Margaritaville at Lake Lanier Islands is set to open its Fins Up Water Park this summer, featuring Georgia’s first “waterslide coaster”.
The Apocalypso will be the centerpiece of a tower with four new slides, adding Georgia’s largest waterslide complex to the park. The ride will have the largest “blasterango drop” in the U.S., sending up and downhill at an average speed of 30 mph. The ride will be part of the Fins Up Water Park, which will open on May 4.
Given Lake Lanier’s history, many people online were skeptical of the idea of a water park there due to #LakeLanier history of deaths. The majority of the deaths were caused by drowning. According to USA Today and the Georgia DNR, more than 200 individuals died at Lake Lanier between 1994 and 2022, including Tameka Foster’s (Usher’s ex-wife) 11-year-old son, who drowned at the age of 11.
Christmas Day 1964 is remembered as the most deadliest day in Lake Lanier, when a driver lost control of their vehicle while crossing a bridge. The car then flipped into the lake, resulting in the death of five children and two adults drowning in the Lake.
Many locals reported that the place was haunted. What makes it even creepier is that the settlement, Oscarville, is said to be a city buried beneath Lake Lanier.
Oscarville, a mainly-Black town, is best known for being at the center of a series of violent murders and racially driven riots in 1912, which drove out the bulk of Forsyth County’s Black people. The vestiges of the town were submerged in 1950 as Lake Lanier was being constructed.
Knowing the history of Lake Lanier…Would you check out the waterslide coaster after it’s built?