Kids' play area, lazy rivers and cabanas at a water park featuring slides, pools and a wave pool.
While precise numerical pool temperatures are not publicly advertised, the water at Carolina Harbor's pools and attractions is generally heated to a comfortable level for guests, particularly during the cooler parts of the operating season, to enhance the overall experience.
What are people saying (AI review summary)? text: "People say this water park offers a lazy river. They also highlight the gazebo and the food.\n\nSome reviews mention the lazy river can be crowded." language_code: "en-US"
Reviews
Came to the Waterpark on a Friday around 12:30 pm and visited their adult pool Bar "Paul Metto's Boathouse Bar" I loved it! Great music and ambiance. Plenty of lounge chairs to choose from and plenty of swimming places in the pool. They have about 4 tabletops in the pool which once it gets busy, it will be hard to snag a spot there. They do have plenty of bar seating and benches inside and around the pool to sit down as well. They do not offer food so you will need to go outside the pool Bar area to purchase some food. They have everything from beers, seltzers, frozen cocktails, and canned wine. Definitely something fun to do on a summer weekend. After, you can always walk the theme park and enjoy some rides afterwards. Love it! They do offer cabanas as well and they offer food if you rent a cabana. This is located immediately to your right when you enter through the Waterpark entrance.
I was not impressed at all on our most recent visit. We have a season long cup and all the beverage refill stations were broken by the Tidal Wave Bay. Almost all the food and drink options were closed including the Harbor House. I understand that they are short staffed but to have almost all amenities closed is unacceptable. Additionally, a lot of the rides were not open. I would skip the water park for the foreseeable future.
Have been to several water parks. This is by far the worst. They closed the entrance so you had to walk through the park to get there. The lazy river made you get out when you had gone around once, even though no one was waiting to get on. They make you take off water shoes at the base but don't keep the walkway clean, and my wife cut her foot. There is almost no landscaping, lots of concrete. The tower for the slides had holes in it and was shaking (other water parks definitely felt built better). Lazy river was the laziest design (hotels have had better-looking ones). Overall, I'm sure OK if you live in the area. Otherwise, I would skip. The park is (relatively) much better. One redeeming factor is that it wasn't too busy.
Micromanaging maniac lifeguards made the entire experience HORRIBLE. -Letting a tiny handful of people in at a time in the whole lazy river. - cutting off that huge wave pool to 4 feet!!! The lifeguard's blowing their whistles every second of the whole five minutes. They ruined it for everyone. There was a big crowd on 4th of July weekend. All they had to do was move the rope over to the five foot section at least. Maybe people wouldn't freaking be "touching the rope" if you didn't put it so close to the shallow end!! Why is it such an enormous problem if someone touches the rope anyway??? Other water parks don't have these crazy rules. -The waves were ridiculously small. Standing in the "deep end" and you could barely feel them. -All of the lines were minimum half hour to 45 minutes. The slides, many of which were closed, the lazy river, the wave pool, all had crazy long lines. -there was a shortage of inner tubes. -They close at 6pm in the summer. Again, customers are terribly short-changed. -you have to walk through the whole amusement park to get to the Waterpark, which is a really long ways to carry swimming gear, bags, etc. I have been to a lot of water parks, and this is by far the worst, with the most badly behaved, controlling, rude, uncaring lifeguard's I've ever seen. People spend a lot of money to go here with their families. Stop ruining it for them!
I brought my family to Carowinds’ Carolina Harbor Waterpark expecting a carefree day of summer fun, but what we got was a stomach-turning lesson in just how far a park can let its sanitation standards slide. From the moment we stepped into the wave pool, an eye-watering stench of urine punched us in the face—and it followed us everywhere. The lazy river? Reeked. Kids’ splash zone? Same disgusting smell. Even the high-traffic walk-ups to the slides radiated that unmistakable ammonia funk that NO amount of chlorine could hide. We paid premium, peak-season prices for the privilege of marinating in what felt like a human fishbowl. If the odor was this overpowering, I shudder to think what the actual urine-to-water ratio must have been—or whether basic chemical checks are happening at all. My children complained, cut their swim time short, and we ultimately left hours early because we couldn’t stand the nauseating fumes. Carowinds advertises family memories; instead we got a lingering sense of revulsion…and regret over every dollar spent. Waterparks have a legal and moral obligation to meet health-department standards, test their pools, and react FAST when something is off. This was not a one-area fluke—this was park-wide neglect. Until management drains, deep-cleans, and strictly enforces restroom breaks and water-quality testing, we’ll spend our money elsewhere and urge other families to do the same. An absolute disappointment.
| Sunday | 11:00 AM – 6:00 PM |
|---|---|
| Monday | 11:00 AM – 6:00 PM |
| Tuesday | 11:00 AM – 6:00 PM |
| Wednesday | 11:00 AM – 6:00 PM |
| Thursday | 11:00 AM – 6:00 PM |
| Friday | 11:00 AM – 6:00 PM |
| Saturday | 11:00 AM – 6:00 PM |
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