SPLASH DOWN

This water park off the freeway in the Valley is like kid heaven, with a multi-colored spaghetti of slides — including the Cannon Bowl vortex, the Spokane Falls and the high-speed, six-story free-fall Fastball — and a commitment to banishing boredom at all costs. Engage in a Water War with your enemies, using buckets of water balloons. Or compete in the park’s newest attraction, “Splashketball,” in which the losing baller gets soaked. (JS)

BOULDER BEACH

This sprawling water park is only one nation of the Fun Empire that is Silverwood Theme Park, off Highway 95 in Athol. It even has its own geography — Avalanche Mountain, Boulder Beach Bay, Rumble Falls. Over at Velocity Peak, you can hit 55 miles per hour in nothing but your trunks. Polliwog Park makes sure the kiddies never dry out. But Elkhorn Creek is where you’ll find us — cruising gently along the lazy river in an inner tube. (If only they served Rum Cannonballs…) (JS)

SILVER RAPIDS

You gotta be a paying guest at Silver Mountain’s Morning Star Lodge to enjoy this indoor water park in Kellogg, so it’s not as much of a summer destination as Splash Down or Boulder Beach. But in the winter, this place keeps on giving. While snow falls and Splash Down slumbers, you can hit the ski slopes, then retire to the North Fork lazy river, or the Flow Rider surf wave. The climatological irony is worth savoring. (JS)