Kalahari Getaway
This past week we visited Kalahari resort in the Poconos for my middle son's 7th birthday. He saw a lot of commercials for Great Wolf Lodge and my husband had visited the nearby Kalahari for a convention earlier in the year and loved it. Both were the same price, even with our military discount, so I booked Kalahari to try out. And we left for an "adventure" on Tuesday morning to surprise the middle son. (Summer birthdays are so hard so he's gotten a Disney trip one year and now Kalahari as a present/in lieu of a party.)
Kalahari by
Gretchen Istre, on Flickr
I should mention that I am not a fan of water parks. They totally gross me out! But like most parents I'll try things for my kids so I found myself a little grossed out all weekend!
However, my kids had a blast so it was all worth it!
Kalahari is supposed to be the largest indoor water park in the nation. They had a couple little "cove" areas. One was definitely geared toward itty bitties. The other had some small slides, a mini lazy river and other water features to play in. My littles really liked this area and we spent a lot of time in it. There was also a fort type area with the dumping water, water guns and some bigger slides. This was the other place we spent a lot of time. I went on one bigger slide and we all did the lazy river. I think the oldest child did a couple of other big slides on his own. The morning before we left we did the wave pool, but that freaked the middle out when the waves came. (He is not our adventurous child.) The kids also enjoyed the arcade after dinner.
Kalahari by
Gretchen Istre, on Flickr
We ate dinner at Brandberg Food & Drink in the main lobby. I thought the food was good, but the service was a little lacking. Our waitress was less than attentive and when we asked for more water she brought a carafe and refilled our glasses about 3/4 of the way, but ran out of water about 1/3 of the way through the oldest's glass and just said, "oh these are smaller than you expect" and walked away and never came back to check on us until she handed us the bill. My husband and I both had the steak burger, which was delicious! Oldest son had the cheesesteak which he raved about. The birthday boy had a cheese pizza and fries. Youngest had fish and chips. So, the food was good, but our server, not so much. And we noted his birthday and they wished him happy birthday, but didn't do anything for it, which is odd since normal restaurants will normally, but he didn't care too much since we had cupcakes back at the room.
Kalahari by
Gretchen Istre, on Flickr
My one other comment is that we booked the basic room and it had two double beds and a sofa bed. It was no thrills for sure. For what we paid it was a little underwhelming and we all noted that.
So, overall we had a good time. There was plenty in the waterpark for all of our kids to enjoy. It was good family time since we were electronics free at the water park. The coffee shop even gave the birthday boy a cupcake when we went to get coffee in the morning, which was very Disney-esque. The middle said it was the best birthday ever. He even said it was better than his Disney!
(He was three for that trip so I'll cut him some slack.) It was super crowded the day we arrived and we might try Great Wolf next time since they don't do day passes like Kalahari does. We would definitely go back though, and I'm actually thinking about doing something like this for the youngest since his birthday is right before Christmas. We'll see.