There are plenty of family entertainment destinations in New Jersey to check out. Of the locations there are a few indoor water parks and theme parks that are worth a visit. Since the Garden State enjoys all the four seasons Mother Nature has to offer, indoor entertainment venues are paramount. One such indoor/outdoor water park is Big Kahuna’s in West Berlin, New Jersey. The location is great for Garden Staters as well as those traveling into the state.
Rebranding of Sahara Sam’s Oasis
In March of 2009, New Jersey saw the opening of its “first free-standing, indoor water park,” Sahara Sam’s Oasis. Following the opening of the 58,000 square foot indoor destination, they opened a four-story ropes course – allegedly the “world’s largest ropes course” at the time, however it is no longer at the park – as well as outdoor facilities.
It was announced in May of 2015 that Sahara Sam’s was being procured by the now defunct Apex Parks Group, “one of the largest owners of Family Entertainment Centres in the United States.” In 2020, Apex filed for bankruptcy and was acquired by lenders led by Cerberus Capital Management LP. After restructuring, Apex was rebranded to one of their subsidiary properties, Boomers Parks.
Sahara Sam’s Oasis was officially rebranded as Big Kahuna’s and reopened on May 19, 2022. Big Kahuna’s in West Berlin would share the name of another Boomers Parks location in Destin, Florida. The Florida location has been operating since 1986.
About Big Kahuna’s indoor and outdoor water park
As mentioned, when Big Kahuna’s originally opened as Sahara Sam’s Oasis, it was just an indoor water park. The indoor area was noted to be 70,000-square-feet and the outdoor area is “nearly two acres.”
Water slide attractions were designed and constructed by ProSlide Technology Inc., the same firm that produces water park attractions for many popular parks, including the DreamWorks indoor water park at American Dream Mall The park was designed by Aquatic Development Group.
Attractions
The indoor area of the park features six different water slides, one of which is a raft slide that can accommodate three to four guests, a set of mat racing slides, a set of tube slides, and one body slide. Big Kahuna’s also has a lazy river, an indoor water park playground, a Flow Rider® surf simulator, an indoor swimming pool, a water obstacle course, water basketball play area, an adult only heated jacuzzi pool, and a splash pad play area for toddlers and little kids.
The outdoor area of the park features an outdoor pool, a wave pool, and a splash pad area.
Inside the park, at the entrance, there’s a full service arcade. Credits can be purchased for use and there’s a prize counter where guests can redeem any of their game tickets.
Amenities
Food and beverage
Big Kahuna’s has several dining and drink options; two eating areas, an outdoor bar, and an indoor bar.
In the main entrance area by the arcade, there’s a restaurant, the Chill Zone. There you can get pizza, burgers, and more.
Accessed from within the water park area is the Island Time Cafe. The cafe serves a mix of burgers, pizza, chicken fingers, and other items.
The two bars, The Sand Bar and Shipwrecked Tiki Bar, are located inside and outside respectively. Looking for a refreshing drink or something to cut the edge before flying down one of the water slides? Big Kahuna’s has you covered with some places to score some booze. Nothing’ll dampen out the shrill symphonies of screaming kids splashing like some quality cocktails.
Cabanas
Both the outdoor and indoor areas of the park have private cabanas available for rental. The cabanas include two deck chairs, two chaise lounge chairs, a table, and four bottles of water. The outdoor cabanas include electrical service to enable visitors to charge their electronic devices.
At the time of publication, indoor cabanas run $65.99 during the week and $99.99 on the weekend. The outdoor cabanas also cost $65.99 during the week, however they cost $125.99 on the weekends. There seems to be no upcharge at this time for holidays. For example the Fourth of July lands on a weekday and the price for an outdoor cabana was listed for $65.99.
Shower facilities
There are shower facilities available for use before and after going into the water park. If privacy is your thing though, be prepared for gang showers. Unlike water parks such as Great Wolf Lodge in Poconos, Pa. and the DreamWorks water park in East Rutherford, N.J., which both have showers with individual stalls – although DreamWorks’ stalls have no curtains – Big Kahuna’s tosses your modesty completely to the wind.
This is a massive down side, in our opinion, and makes washing the little ones challenging while trying to respect their privacy. As a side bar, we just showered in our suits after our visit, and then again once we got home – in order to really properly wash.
Lockers
There are several large banks of lockers that are available for rent at the facility. These are fairly reasonably priced and easy to use.
Our trip to Big Kahuna’s
We visited Big Kahuna’s in February of 2024. The fairer of my two roommates and little adventurer had both visited prior to our trip and actually have annual passes. I visited for the first time during the February visit.
My first impression of the facility was that it was nice and fairly well maintained. Were there areas with some patina that needed attention? Yes. More so than some of the other parks that we’ve visited? Perhaps. But the park is not a run-down dump. It’s nice.
Entering and getting checked in
We got to the park about an hour after open. The lot was not packed at all when we got there, which was comforting considering it was winter and this is one of the few indoor water parks in New Jersey. It was fairly full, however, when we left.
Since my companions were in possession of annual passes and my female roommate got me my ticket online, checking in was a breeze. We got scanned in and were able to go to the park. Since it was winter, we obviously did not enjoy any of the outdoor facilities.
The arcade and Chill Zone are both right in the main entranceway room. After traversing through that space, we entered the water park. Upon entering the park, I spied The Sand Bar bar and Tiki Tides lazy river right in front of the entrance.
We did not get a chance to experience every attraction, however we’ll do a full rundown of what we did do, as well as go over what we did not.
The Hidden Oasis
The first area we checked out was the Hidden Oasis pool. Unfortunately, I couldn’t say the pool was an oasis of any sort, as the temperature of the pool was rather cold. There must have been something malfunctioning with the heater at that time, and this did not give me a good first impression of the actual experiences at the park. We did splash, swim, and play in that pool for quite awhile. We did end up returning again later in the day.
Tiki Tides
After recovering from the cold shock responses from the “oasis,” we headed over to the Tiki Tides. It’s been noted elsewhere, and it might as well be mentioned here too, we’re complete suckers for lazy rivers, which is what the Tiki Tides is. We could spend the better part of an hour, or more, just meandering through lazy rivers.
The Tiki Tides measured up. It’s a fairly standard and pleasant lazy river. A big positive was that there did not seem to be a lack of tubes for visitors. All too often, lazy rivers will not have enough tubes for guests, and there might be excessive waits for people trying to get an opportunity to float their stress away.
Some parks only allow guests one lap around the river and then force them to exit. That’s not the case with the Tiki Tides.
We did a couple trips to the Tiki Tides lazy river, and even donated a pair of goggles to the river gods for good measure. We’re at a stage in life where we just get goggles in three-packs.
The water slides
We did experience several of the water slides while at the park. All of what we did do was sufficiently thrilling for me.
That said, it’s important to note that “thrilling” for me is enhanced by my advanced mass, which tends to make trips through these tubes doomful experiences. Slingshotting down these slides leaves me both questioning my existence and contemplating potential injury that’d take a middle-aged man out of the game for a couple of quarters, periods, or innings…Pick your sportsball analogy.
Of the slides available, I did participate in; the Raging Rivers – a mat racing side, Snake Eyes – a tube slide, and Riptide – a body water slide. On that particular trip, myself, nor my travel companions had rode the group raft ride, Mount Kilimanjaro. However, my roommates had both ridden it before in the past and said that it’s a great experience, but not an over-the-top thrill fest.
To be fair, most of the rides are fairly mild and family-friendly at Big Kahuna’s.
Slides head out of the building, which is obviously a neat space saving trick. It was interesting to ride the body slide, in particular, in the winter, as the cold air would chill down the tubes and that could be felt as you whip through the pipes of terror.
Aqua Arena
We actually did not spend any time playing basketball at the Aqua Arena. The water basketball areas are usually wildly popular and we’ve spent a fair amount of time tossing bricks at hoops in pools.
The water basketball pools are also usually lawless wild free-for-alls. If there’s no adult present to pass out rebounds fairly, the water basketball courts are proving grounds of survival of the fittest, and some ugly lessons about how carnal humanity could be get learned in short order. The Aqua Arena did seem to be orderly each time we passed, we just never popped in.
Komodo Crossing
Attractions like the Komodo Crossing generally have a decent draw, much like in-water basketball. Komodo Crossing is a course that consists of some giant lily pads with an overhead ropework net. Kids can test their skills as they hop from pad to pad. My little adventurer took several attempts at conquering the slippery steps across the water, and rose to victory on several occasions.
Jungle Hideout
Our little adventurer won’t shy away from a chance to splash around and play on an indoor water playground like the Jungle Hideout. It’s nice when they’re just starting to enjoy and experience inverted roller coasters, but still have fun with simpler low tech attractions. This playground has plenty to keep younger visitors engaged.
FlowRider®
Big Kahuna’s has a surf simulator made by the FlowRider company, named the same. We did not get a chance to ride the FlowRider. The smaller of my roommates did not meet the age requirement. We did however ride a similar version of this attraction when at the Great Wolf Lodge in Williamsburg, Va., where they did not have the same restrictions.
Getting an opportunity to take a crack at surfing the waves put out by the FlowRider is challenging but fun. Some of your heftier guests, such as yours truly, may flop down on their board with the water cresting over them like a rooster tail. There’s an artform to riding the FlowRider and I have yet to get my craft honed, with the machine often spitting me back out as quickly as I plunge in.
Little Lizard Landing
For toddlers and the smaller adventurers, Big Kahuna’s has a splash pad area – Little Lizard Landing – that also has little slides. We’re kind of beyond playing in the splash pad areas, but this one seemed like the standard fare that you’d have at an indoor water park.
Paradise Cove
For adults only, there’s a small little slice where they can get away at the Paradise Cove. This area is a heated jacuzzi style pool. We did not get a chance to dive into the cove, especially since it’s an age restricted attraction.
The arcade
As explained earlier, there is an arcade at Big Kahuna’s. We did not play any of the games while on our visit, however we did see they had a fairly extensive selection of games to play, and everything seemed to be in good working order.
Island Time Cafe
We ate at the Island Time Cafe for lunch. As far as theme park food goes, Big Kahuna’s was pretty good. I found the prices to be fairly reasonable and the portion size to be sufficient for even your more hungry – plus sized – guests.
The chicken finger platter that I ended up ordering was not a cheap dish with only a few fingers in there, but a bountiful cornucopia of delightful poultry. My travel companions each got a flatbread and I think a cheese burger. Neither was dissatisfied, and none walked away hungry.
One area where I’ll ding Big Kahuna’s on in the food and beverage area is the coffee. I ordered a coffee and what I was served was a cup of coffee made with a K-Cup® coffee pod. I get that this is a water park that’s island themed, but isn’t Hawaii known for its coffee? Touché.
No commercial establishment has any business selling coffee pod made coffee and should invest in proper coffee machines. It’s understandable that perhaps there’s not a very large demand for coffee, but this was in the winter, and having to actually brew a pot of joe for those few picky customers won’t break the bank.
Staffing seemed to be an issue
All of the workers that we encountered were helpful and courteous. There were no issues with feeling like we were a burden as guests to the property. What I can say though is it seemed like they were experiencing a slight staffing shortage.
While at the top of one of the water slide landings, there was only one worker running the slides for a bit of time. Then a second employee eventually joined. Even with two workers up there, it seemed a bit of a stretch for them to juggle the number of people looking to use the slides. This slowed things down for people waiting in the queue and made the wait longer than it probably should have been.
In general, the facility was clean, however I did notice some housekeeping issues that seemed to be clearly due to a lack of staffing. Without going into too much detail here, as really this does not warrant a big description, regular rounds by staff of the change rooms, shower areas, restrooms, etc. would benefit both the facility and guests. I took the small unkempt instances I saw with a grain of salt, realizing they were clearly not operating with a full staff.
Value
Hands down, Big Kahuna’s is a good value. They are priced very competitively, as in much less than other indoor water parks that I’ve been to. While they may not be as big or offer as much as some of the larger properties, Big Kahuna’s in West Berlin, N.J. is a great property with plenty to offer.
At the time of publication, a day ticket during the week costs $36.99 and $39.99 for the weekend. A season pass for the year runs $74.99. For the cost of just $1.01 under two visits during the week, the passes pay for themselves. Weekend visits? Absolutely covers the price. Considering this price point, you can get in fairly inexpensively and be able to enjoy the park through to the end of the year.
There are other ticket packages and deals available as well.
Revisiting Big Kahuna’s a must! Low tech, affordable, family fun!
My roommates have season passes to Big Kahuna’s, so their return won’t come as a shock. As a unit, we’ll be revisiting again in the future, if not later this year, next year for sure.
Big Kahuna’s provides a family-friendly entertainment venue, and at a bargain. If you’re going to be in the area, or coming through the area, stopping by wouldn’t leave you disappointed. If you’re a water park fan or just starting to cut your teeth in the world of aquatic theme parks, Big Kahuna’s is a great destination to put on your list.
Big Kahuna’s is located at: 535 North Route 73, West Berlin, NJ 08091
