Sunburns, Summer Romances: So Long, Wild Rivers

The word that comes up again and again when people talk about Wild Rivers, the soon-to-be homeless Irvine water park, is family.

By the end of October, when the park’s final lease extension with the Irvine Co. expires, more than 10 million visitors will have brought their families to go bodysurfing in Monsoon Lagoon, float circuits of the Lazy River and make the seven-story drop on the Patriot.

In those 25 years, sunburns have been earned and romances kindled, and boys who once careened down slides on plastic floaties have grown into men with children of their own to bring for a cool day of respite from the summer sun.

Jeffrey Soto was one of those boys.

The Irvine resident started coming to Wild Rivers with his parents sometime in the 1980s, when he was too young to note exact dates (“I’ve been coming since forever”) but old enough to remember that a trip down a waterslide was “the pinnacle of fun.”

Once he reached his teen years, it was also one of the few places where his parents felt OK leaving him with a group of friends, a welcome taste of independence.

Now a father of two, Soto will return to the park at least once more this season, as a chaperone for his eldest daughter’s fifth-grade promotion, which will take place at the park this Friday. 

On the other side of the ticket booth, Wild Rivers' General Manager Kevin Kopeny has a similarly long history with the park.

Kopeny started working at Wild Rivers when he was 14. The park, which is the county’s biggest youth employer, hires 1,000 Kevin Kopenys every summer. As with many of these workers, Wild Rivers was the first employer Kopeny ever had. Unlike many, Kopeny stayed on.

“I got to be outside and be around young people. It beat the paper route,” he said when asked why he kept coming back.

Twenty-three years later, Kopeny is still working at Wild Rivers. He has taken tickets, managed special projects and admissions, made pizzas and washed down the park in the morning.

He counts staff members—past and current—among his best friends and watched a few of them meet and get married. 

“We’re a family,” he said, simple as that.

Like Soto, Kopeny is the father of a second generation of water park enthusiasts. He has two children, ages 4 and 7, whom he credits with keeping the park fresh for him.

“It can be easy to not see the fun that people are having, to become immune, but my kids reintroduce it to me all the time," he said. "To see it through their eyes, to see how much they love the place, makes it special again.” 

Mike Riedel, the park president, said these kinds of long-term relationships with Wild Rivers are not unusual. 

“We’ve been here for 25 years,” Riedel explained. “You can’t be around that long and not make connections.” 

For Riedel, however, there is little time for reflection. His singular focus is to find a way to keep the Wild Rivers family together.

“I’m not very reminiscent or nostalgic at the moment,” Riedel said. “We’ll see once it gets closer to the end. Right now, I’m just trying to find a solution for all the people who work here.”

Reidel has his hopes pinned on relocating Wild Rivers to the Great Park in Irvine.

He said talks with the park’s board are “ongoing” and that things are “heating up.” If all goes well, the park would be reopened there within a few years, in time to keep a “continuity of our connection to the community.”

Soto, for one, hopes he succeeds. 

“My wife and I are expecting our third child. I hope that in a couple of years, I’ll be able to bring the baby to Wild Rivers at the Great Park,” he said.

Until then, as the water park’s future remains in limbo, Kopeny, ever the general manager, said he’s excited about the weather.

“It’s supposed to be warm this year. If this is our last summer, it’s going to be a good one. I want to end on a hot, busy, fun summer.”