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| Aquatopia (Indoor Waterpark)
Camelback Resort Lodge and Aquatopia Indoor Waterpark This year for Christmas, my dad bought my husband a racing experience in the Poconos on the Pocono Speedway. As excited he was, I thought about what it would be like to ride 4 1/2 hours in the car one way, then watching my husband train and drive a race car for 3 hours, then drive back another day another 4 1/2 hours. I imagined the comments from the children-“What do we get to do?” “This is boring!” “Why does Dad get to have all the fun?”
I began researching hotels and things to do in the Poconos since I had never been there. I contemplated Kalahari and Great Wolf Lodge. We have stayed at Great Wolf Lodge in Sandusky twice and visited Kalahari when we were in Sandusky. I kept looking at my go-to travel site, TripAdvisor, and I found information about Camelback Resort Lodge and Aquatopia Indoor Waterpark. I was sold when I saw it was voted the #1 Indoor Waterpark by USA Today, and saw that it included one day of tickets for four to Camelbeach (so we would just need to buy one more ticket for $20). Camelbeach is Pennsylvania’s biggest outdoor waterpark.
So after I booked a 2 bedroom suite for the 5 of us, we were all very excited to go on our journey in June!
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We arrived on a Saturday to a very busy indoor waterpark. Our room was supposed to be ready by 4PM, but we were very excited to find out it was ready by 2:30PM. After 12:30PM, you are permitted to enter the indoor waterpark, even if your room is not ready. We headed to our room, which was very spacious with a mini refrigerator, a microwave, a small living room area with a couch and a table, and two bedrooms and two bathrooms.
It is very warm inside the waterpark and it allows natural light in, so you still must fight with the children to put the sunblock on them.
Some of our favorite things at Aquatopia:
- Venus Slydetrap-a giant raft that you eventually end up in a giant “mouth” of a plant flying back and forth before the ride ends
- Storm Chaser-a tube ride which is North America’s longest uphill water coaster – 756-feet long that has 5 giant drops
- Outta Space Race-body slide that is dark but has lights the whole way through
- Mountain Mayham-fully enclosed tube ride
- Skydive Plummet-My oldest son and I went on this together-you stand in a tube and they close the door. You hear “3-2-1” and the floor literally comes out from underneath you and you go 312 feet plummeting extremely fast through a figure eight until the end!
- Wave Pool
- Lazy River
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| Arcadia-(this game was literally Beer Pong with water)
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The next day, we went to Camelbeach, the outdoor waterpark, which was just as much fun as Aquatopia. We had to take a shuttle from the hotel to the waterpark which was about 5 minutes in the shuttle bus. Don’t forget to take your own towels for the outdoor park! Aquatopia supplies your towels for you when you walk into the waterpark, but you must bring towels into Camelbeach.
There were many more rides that all 5 of us could ride at the same time and either ride 2 in one tube, 2 in another tube, and one single. Some even could have 3 in one tube and 2 in another tube. So we enjoyed the outdoor park more because there were more rides that our 7 year old who is under 48 inches could ride.
Some of our favorites:
- Sandstorm-we went down a giant raft, which you could fit 4 people in, and you got to fly around a huge funnel
- Dune Runner and Titan-raft slides that fit 3-4 in each raft
- Checkered Flag Race-you race 7 other people on a mat at the same time down the slide. We loved racing each other over and over again.
- Flowrider-One of the favorites for Dad and the boys-you got to “surf” with the instruction of some very friendly and helpful lifeguards
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| Mummy’s Oasis |
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| Lazy River |
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| Flowrider |
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| Pharaoh’s Fortress |
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| Lobby of Camelback Mountain Resort |
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| Pocono Speedway Race Experience
Bottom Line:
We definitely would return to Camelback Mountain Resort. There were a lot of things we didn’t have time to do. They have zip lines, a mountain coaster, an obstacle course, and mountain segway tours. You really would need to spend 3-4 days to get to experience everything. The Adventure experiences all cost money as well. There is a spa for adults and also a kids spa next to the arcade.
We did eat out one night at Barley Creek Brewing Company which was about 5 minutes away from the resort. The food was really good and mostly all families were eating there.
We had take out pizza the second night because we were watching game 6 of the Stanley Cup Finals, and we had to watch our Pittsburgh Penguins (which we did get to watch them win the Cup!!). The pizza was delivered to the lobby by Big Papa’s Brick Oven Pizza. It was great pizza and was there within 45 minutes.
My kids are already begging to go back to Camelback Resort!!
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Hockey Sticks, Grips, and trips 