We love to do birthday adventures with our nieces and nephew. Our littlest niece turned 4 in March, so we packed up and drove to Kalahari Resorts in the Poconos. It’s about 3 1/2 hours from Rochester and a pretty simple drive.
For this trip we opted to rent a family suite and the whole family came along! I’ll be perfectly honest, it was nice to have 6 adults to 2 kids in the waterpark. It’s busy in there and it takes a lot of attention to keep watch on the kids. My 4 year old niece loved the slides in the kiddie section. She went down the slides over and over again and was happy to take any of the 6 of us down the slide with her! She had a bright smile and loved every minute. Her 6 year old sister loved the wave pool. She didn’t want to get out. She also loved the indoor/outdoor hot tub. It was cool to duck under the door and be outside with the snow and cold.
The adults loved the Paxton Grotto swim up hot tub bar that was also indoor / outdoor. Since there were 6 adults we took turns with the kids while the “big kids” did some of the bigger slides. I vowed that I would try any slide that Frank did. He’s more of an adventurer/risk taker than me. You know you have to try it when your almost 60 year old dad is also doing all the big slides! My sister and I along with Frank and my dad also did some of the big 4 person slides! There was a little bit of screaming, a lot of eye closing, lots of laughter! The cheetah race was one of our favorites. We did that one over and over again trying to get better times and racing each other. At first I was a little concerned that I had to go head first down a slide, but it is so much fun! The Tanzanian Twister was fun. I think I now know what it feels like to get flushed! I wasn’t sure where the bottom of the slide would come out, but till you get into the funnel at the bottom you realize there is just a hole that you drop out of. It’s slow, but 2 out of 3 of us came out head first! It was very entertaining to plop head first into a deep pool at the end. There were so many big and little slides at the park it is fun for everyone. If your not a ride or slide adult there are plenty of chairs and tables to sit at, hot tubs to dip in, and a few bars to grab a drink.
The family suite is probably good for 6, it was a little tight for 8. Someone has to sleep on the pull out couch in the living room. The downside is that you have to be the last one to bed and the first one up. We had plenty of counter top space for food and snacks and a mini fridge for cold stuff. If you’re all coffee drinkers, I would request more coffee for 8 people or bring your own filters and coffee. There is 1 chair, one couch and 3 chairs at the table. It’s a little tight for everyone to have a seat when you’re hanging out, but there was plenty of room to camp out on the floor if the bed is folded up.
We had dinner at Sortino’s Italian Kitchen, where it was easy to find something that everyone liked. We had pizza at the waterpark the first night for dinner. I was surprised, but the other restaurants in the water park didn’t appear to be open for dinner. We grabbed lunch the second day at Zulu Grille, which was a burgers and fries type of lunch spot right in the waterpark. Frank and I had lunch at B-Lux (the burger joint) before heading home on Sunday. The Italian place was good, but we would highly recommend a visit to B-Lux. The burgers were great and they had all kinds of tasty alcoholic and non-alcoholic milkshake desserts.
Overall, our stay at Kalahari was a lot of fun! We know it’s a successful birthday trip when they keep saying they want to go back, do it again, or they ask if you remember when they did “xyz” with you. I would highly recommend Kalahari. I recommend watching for middle of the week or special day discounts. You can also reach out to some travel agents that might have deals for specific weekends. I recommend having at least one adult per child. And lastly, I recommend bringing some of your own food and snacks to help cut down on the costs of eating on site. (there really isn’t anything nearby).
Tree Tops and Flip Flops 