In late winter, just before the tourist season resumes, a certain silence descends upon the Pocono Mountains. This year, the silence was broken by construction workers completing a massive project. Nestled in Pocono Manor, Kalahari Resorts & Conventions recently completed the second phase of an expansion that doubled the size of its indoor water park from 100,000 to 220,000 square feet. As a result, it is currently the biggest indoor water park in the nation.
It’s an odd milestone to celebrate. For the past 20 years, the Poconos have been constructing water parks, and there has always been a belief that the largest project will attract the greatest number of visitors from New Jersey and New York. Kalahari appears to have followed that reasoning to its logical conclusion.
The resort’s grand opening festivities took place over three days in the middle of March, and it’s difficult to overlook the statistics supporting the growth. On the busiest days, daily visitor numbers, which previously ranged from 2,500 to 3,000, are predicted to increase to 5,000. When you include an outdoor water park, a family entertainment center, a 65,000-square-foot convention area, and almost a thousand guest rooms, Kalahari begins to resemble a small, independent city centered around inner tubes and chlorine rather than a water park.
However, it’s easy to overlook the fact that Kalahari didn’t construct this in a vacant market. The Poconos already had Great Wolf Lodge, which opened in 2005 and continues to draw about 550,000 visitors annually. However, the water park is only accessible to guests staying in its suites. A few years later, Split Rock Resort opened to the public as a smaller, 53,000-square-foot facility. Aquatopia from Camelback also joined the cluster. These parks consistently appear in the same area of Monroe County for a reason: both the infrastructure and the population base within a few hours’ drive are already present.
That radius continues to expand. Initially, Kalahari was expected to draw from a 180-mile radius, or about three hours’ drive, encompassing the metro areas of Philadelphia and New York. According to resort management, the range has now spread to cities as far away as Washington, D.C., which indicates how far families are willing to go for a waterslide weekend in the dead of winter.
It’s important to consider why that is significant outside of the Poconos. For areas that don’t have much to offer after ski season ends and summer hasn’t arrived, indoor water parks have evolved into a sort of economic anchor. Roughly one million tourists a year, as Kalahari now anticipates, not only fills hotel rooms but also keeps eateries open on a Tuesday in February.
It remains to be seen if Kalahari maintains its title for very long. Before putting it on hold to concentrate on lodging, Blue Mountain Resort floated its own water park project, and history indicates that someone else in the area is most likely already drawing up plans. Currently, however, the largest indoor water park in America is located in a part of Pennsylvania that most people only consider when planning a weekend getaway or going skiing. Just that seems noteworthy.
