Photo TR - A.J. Gets Sunburnt at Camelbeach Waterpark!

[A.J.]

Hey everyone!

 

So, I decided to do a last-minute end-of-regular-operating-season park trip! Since I love waterparks and I haven't gotten to one this season, I decided to drive out to Tannersville (eastern PA, just outside of Stroudsburg) and go to Camelbeach Mountain Waterpark!

 

For those of you that don't know, the Camelback Mountain Resort is a ski resort located in the Pocono Mountains in Pennsylvania. When the snow melts, the resort is operated as a waterpark called Camelbeach! The ski runs are literally created around all the permanently-installed waterslides. They also have "extreme" upcharge activities like a 4000' long zip line, a smaller zip line, ropes courses, and an alpine coaster!

 

Another cool thing is that most of the slides are terrain waterslides! There are very few slide towers that are built high up. They're pretty much all below the tree line.

 

Now that introductions are over, let's get on with it.

 

I got in the park, and immediately had this advertisement in my face -

 

Well, I would buy a season pass, but there's less than a week left in the season, I think.

 

The park is laid out in a fan shape. All the slides are built on the side of the mountain in a horizontal line. So, it kind of has "Hersheypark Syndrome" in that there is little level ground - also - to see everything you have to go all the way to one end, and to exit you have to go all the way back to where you started. I decided to do the logical thing and go straight down the line.

 

Starting with - this! It's the Checkered Flag Challenge!

 

This is a very casual mat racing slide that sits next to a snow tubing run. I actually won the race I was in! The problem here is that the queue line is too wide. People clump up and no one is ever too sure if they're able to go forward without being rude.

 

Moving on, I was faced with this -

 

Long queue, steep ground, no shade.

 

The queue in question was for the park's two newest attractions. I skipped them, promising to return.

 

Here's the Titan. I believe it was the longest waterslide in the world at one point, hence the name. It's loads of fun going back and forth down the mountain.

 

But, there's a problem with it. Titan is a large raft slide, manufactured by Proslide (I believe). When it opened, you could stuff a family of five or six in the rafts and everything would be cool! But, now, there are new rafts that have four dividers, so only four people can ride at once! This not only splits up bigger families who want to ride, but also reduces capacity, which means hearing a lot more buzzing letting you know that the conveyor belt is going to start.

 

Feeling a little waterlogged, I had some lunch (no, Elissa, I will not complain about food prices THIS time even though the food was expensive), and moved on to what I believe is the best complex in the park.

 

This is Triple Venom. Three speed slides, two of them being similar to each other. The red slide is completely dark while the blue one is translucent. Those slides were cool, but the center slide is totally where it's at. Three hills, each faster than the one before it, can only mean one thing - airtime!

 

Going over the third hill (maybe even the second one) will send you airborne. Now, I'm sure many of you have been on uphill water coaster slides which have a little bit of airtime. Let me tell you, it's really something to experience this sort of airtime with no car, no tube, no anything! It's a wild ride, and if you're not prepared you might not land correctly -

 

Looks like fun, right? Well, it is, until you hit the splash zone when all the water goes up your nose.

 

 

Another great slide complex is conveniently located right next to Triple Venom! It's one of the older complexes in the park, but it's still good fun.

 

Four tube slides. Singles and Doubles on all of them, and Triples on the red and white slides. If you're ever by yourself, you should definitely try singles on the red and white slides. They're wider than the others to accommodate the triple tubes, so when you have a single tube you spin around a lot!

 

Very funny...

 

The nice thing about my trip today is that the black slide was far and away the most popular slide in the complex, which meant waits of less than five minutes for the other three! I spent at least thirty minutes at this complex alone.

 

Speaking of old, the park's oldest slide complex is right next to the tube slide one. There are two mat slides there.

 

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, waterslides can in fact have downtime! Imagine that!

 

Along the way to the opposite end of the park, there are lots of other small things to do such as a volleyball court, an olympic-sized normal pool, and other things - all of which can get very crowded (today especially). There's also one of these -

 

Astonishingly, the low-low-low-low Flow Rider looked to be the least-popular attraction in the park today! I had seen advertisements in the front of the park for standing lessons, but I wasn't interested.

 

Also on this end of the park is Kahuna Lagoon, the park's wave pool, which I didn't take a photo of. The wave feature was running very sporadically throughout the day, but when it did run, it was awesome! I positioned myself right where the waves would break, and I got completely wasted by them. So much fun!

 

On the left end of Camelbeach's fan shape are this pair of bowl slides.

 

Spin Cycle is a tube bowl -

 

 

- and Vortex is a body bowl.

 

These two slides had the longest queues of the day. I waited a half hour for Spin Cycle and enjoyed it as per usual. However, I could not go down Vortex because of safety reasons. I wear a compression shirt when I go swimming because of my, um, skin tone. Sunscreen has never worked and in order for me to avoid sunburn that could lead to consequences down the road, I have to wear a shirt. I wear a compression shirt because it's light and tight.

 

Moving back toward the two new attractions, I noticed that one of the mat slides has opened up.

 

Even though they had water running down both slides, they only had the one open.

 

At this point my feet were becoming very sore. However, I'm a man, and I just shut up and dealt with it. Onto the new slides!

 

The Dune Runner is a cloverleaf slide with several bumps, much like the slide on Triple Venom. The cool thing about this one is that you can get the rafts spinning - and it's fantastic!

 

The Sandstorm is a ProSlide Tantrum slide. It's now my second-favorite slide in the park. If you have an unbalanced raft (especially with three people), you get spinning incredibly fast going through the tight downward spiral and then get massive upward travel inside the funnel WHILE you spin!

 

I spent the better part of an hour waiting for and doing these two slides, but it was worth it.

 

To end my day in the waterpark, I decided to spend time at Camelbeach's semi-new water fort, the Pharaoh's Fortress. I probably spent two hours there entertaining myself, spraying random strangers with water guns, dumping water buckets on unsuspecting parents, and other nasty things. I have spent way to many hours of my life in water forts like this, especially the one at Hersheypark.

 

 

 

 

After enjoying myself in the waterpark, I had one more attraction to get to at the Camelback resort. This year, Wiegand built an alpine coaster right here in the Poconos! I've been waiting a long while to get an opportunity to give one of these a go!

 

For the sake of my own personal safety, I ditched my backpack with all of my stuff in it and went up the mountain alone.

 

Let me tell you what - it is extremely difficult to go fast on one of these things. It's not that the cars themselves are hard to drive (it's a tracked ride for crying out loud). There's this constant sense that you can and will die if you keep the speed up passing by the signs that say "slow down". You really want to keep going faster, but your body parts have minds of their own! It's a psychological issue, at least for me.

 

It was certainly an exhilarating experience!

 

 

Like I said earlier, the resort area (called CBK) had some zip lines and ropes courses. I didn't try them out.

 

So, there you have it! A great way to end the normal season, with slides and an alpine coaster. And THIS!!!

 

IT'S A THING!!!

 

Some notes from the trip -

• The waterpark could really use some more high-capacity attractions. It could really help controlling the queues, which were fantastically long for the entire day. On a Thursday even!
  
• Speaking of the queues, there is no shading whatsoever, a consequence of the park pulling double-duty as a ski resort. Even if they just used portable tents, it would help! Or, they could pull a Hersheypark and use mist fans. It was only eighty degrees outside, but the sun was baking on my shoulders all day.
  
• More on the queues - they were not the crew/lifeguards' fault. All of the guards at the slides were pleasant and efficient - and they had fun with the guests! When I went down Titan alone, one of the guards filled an entire large bucket with water and dumped it all on me! I haven't been treated that well in a theme park in a while.
  
• The park is NOT a place to go if you have problems with your legs and/or feet. All of the queues are very steep climbs, which is another ski-resort-waterpark consequence. My legs became tired only after two and a half hours!
  
• Doing all the cool stuff at Camelbeach is really expensive. The alpine coaster alone costs $14 for a driver!

 

Thanks for reading!

 

[Coastinmiller]

Glad i went when I did, I heard the lines get bad and this proves it. I went on a day that was overcast and t-storms were popping up all over. No crowds, no wait in lines, everything was a nice walk-on. The rain did eventually come, but at 4. The coaster wasn't open yet, but we plan on heading back for the rpes course in Sept and the coaster as well.