Wilderness or Kalahari

Kalahari!!!!!!!!!! The way the Wilderness is spread out, it's not great for young kids. We've stayed at Kalahari, Wilderness and Great Wolf and will not go back to Wilderness. It might be all right when you have older kids who you don't have to worry about as much, but again, we loved Kalahari and want to go back soon!

I have never stayed at Kalahari, but have stayed at Wilderness several times. That place is enormous!!! If you want to visit the different waterpark areas, you will definitely be doing a lot of walking. Best bet, look at a map of the property and request a room right near the waterpark that you plan to spend most of your time.

To confuse issues I would recommend Chula Vista. :)

It would probably be best to call the Resorts and talk to a Reservation Specialist. They will know the layout and which rooms are located where.

The map of the Wilderness Resort says 'When in doubt stay on Level 2', because that is where the access to all the amenities and parks are....

We went to Kalahari when my kids were 1 and 3. It was wonderful. It was during late January and we got snowed in and did not leave the building for 3 days. Bummer! lol If you are staying in the hotel, it is all connected but some rooms can be a bit of a walk. The water was nice and warm and the kids area was great. We were in a regular hotel room and had a table and fridge and microwave. We made most of our meals there and ate at the restaurants a few times to save money. I have not been to the other parks but highly recommend Kalahari.

Both are great. I personally like the Wilderness better....but my children are older, and we usually stay at the condos across the lake, and shuttle to the parks.

I would say that Kalahari is a little more "everything in one place" and probably a bit better for younger kids. It also has the animals and other options besides the water stuff.

Wilderness has seperate parts of the hotel dedicated to different parks so you are definately moving around a lot more if you want to see it all. Additionally, Wilderness has a very small waterpark at their condos that is great for really, really young children if you don't want all the other stuff.

That being said - my preference is Wilderness, but for a 2 and a 4 year old it would be much easier to do Kalahari.

I have not been to the Wilderness but have friends who have. They did not like it because the waterparks were not all connected. They had to go outside to get from one to another. That may not be as much of an issue for you as your children are closer in age so may like similar things. Theirs are 13, 9 & 5 so they were needing to travel between areas to keep everyone happy. I have been to the Kalahari. It was very nice; much nicer than Great Wolf. I cannot remember the type of room we had but there were 5 of us and we did not have to shuttle to the waterpark. Have fun!

Kalahari! We've been there multiple times and had NO issues with water temperature.

It is huge. We've stayed all the way on the other "addition" in the 3-room condos and even that didn't seem like much of a walk! There was a sky-walk to go through so you stayed inside the whole time. The other times we stayed there we were right next to the elevators and only a VERY short distance from the waterpark.

We've had babies all the way up to teens and adults in our group and everyone has had a great time. The restaurants are expensive, though, so we brought our own food and kept it in coolers and warmed it in the microwave. (Or cooked it from scratch when we had the 3-room with kitchen condo.)

They run some great specials! So check out their website.

On a side note. We stayed at the Chula Vista ONE TIME! NEVER AGAIN! The water was FREEZING. We were all shivering SO bad that it was NO FUN!!!!!!