Pump House Water Park at Jay Peak – My Experience
Fun at the Jay Peak Pump House Water Park
A bit over a week ago my wonderful girlfriend surprised me with a weekend away at Jay Peak. This was an early birthday gift from my girlfriend and I was quite excited to go as the focus of our weekend would be the new Pump House Water Park. As I didn’t book the room or even foot the bill, I won’t talk about the finances. I will tell you about my experience.
I’ve been to a number of water parks, but never an indoor one like the Pump House Water Park. As such, it initially felt a bit small to me. When we got in on Saturday afternoon, the place was crowded, but not overly so. I didn’t feel the wait time for any of the attractions was too long, and I am not the most patient person. The more time I spent there, the more I felt like it was adequately sized and well designed. There isn’t a lot of wasted space at the Pump House Water Park – but there is plenty of room for people to walk around and sit in a chair.
There are a number of attractions at the Pump House Water Park, and I tried almost all of them. The only exception was the child’s area.
The Double Barrel Flowrider is an indoor surf pool. You can use a small surf board, which reminded me a bit of a skim board, or a boogie board. I will say the kids on the boogie boards looked like they had more fun than the surfers. I tried surfing, but my knee wishes I hadn’t. While falling wasn’t too painful, it did leave a bruise. If you aren’t an individual with good balance, I’d recommend you skip this.
A Flowrider similar to that at the Jay Peak Pump House Water Park
The Pump House Water Park offers 4 water slides, La Chute being the most prominent. The two smallest ones require sitting on a tube. The fourth one, which was unnamed but designated with the color orange, was tall and fast, but didn’t involve sitting on a tube. You simply crossed your arms and legs and… went! If I recall correctly, all four slides had points that were pitch black, which was very unnerving the first time. I can’t say for certain if La Chute had dark points, as it went so fast (60 feet / second at the start) that I had enough water in my eyes to keep them closed. On our very last run of one of the tube slides we managed to get the tube going fast enough that we fell off. This was painful and not recommended. For the record, you can get going faster by staying as horizontal as possible.
Waterslide at the Jay Peak Pump House Water Park, Image courtesy of Jay Peak
I really enjoyed the rock climbing wall, but feel it should have some more hand-holds. I am not an expert climber by any means, but some of the movements on this wall were hard! Fortunately you had a nice pool to drop into when you couldn’t hold on any longer. I got quite the workout!
My favorite part of the place was the Big River, which is Jay Peak’s name for the “lazy river” that runs around the outside. There are some points on this that aren’t so lazy, but it is still safe for most children. The whole time I floated around I couldn’t help but want a margarita in my hand.
Had the day been nicer, I might have been able to experience the retractable roof. Yes, the Pump House Water Park claims to be able to open the roof on nice days. How cool is that? We didn’t partake in the area bar, as I was more focused on playing. There is also a fairly well-stocked store with bathing suits and the like. Prices were high, but not as bad as I would have expected. I noticed what seemed to be a fun area for small children in one corner, but didn’t get to experience it.
Flowrider at the Jay Peak Pump House Water Park, image courtesy of Jay Peak
Bottom line: its great fun and I expect to go again. Take your kids or your friends and spend the day. It’s pretty amazing that we have something like this in Vermont. If you’d like more information here is a link to Jay Peak.
