Reviews and Tips
Kalahari in Round Rock TX is the America’s largest indoor water park which was just opened in November 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic. We just had our get away vacation here in the first week of December for 4 days 3 nights. Here is the reviews and tips from our family with a 5-year-old girl and a 3-month-old baby.
- Service
Because of the covid-19, the check in time was LONG, nearly 45 minutes for us. The check in time is 4PM but you can use the facility before it. We came here at 2 PM, our room was already ready, so they gave us the key right away. The staffs are nice and helpful.
There are hand sanitizer stations everywhere in the resort. If you forger your hand sanitizer bottle at home, do not worry, they have a lot here.
- Room
Our room is just a standard 2-queen room with the view of the outdoor pools/playground.
Pros: It was nice to have towels shaped like an elephant. Beds are comfortable. There are fridge and microwave available.
Cons: This is the water park resort, but the restroom only has ONE hanger which gave us the hard time to find the place to hang our wet clothes. The walls are thin I guest since we could hear every footstep from our neighbors. Kalahari does not do the good job in keeping out noise from the corridor. If you are sensitive to that, you need to ask for the last room at the end. The entry door is supper heavy. The sink is placed outside the restroom so you must turn on the light to use it which can affect the sleeping people in the room.
- Waterpark
It is huge and awesome. Kid under 48” must wear life jacket which is provided by the resort. There are 3 sizes available including the infant one. I brought the floating for my 3-month, used it on the first day with no problem. On the second day, the lady I believed was the manager told me that it was not safe to use so we used the infant life jacket from the resort. We were not able to enjoy the adult only swim up bar Grotto but hoping you can.
Pros: The facility is super clean. They have both indoor and outdoor waterpark but due to the cold weather, the outdoor waterpark was closed when we arrived. The bathrooms have water extraction stations. I hope they have that in the guest room as well. The slides are next to each other so not too much walking.
- There is the big family hot tub half indoor and half outdoor which locates at the Coral Cove area.
- There are two areas for toddler with slides, water tables, bucket swing, kiddie basketball nets with the tiny basketballs and small lazy river. The baby pool is gentle that kids don’t have to worry much about any water spraying them
- There is a huge area for big kids with lots of slides in different shape and height. If your kids are not 42” yet, don’t worry, they will have fun in this area. Mine was over 42” so she could play both here and other tubes.
- My 5-year loves the wave pool with the ZeroVision Big Screen. Waves appeared every 10 minutes and lasted for about 10-15 minutes.
- The lazy river is the largest one for indoor waterpark but much smaller compared to the outdoor one. The stream is fast, and tube required so no one can neither swim nor race.
- We didn’t have a chance to ride all tubes since my kid was under 48”. As long as your kids reach 42”, they can ride 90% of the park.
- The race slide with the mat is my daughter’s favorite. There are the green lights with the countdown screens to check your speed.
- There are 2 thrill rides, both drop off vertically.
TIPs:
- Water shoes needed for kids since the concrete floor is rough across the park. For adult, we only use the beach flip flop
- Bring bottle water to the park to keep your kids hydrated. You don’t want to spend money buying just water
- There are lockers for rent if you want to keep your belongings there. However, we left our phones and stuff at the chairs and they were untouched when we came back.
- It’s a bit cold for me. Luckily that I prepared long sleave swimsuits for my kids.
Cons: No outside food allowed in the waterpark. There is the restaurant inside serves fast food and drink. It is hard to tell what slide name comes with what matching rule. Most of the stairs are not well marked so it is confused to guess which one to go up. The videos played at the Big Screen is not kid friendly. They should change the content.
- Tom Foolerys
- It is so much fun for all ages. Lots of games and lots of rides to play. Especially, this is my first time seeing lots of virtual VR games. They have 7 virtual games and about 2 machines for each game. The virtual game costs about 40 credits (about $10) but if you buy the virtual package of $60, you can play 7 games plus 20 credits for other arcade machines. I was surprised that the trophy store was MUCH better than Chuck E Cheese and D&B combined. The prizes are in good quality and quantity.
- The rope camp, the zipline and the rock climbing are amazing.
- The small area for kids under 42” is not worth the money. I recommend that you should not buy the ticket if your kids under 42”. Let them play the arcades.
- There are 4-D video rides as well, but I don’t like the movies.
- They also have 2 Escape the rooms, a small lazer tag room and a mirror room. My kid loved the mirror room so much that she played multiple times
TIPs: Buy the package when you book the hotel. Choose “All the fun” package which give you 4 one-day pass to Tom Foolerys and $50 toward arcade games per night. We stayed for 3 nights so we got 3 cards, $50/ea.
- Food
- There are several restaurants in the resort, burger place, TexMex, Steak house and Italian. The price is not cheap, of course, this is the resort so what do you expect!!! There is also a Starbucks and an Ice Cream/cake shop. All the restaurants don’t open until 11AM so you either bring your own breakfast, go out for breakfast or eat pastry from the Starbucks store.
TIPs: Kalahari is really close to other local restaurants and fast food places. Take your time to run out to the local restaurants and explore the local like Georgetown and Round Rock.
Overall, we have great experience, and we would come back. I give it 4.5 stars.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IaK8Kq6JiU&feature=youtu.be
