DropZone Waterpark in Perris has made its last splash. The park, tucked off the 215 Freeway at Case Road near the Big League Dreams baseball fields in the Inland Empire between Riverside and Temecula, announced it will not reopen for the 2027 season after about a decade in operation.
The Standguard Aquatics team, which has managed DropZone for 10 years, broke the news in a statement posted to the park's website and social media last Friday, as reported by the San Bernardino Sun. The announcement expressed gratitude for the friendships, laughter and lasting memories built at the park over the years. According to the SFGATE, the closure comes attributed directly to the Standguard Aquatics team's own announcement.
The City of Perris lists the attraction on its city compass pages and describes it as the Drop Zone Water Park, formerly known as the Perris-Menifee Valley Aquatic Center — a $24 million, 12-acre project built in 2014. The complex opened to the public on May 24, 2014, according to the City of Perris.
Part of a Broader Pattern of Closures
DropZone isn't the only Inland Empire attraction to shut its gates recently. Fiesta Village Family Fun Park in Colton, located north of Riverside, closed abruptly in July after 52 years in business, citing rising costs and declining attendance, per the same Sun report. Fiesta Village co-owner Michelle O'Brien told SFGATE by phone that the changed economics of the amusement park industry made continuing unsustainable, and she separately said, “We've just reached a point where continuing simply wasn't sustainable.”
The pattern extends beyond the Inland Empire. Six Flags has announced that California's Great America in Santa Clara will end operations with the 2027 season, with a farewell season planned so, as park manager Dave Vosejpka put it, generations of Bay Area guests can revisit the park and its attractions. Cedar Fair sold the land beneath California's Great America in 2022, and the leaseback deal underpinning the park's operation is set to expire in 2028, the Sun reported. Further afield, Cowabunga Bay in Henderson, Nevada, which had operated for 12 years, announced it will not reopen for the 2027 summer season either, according to News 3 Las Vegas.
Attendance Numbers Tell a Mixed Story
Southern California's largest theme parks lost roughly 1 million attendees in 2025, according to the Themed Entertainment Association's Global Experience Index, released October 27. The broader regional picture, detailed by the Orange County Register, shows attendance across Southern California theme parks fell 1.9%, or 919,000 visitors, in 2025.
Not every park took a hit. Disneyland had relatively stable year-over-year attendance, with Disneyland and Disney California Adventure together rising 0.4% to 17.4 million and 10.1 million visitors respectively, the Register reported. Universal Studios Hollywood fared worse, logging 700,000 fewer attendees — an 8% drop from 2024 — while Knott's Berry Farm had around 200,000 fewer attendees. The Register put Knott's decline at 4%.
The Sun described rising costs, declining attendance and changing economics as having made operating Inland Empire parks increasingly unsustainable. The Themed Entertainment Association's index, described as a calendar-year study of global attractions attendance that identifies industry trends, also noted that North American attendance declines were tied to extreme weather, the Los Angeles wildfires and fewer Canadians traveling to the U.S. amid tariff and trade tensions, per the Register's account.
Smaller Parks Feel the Squeeze
California amusement and theme parks broadly face lower attendance and rising operational costs, a dynamic that appears to be hitting smaller, independently run attractions hardest. A theme park industry consultant told the Los Angeles Times that “it's hard for smaller parks to compete with the big entities that surround them.”
For Perris residents, the loss of DropZone closes out a decade-long chapter for a park that opened with ambitions as a $24 million civic project. With Fiesta Village gone since summer and California's Great America's farewell season set for next year, DropZone's closure adds another name to a growing list of Southern California parks that won't be back next year.
