than 50 attractions, including the only hydromagnetic water coaster in the state: the four-person roller coaster-style ride, Aqua Rocket. With a wide variety of tube and body slides catering to all ages and activity levels, Raging Waters’ offerings run the gamut from a million-gallon wave pool and lazy river to a 30,000-square-foot water playground and new thrill rides, such as Bombs Away.

Pictured here is Banzai Falls at Knott's Soak City in Buena Park. (Photo courtesy of Knott's)

Raging Waters is one of several Southern California water parks opening this month for the summer season, including Knott’s Soak City in Buena Park, also opening Saturday, and the new Wild Rivers in Irvine, which opened earlier this month with five new slides and is holding a grand opening Saturday. Buccaneer Bay in La Mirada, Six Flags Hurricane Harbor in Valencia and The Wave in Vista open May 27.