The Kalahari in the Pocono Mountains was the former record-holder for the largest indoor water
park in the Northeast. While that title has since been taken by the nearby DreamWorks Water Park,
this enclosed Pennsylvanian water park still boasts one of the most complete water slide
lineups for an indoor water park. But does this park’s operations hold it back? Find out in this
review and everything else you need to know before visiting the Kalahari in the Pocono Mountains.
After the success of their first two resorts in the Wisconsin Dells in 2000
and Sandusky, Ohio in 2005, Kalahari waited a decade before expanding. Then in 2015,
they opened their third resort in the Pocono Mountains. Interestingly, that was the same
year that the Camelback Resort also opened their very own indoor water park just across town.
While the indoor water park is the main calling card for the Pocono Kalahari, the resort also has
an arcade, restaurants, and other fun amenities. They also advertise an outdoor water park,
but it’s really tiny. You just have a large outdoor pool for all ages
and then a smaller kiddie pool with some small slides.
The outdoor water park doesn’t have a single slide for adults to experience.
But the indoor water park is strong enough to fill all the slide needs one could have.
The hotel has the African safari theming the company is known for.
The outside of the hotel is colorful and I love the landscaping. Then the interior has
an ornate lobby. To access the water park, you go downstairs and proceed through the arcade.
Resort guests get water park access for the entire duration of their stay. With taxes and fees,
the cheapest rooms start around $300 per night. So if you want to visit multiple days or have enough
people, this will be your best deal. Prices are cheaper if you book well in advance.
Non-resort guests can purchase day passes. These can be very pricey for non-resort guests. The
number of day passes is limited, so they’re dynamically priced to try and prevent them from
selling out. Right now, weekends and holiday weeks cost between $100-$120 for a day pass.
Weekdays cost as little as $60. That’s still high, but significantly less than the other
days. However, they may have rides due to staffing on quiet days so it’s a risk-reward. You can save
25-30% if you buy the half-day pass, which is valid from the mid-afternoon onwards.
However, some rides may stop operating before your ticket is valid.
The Wisconsin Dells and Round Rock locations offer spectator passes for roughly $20 for those who
don’t want to ride anything. I didn’t see that advertised on the Pocono location’s website,
so I’m not sure if it’s available if you ask or if everyone has to pay full-price.
Most days, the indoor water park is open until 8 or 9 pm. However, not every ride will operate for
the full day. Like the other two Kalahari resorts I have visited, the speed slides tend to have
significantly reduced hours. Sahara Sidewinder and Screaming Hyena were open from just 12 pm to 5 pm,
which was a bummer since my evening ticket didn’t start until 5 pm when they closed.
I’d say this could have been due to visiting on a quieter day, but I visited the Wisconsin
Dells Kalahari on a summer weekend and their trapdoor slides were only open for 4 hours total.
My biggest issue with this park was ride availability. I visited the day after Columbus
Day and in addition to the ones that had reduced hours, one-quarter of their slides were closed
for the day. The closed raft slides appeared to be for staffing. The fourth slide closure
was for maintenance and unfortunately, it was the Anaconda water coaster. This was the slide
I was most looking forward to experiencing. Had I known all these slides would be closed,
including the unavailability of the speed slides during my ticket hours, I probably wouldn’t have
visited. There is a ride availability and schedule outside the entrance, but there was no notice of
this on the website where I purchased my ticket. I would recommend calling the resort the day you’re
visiting if you’re interested in a specific slide to avoid the situation I encountered.
Once inside the water park, you can find the usual changing room and locker facilities. The latter
are an extra cost like most parks. I believe they cost $20ish for a small from memory. They
are the smart lockers where you need to remember your locker number and created 4-digit code.
The indoor water park has a similar appearance to the other Kalahari ones. It’s a semi-dark
warehouse. But the colorful slides and scattered animal or Africa theming gives it life.
There isn’t much theming beyond that unless you count the slides having African-inspired names.
But the biggest benefit of the indoor water park is the perfect climate.
And that comes with heated water. Wait times at the Kalahari are designed
to be manageable. That is why their day passes are so high in price and limited in quantity.
On the weekday I visited, every single slide was a walk-on. The park was quite dead.
Moving onto the slide lineup, the star likely would have been Anaconda. This one is located
high amongst the rafters. It features 5 drops and 5 water-propelled, uphill ascents.
While I can’t give full judgment without riding it, the drops on this one looked rather shallow
off-ride and from the speed it carries in POVs, I suspect this one may not have much
if any airtime. Instead, this one should just be a long, fun water slide with some decent drops.
One other interesting thing with this water coaster is that the park offers
a $10 upcharge to experience Anaconda as a virtual reality water coaster.
The body slide collection here is very strong. While Sahara Sidewinder and Screaming Hyena were
closed for me at the Pocono location, I’ve ridden clones of these ProSlide speed slides elsewhere.
These are pretty short for speed slides, but the drops are pretty steep. Screaming Hyena
goes straight down. Meanwhile, Sahara Sidewinder has a trap door that disappears. Riders fly down a
short, but steep drop and then whip around a tight spiral that likely would give some good positive
Gs. And since they’re new ones from ProSlide, they should be very smooth on your back.
Tanzanian Twister is an exciting body bowl slide. This one has a decent initial drop,
but the bowl is where the real thrills occur. It’s always suspenseful seeing how you’ll be flushed
into the splashdown pool below. Will you go feet first? Or will you go head over heels? This one is
for strong swimmers only, but it will throw your body into the final pool in some weird ways.
Zimbabwe Zipper is a decent body slide.
It has solid speed but the elements are too drawn out to pack on the Gs.
The park had quite a few family raft slides, but you need an even number of riders to
experience most of them. Barreling Baboon has a series of feisty mini funnels on the way down
that will throw you about. Smoke That Thunders instead features one giant funnel. This ProSlide
Tornado has the usually great drop into the funnel before a fun series of oscillations.
You also have the similar Wild Wildebeest. This has a similarly awesome drop to Smoke
That Thunders followed by a wall with some weightlessness. Then Victoria Falls is a slower
family raft slide with some small dips and turns. The park then has a series of standard tube slides
you can either experience solo or in a double tube. Most of them are
rather short and slow. But I would recommend one of the closed ones in Kenya Corkscrew.
I’ve ridden similar constrictor slides elsewhere and the compact twist can be quite forceful.
Lastly, there’s the Cheetah Race racing mat slide. It’s pretty short for the slide type,
but you get some good speed for the final drop and can get some airtime.
The most popular attraction that was operating during my visit was easily the flowrider. Since it
wasn’t too crowded, the staff was encouraging long rides and really trying to teach riders tricks.
For kids, you have some smaller play areas plus the usual water play structure. Both
areas have some smaller slides in addition to lots of sprayers.
And then there are pools and lazy rivers for all ages.
So do I recommend the Kalahari in the Pocono Mountains?
If you know everything is open and you can avoid paying the premium price, I’d say it’s worth it.
The slide lineup is very good for an indoor water park and it’s better than the indoor
offerings of the Camelback Resort across town. It was disappointing to see so many slides closed
for my visit and next time, I’m definitely calling them in advance or waiting to buy a ticket there.
I think the Wisconsin Dells Kalahari is superior based on the inclusion of a full outdoor water
park and better slides. Then I think the Pocono resort appears to have a better
slide lineup than the Round Rock location based on my experiences on similar slides elsewhere.
This isn’t a destination water park, but it has a solid lineup if you’re in the area.
If you want an indoor water park in the northeast, I’d recommend the DreamWorks Water Park 1.5 hours
away, but if you want an indoor water park in the Pocono region, I think the Kalahari is the
best one in town…if everything is open. So those are my thoughts on the Pocono
Mountains Kalahari. What are your thoughts on this indoor water park? Did you have the
operational issues I saw? How do you think it compares to the other Kalahari resorts?
I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments below. 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!