It can be difficult to decide which waterpark to take the kids too. We live close enough that we usually go to each every year…usually one in fall and one in winter. We have done Kalahari once in summer, but I prefer winter at the waterparks, mainly because my kids are going beserk and need that outlet during the cold weather. Great Wolf Lodge and Kalahari each have their pros and cons and this post is going to break them down for you, you’re welcome 😉

The War of the Indoor Waterpark Family Vacation-Kids Version #1

1.) SLIDES

A Kalahari Family Vacation has Great Wolf Lodge beat with respect to slides. Kalahari has more slides than Great Wolf Lodge, some of them pretty darn scary. Kalahari has more than 8 different tube rides, some single, some double and some 4 rider tubes. Kalahari also has some body slides as well, maybe 5 or 6. All of these rides require that kiddos are 48 inches or over, if not then they need a life jacket (provided in the waterpark). The lifeguards at Kalahari will go to great lengths to enforce life jackets on ANYONE under 48 inches.

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Or you can bring your own from home, my daughter used this puddle jumper when she was below 48 inches as she REFUSED that life jacket.The lifeguards will also NOT let kids slide alone if under 48 inches, they must ride with you, with a life jacket. Kalahari lifeguards are maniacs with that 48 inch rule too. Even if you wait in line for 20 minutes and get to the top, if your kid is under 48 inches and doesn’t have a life jacket on they WILL make you walk all the way back down. ***There are NO extra life jackets at the top of the slides. So, measure your kids BEFORE embarking on your indoor waterpark family vacation! My son is exactly 48 inches, but one lifeguard said he had to be OVER the 48 inch line and not right on it…so he had to wear a life jacket. Some of the lifeguards are pretty ridiculous about this. Great Wolf Lodge (2nd pic below) has like A couple tube slides , they are ok, but variety is more fun.

2.)Cheetah race slide (picture below) at Kalahari is AWESOME. There are about 4 slides right next to eachother so you race eachother down the slide. This slide requires a mat and you’re on your tummy, so don’t try to ride this one while pregnant. This one was alot of fun for my family (very competitive spirit).If you look in the picture below you can see a red, purple and green body slide to the right of the 4 cheetah slides, that one is pretty darn close to a straight drop type of slide. My 7 year old has no fear and goes down this thing without a second thought, but I consider this to be the scariest slide in the waterpark.

3.) Lifeguards– I do feel like Kalahari lifeguards are a bit nuts about small things. Also, after you have taken a few family vacations to Kalahari you will notice that the lifeguards are completely inconsistent. I mean I’m all for safety, but my kid was 48 inches when we went this past July. Right at the line, EXACT…there was one lifeguard who insisted he needed to be OVER THE 48 INCH LINE. He made me and my 2 kids walk all the way down those slippery steps because he was not over the line and had no life jacket on. I mean I support safety, but that is ridiculous. It was more dangerous walking back down the slick steps through the crowded line than going down the slide. The rules cleary state at least 48 inches. SO FRUSTRATING, this kid did appear to be hungover or just very high, so maybe that was it. Things like this just ruin your family vacation because your kids don’t understand. Also, some lifeguards will not let you go down slides with water shoes on, and some will. Some lifeguards will make your under 48 inch child wear a lifejacket in the CHILD play area (it’s zero depth entry and literally a wading pool). Lifeguards walk around with a stick with a 48 inch line on it, that stick drives me nuts. We went to Great Wolf Lodge for years until Kalahari was built closer to us, then we switched. I do feel like the lifeguards at Great Wolf Lodge were not as crazy and just WAY nicer and more consistent. Anyways, if you have small children be prepared for the lifeguards enforcing that 48 inch rule, they don’t play around.

Infant Play Areas for you Family Vacation

4.)Kalahari has Great Wolf beat here. Kalahari has this super cool area behind the massive water gym that is especially for infants and toddlers. They have an adorable infant water table with little chairs to put babies in to enjoy the water. They also have adorable “tree swings” that dont’ swing as much as spin. Literally baby waterland. Great Wolf does not really have an infant area, aside from the kids play area being zero-depth entry and babies can play with the little “water spout bubblers”. I brought my 6 week old daughter to Great Wolf Lodge and aside from playing in the entry point of the play area, she only wanted to stay in her stroller and observe (picture below). She was either chilling in my water baby carrier (this thing was fantastic) or sleeping in the stroller. Don’t forget the swim diapers (they contain the poop so it doesn’t flow into the water) and you don’t want baby to swim in a regular diaper…it’s made to absorb water so it puffs up.

Toddler/Walkers Play Areas for your Family Vacation

1.) In my opinion both waterparks shine in the toddler arenas. Great Wolf Lodge has a super fun wading pool with a couple slides and a mini water gym with buckets, slide, sprinklers, ropes to climb on etc. Very shallow so most parents can just watch the littles wading around the pool. Get a waterproof phone case to go around your neck for your phone, don’t miss out on the pictures during your family vacation, they are the best.

2.) Kalahari has 2 main Toddler/walker play areas. The one behind the giant water gym is the largest and has about 6-7 kiddie slides. My daughter is 5 and still LOVES this area, lifeguards also won’t enforce life jackets here (in theory, again they are pretty inconsistent). The lifeguards will try and keep the bigger kids out…which is nice because they can get a bit rough with littles. I do suggest getting your littles to wear water shoes here, my kids constantly stubbed little toes and slipped climbing up the stone stairs to the slides. Another super cool feature in this area is the water table for toddlers, it will keep kids busy for quite awhile. Also, my daughter’s favorite is the Kid’s Lazy river, it’s just a mini version of the lazy river without the depth of the adult version, they even have mini-tubes for it! Coral Cove is the other toddler zero-depth entry area. It’s a bit smaller than the other one, but it still has kiddie slides, swings/bouncers and toddler versions of basketball nets.

All in all, I’d say Kalahari wins in the toddler arena, only for the sheer variety of areas and toddler attractions that they offer.

School Age Kids Play Areas on your Family Vacation

1.)Massive Waterworks Gyms- Ok Great Wolf Lodge and Kalahari both have this awesome waterpark centerpiece. It’s like a massive jungle gym with water shooters, buckets, 1 massive water bucket that spills every few minutes or so, ropes to climb and slides to get to the bottom. My kids truly enjoy the water gym at Great Wolf Lodge and Kalahari, but I would have to say they have more fun at Kalahari’s Water gym…as it is just larger and AGAIN, more variety. A word of caution for you helicopter moms or dads out there, you cannot see your kids in these massive water gyms. Adults are allowed to climb up the water gyms, but you will not be allowed to go down the slides (which it’s difficult to race down the gym to get to your kid by the time they finish the slide). That’s why I feel this area is a bit better for kiddos that can either swim or wear a life jacket, simply because you could lose them in the watergym and they could wonder off. This is probably the reason that Kalahari lifeguards will enforce life jackets for kids under 48 inches. Great Wolf Lodge never enforced life jackets on my kids here. So for the Water gyms and Kids older than 4, Kalahari wins.

Arcades, games and Indoor fun (not including the Waterpark)

Both Kalahari and Great Wolf Lodge have other indoor activities to keep kids busy during family vacation besides the waterparks.

1.) Kalahari has Tom Foolery’s! I have an almost 8 year old son, he’s a self-proclaimed “gamer”. I wanna say we spend at least an entire afternoon in Tom Foolery’s (maybe 3-4 hours). There are Arcade games everywhere and you can buy an arcade card and fill it with a certain amount of money to use (when the money is up then no more aracade games). The House of Mirrors, laser tag, ropes and zip lines course, roller coaster and drop ride, escape room and a super fun 3D shooting game are also in Tom Foolery’s and you need a Tom Foolery’s admission wrist band to use these. If you don’t have the Tom Foolery’s wristband then you can just stick to playing arcade games with an arcade card. We always add Tom Foolery’s wrist bands to our room when we make the reservation, just easier. You get the option to add Tom Foolery’s wrist bands when you make reservation, the 4 person wristbands are the best deal in my mind. This is what makes Kalahari a bit different than Great Wolf Lodge. At both resorts the indoor waterpark is included with your rooms, but the arcades and Tom Foolery’s are separate.

2.) Great Wolf Lodge has an arcade by the waterpark. It is pretty small in comparison to Kalahari and there are no adventure rides or anything like that, but my kids do LOVE this arcade.

3.)Kalahari has escape rooms and bowling. Both super fun, but they are separate from the Tom Foolery’s wristbands. The bowling you can make a reservation in advance (and I suggest you do as the spots fill up QUICK). There is a little food stop next to the bowling alley, has pizza and beers and stuff like that (more on this later)

4.)GREAT WOLF LODGE: MAGIQUEST Now this is where Great Wolf Lodge really shines. It’s at nighttime. If you have kids school age then you can purchase wands at waterpark level and play the MagiQuest game. The wands are not cheap, but you can bring them back every year and keep using them. So if you plan on going to Great Wolf more than once, it’s a once time cost that your kids will LOVE. My kids LOVE MagiQuest and started playing at about 6 and 8. They run all over the hotel on a kind of scavenger hunt, (bring tennis shoes because alot of the hunt takes place in the stairwells.) It’s something they can do to have some fun when the waterpark closes, but not be all stimulated by arcade games. Great Wolf lodge also puts on a pajama dance party around 7 PM every night in the lobby. The kids dance in their jammies with the Great Wolf staff and they have a toy cart to buy light wands and bubble wands. Afterwards, the GWL staff reads a bedtime story. It’s alot of fun. Just helps the kids to wind down a bit.

5.)Another thing Great Wolf Lodge wins on in my opinion is the breakfast buffet. I pass on the buffet at Kalahari, but I always take my kids to the breakfast buffet at Great Wolf Lodge. The environment in Great Wolf Buffet is more catered to kids, they also have the wolves that come around and visit the kids at breakfast in the morning. It’s all very special. More kid-centered food as well like donuts, muffins, cereal, pancakes and french toast…basically SUGAR!!

ROOMS

1.) Great Wolf Lodge and Kalahari basic rooms are very similar. Now you can request on of the Kids Cabin or Wolf Den suites at Great Wolf. They have bunk beds in a separate “room” (no door), my kids LOVE the Kids Cabin because it feel like their own space. Both Kalahari and Great Wolf have suites with multiple beds and rooms if that’s what you’re needing, but only Great Wolf has the awesome kids bunk rooms. Our Kids Cabin room below

**TIP: When you check in I would request a room close to the waterpark…even the ground floor (at GREAT WOLF) and as close (and as low) as you can get to the escalator at Kalahari. For one, it is much faster to get to your room when you’re freezing after the waterpark. Secondly, check out time (anyday) is a CLUSTER. The elevators get slow, crammed and it is a headache. So get close to ground level, neither Kalahari Round Rock or Great Wolf Grapevine have a view anyways (it’s just a view of streets) so there is no benefit to being high up.

RESTAURANTS

KALAHARI: First of all, we rarely eat at the resort when we go on Family Vacations, resort dining is just overpriced, not fabulous and my kids do not enjoy it. I’d rather budget for FUN not FOOd, but that’s just how we roll. Kalahari has a breakfast buffet, but it is WAY over priced and my kids won’t eat anything here ecept cereal or yogurt (I can keep that in the mini-fridge in the room). So we elect to eat breakfast in room and bring muffins, cinnamon rolls, annie’s breakfast burritos, yogurt etc. Lunch we do that same thing, we keep sandwich and warm up stuff in the room. Now, dinners we do usually go off resort as Round Rock has some really great food. These are a few we have tried over the years: Hat Creek has great burgers and a playground, Salt lick has some yummy BBQ, Tony C’s pizza is literally the best pizza I have ever had in my life, sometimes we drive to The Pitch to let the kids run around and play in the sandbox while we have drinks. Round Rock is a foodie townwith some GREAT choices, do not restrict yourselves to the resort food, that tex-mex restaurant is not great (my MIL talked us into that on our last trip)…total regret and wast of $200. The piano bar (next to the bowling alley on ground level) has a cool bar where we have beers while the kids are going nuts in Tom Foolery’s. Kalahari also has a yummy ice cream shop (again WAY overpriced) but hey it’s vacay and the ice cream is super good. You can always grubhub or doordash at Kalahari too, if your from out of town and you uber’d to the resort from the airport. There are plenty of places to eat food at the lobby level (tables and chairs right before the entrance to the upstairs arcade before the escalator.

Great Wolf Lodge Restaurants– The same sentiment as above, we never eat at the resort. Of course we do have 1 breakfast buffet at Great Wolf, you need to do it at least once. It’s an experience! We typically grubhub or doordash dinner while at Great Wolf. Grapevine, Texas isn’t as foodie of a town as where Kalahari is so there isn’t quite as many options. Great Wolf has tables and chairs everywhere to eat your doordash order. Great Wolf has a Starbucks downstairs attached to the gift shop, which is probably why your room has no coffee maker. I do not ever get starbucks, i think it’s a silly thing to waste money on. I always bring Starbucks Vias, disposable cups and non refrigerated creamer pods.

If you decide on you next family vacation at Kalahari then CLICK HERE and check out my post on Kalahari travel packing essentials and tricks.

If you decide on you next family vacation at Great Wolf Lodge then CLICK HERE and check out my post on Great Wolf Lodge travel packing essentials and tricks.