The Poconos are home to a trio of indoor water parks and the best of the bunch is
Aquatopia. Located at the Camelback Resort, Aquatopia is one of the best
indoor water parks I’ve experienced between the wonderful atmosphere and strong slide lineup.
Find out why this park is so good in this review. Camelback Resort opened an outdoor water park
back in 1998. This was a great option in the summer months, but the Pennsylvania winters
made this a seasonal park. After seeing the success of year-round indoor water parks,
particularly the nearby Great Wolf Lodge in the Poconos, Camelback wanted their own.
In 2015, Camelback Resort opened the Camelback Lodge for $163 million. This 8 story hotel
included a bevy of family-friendly amenities, most notably the Aquatopia Indoor Water Park.
Aquatopia opened as the largest indoor water park in the Northeast
with 125,000 square feet of pools and slides. One of the biggest issues with indoor water parks
is that they often have poor lighting and look dark. Aquatopia does not have this issue. In fact,
its appearance is one of its biggest strengths. You have this giant sunroof that lets in tons of
natural light. This gives the park a bright appearance, which accentuates the colorful
mess of slides. Once the sun sets, the roof is adorned with twinkling, multi-colored lights,
which looks different but equally as cool. This water park also has some light theming.
Themed around the worldwide adventures of explorer Kartrite Van Der Berris,
each attraction has story boards explaining his adventure. For example, the wave pool is themed to
the Arctic. Then the Lost River lazy river and the Venus Slydetrap water slide are set in the jungle.
The amount of effort that went into making this water park look good blew me away.
And like most indoor water parks, this one is kept at a balmy 84 degrees and there’s heated water.
Which means you’ll be comfortable year-round. The other thing that helps the atmosphere is the
staff. Half the staff members really went above and beyond to socialize and interact with guests.
Now let’s talk about the arrival experience. This hotel is perched atop a hill and you can
see the slides poking out of the lodge as you approach it. Once you reach the parking lot,
where you go depends if you’re a resort guest or not. Resort guests have a few lots in front of
the hotel near the entrance. Non-resort guests visiting for just the water park must park on
the far side of the building, closer to the water slides. Both visitors will need to pay to park.
Lodge guests need to pay $25 per day. Those visiting for just the day must pay $12.
The latter pay electronically using their phone and there are multiple
signs in the lot explaining how to do this. Once inside, resort guests check-in and pick up
their included Aquatopia wristbands at the front desk. These are good through the duration of their
stay- even on check-in and check-out days. Those visiting for the day can usually proceed down the
stairs to the Aquatopia entrance to get their wristband, but if you arrive later in the day,
you may need to go the front desk as well. Rates for the lodge start at $200-$500 per
night depending on the day and time of season. Day passes cost between $69-$99
depending on the expected crowd levels. Busy weekends will understandably cost more.
Let’s compare those prices to the other Poconos water parks.
Great Wolf Lodge costs $50-$95 per day and they offer a 20% discount if you arrive after 4 pm.
The Kalahari costs $60-$130 per day and they offer an $8 discount if you arrive after 4 pm.
I think Aquatopia is the best overall value between the cost and slide lineup.
The final fee you’ll encounter if for a locker- if needed. These cost $10-$20 depending on the size.
I was surprised how few lockers were available, so I’m not sure if that’s an issue on busier days.
But one thing you don’t need to pack is a towel. The park offers those for free.
I visited on a weekday before peak season, so the park was fairly quiet.
I was pleasantly surprised every single slide was fully staffed and available,
especially after my experiences at the nearby Kalahari Resort where half the
slides routinely are closed on off-peak days. Every single slide was a walk-on. Typically,
these indoor water parks attached to hotels intentionally limit capacity
so slides have minimal waits. Aquatopia seems to have a much higher attendance threshold, as they
even offer season passes. From reviews I’ve seen online, this place can get lines on busier days.
Some indoor water parks offer a reduced slide lineup compared to their outdoor counterparts,
but Aquatopia has a great slide lineup for any water park. There is a balanced collection of
tube, body, and mat slides covering all thrill levels. I believe most of the slides here were
provided by WhiteWater West. All of the slides are positioned in the back of the park.
There are three slide towers. The biggest one in the back leads to six different water slides and
I think more are under construction. The line branches off a few points depending
which slide you want to experience, which I could see being confusing on a busier day.
There’s a duo of trapdoor slides accessed by a tall spiral staircase.
Then there’s a water play structure named Kartrite’s Quest with a few more body slides.
The latter has all the usual water features like dump buckets and sprayers and those slides
aren’t too extreme. They are smooth and one of the unique ones the Lava Luge Bowl Slide.
This is a toned down body bowl slide. Rather than dumping guests into a deep splashdown pool
at the end, you just stop and need to climb out of a staircase in the center of the attraction.
I prefer the more extreme version, but this is more accessible since you don’t need to swim.
You have a quartet of tube slides here. The most unique of the bunch is the Storm Chaser water
coaster. This slide features four drops and four water-powered uphill ascents. The first
drop always gives a little pop of airtime and the third can if you have enough weight. This is a
rare water coaster that allows single riders, but you will travel significantly slower than
the double tubes. I almost stalled out on the first few turns until I found a riding buddy.
While this water coaster doesn’t hold its speed as well as others, it does deliver a satisfying ride
experience better than most water slides. My favorite attraction here was the Venus
Slydetrap. This tube slide requires at least 3 people and it’s a wild experience. You start with
a miniature funnel before being dumped into the picturesque venus flytrap halfpipe. You have some
good speed into the drop, so it delivered some surprising airtime. Then the halfpipe section
and final few turns can throw you about the raft. This ride had more power than I expected.
Mountain Mayhem is a flashy tube slide. You select one of four themes before starting the ride.
This changes the music and visuals for your descent, as you pass through multi-colored
rings and water screens. It was a neat concept that elevated the otherwise tame slide.
Constrictor is one of those slides with those tight helixes. Those delivered the
usual speed and force, but the rest of the slide was extremely slow, which disrupted the pacing.
Daredevils will be drawn to the two trapdoor slides in Skydive Plummet and Paradise Plunge.
These two slides stand 60 feet or 18 meters tall. Both load guests into a capsule whose
floor suddenly drops out. The release angle isn’t as steep as others, so I found Paradise Plunge,
the one that went straightdown, not as wild as others. But I loved Skydive Plummet. The
initial plunge had the usual zip followed by a fast and moderately forceful flatline turn.
And these slides are reasonably smooth on your back as well.
Another solid body slide is the Outa-Space Race. This one didn’t have any real drops, but it had
really nice speed and some zippy turns. The final major slide is the Himalayan.
This is a rare non-racing mat slide. It was slower than I would have liked,
but you passed through these cool illuminated rings.
Another popular attraction here is the Bombora Flowrider. I’m awful at these attractions,
but I saw plenty of people doing masterfully executing barrel rolls.
If you want to relax, you have some pools including a surprisingly large wave pool and
the Lost River lazy river. Most of the slides are accessible
for those over 42” tall, but for the littlest guests, there is a small penguin themed play area
plus some activity lagoons. As for how much time you’ll need,
I think it depends on the crowd level. If the park is busy, I could see this park needing 4-5 hours.
With light crowds, you can easily experience all the slides within 2 hours. But if you’re like me,
you’ll want to stay longer than that. I really liked this water park.
And it has long hours too, as it’s typically open 10 am until 9 pm.
So do I recommend Aquatopia? If you love water parks, absolutely. This is one of the best indoor
water parks I’ve experienced and it is easily the best water park in the Poconos. Between the
top notch appearance, ride availability, and ride quality, I was thoroughly impressed by Aquatopia.
If I’m ever looking for something to do before or after visiting one of the east Pennsylvanian
theme parks, Aquatopia will be very high on my list. The only negative is the high price
point, but that’s a commonality for most indoor water parks.
So those are my thoughts on Aquatopia. What are your thoughts on this awesome indoor water park
at the Camelback Lodge. Have you been there? What’s your favorite water park in the Poconos?
Let me know your thoughts down in the comments. If you enjoyed this review, I’d appreciate it
if you gave this video a like and you considered subscribing since there will be a lot more roller
coaster and amusement park videos here at Canobie Coaster. Thanks for watching!