Calaway Park with Young Kids Review

Address: 245033 Range Road 33, Calgary, Alberta

Website: http://www.calawaypark.com/

2015 Cost: Regular (7-49 years) $37.95+GST, Junior (3-6 years) $31.00+GST, Fifty Plus (50 years & up) $29.00+GST, 2 and under free. Annual passes are available for $109.95+GST.Family and discount rates are also available. Annual passes go on sale a few times each year.

Stay Length: a minimum of 2 hours – you could easily spend the whole day.
Season: Mid-May to Mid-October

Food Services: There are a number of places throughout the park where you can buy food, snacks and drinks. You can also bring in your own food. Some seating is reserved for restaurant guests.
Age Range: All ages.

Parking: Lot with free parking.
Ease of Access: Easy access by car just off the Trans-Canada  Highway to the West of Calgary.

Highlights:

My husband and I had both been to Calaway Park as kids but this was the first time for both of us in many years and the first time for our kids.

Calaway Park was originally planned to be a Flintstones Themed Park and you can still see some of those design influences particularly near the front of the park. For the most part now it is more of an amusement park without a unifying theme or storyline.

The height restrictions at Calaway Park are somewhat complicated. There are 12 different color-coded height levels, which are further broken down into rides that kids can go on by themselves once they have reached a certain height and rides that they need to go on with an adult.

There are even a few rides that you need to be above and below certain heights to ride.

This means that on some of the rides you aren’t able to ride with your kids. There is something special about having some rides that little kids can ride on all by themselves though. Nicky looked so proud of herself riding all alone in the little Tot Yachts.

The little kid and family rides are spread out around the park so it is worth measuring your kid as you enter to see what color level they are and then marking up a map of the park with the rides that they are tall enough for.

There is a big jump in the rides they can access between 35 and 36″. Nicky at 2.5 years old falls on the low side of that jump. Even the littlest kids will be able to have some rides that they can go on though.

In addition to the rides, there are a number of other attractions included with admission as well. There is a fireboat themed one for kids 5-12 years. There are also live stage shows and 3-D movies.

Although there is plenty to do without paying an extra penny there are some attractions and activities that require a little additional cash. Gordie absolutely loved the Twiz and Twirl Maze – it was his absolute favorite thing of the whole trip.

They also have midway style games, a trout pond, mini-golf, a Castle Clash water war game and Bumper Boat Splash Challenge (like bumper cars but on water – you will get wet).

Calaway Park has a number of places to grab lunch. We got hot dogs, fries and chicken strips at the Calaway Cafe. If we were getting lunch at Calaway again, I’d skip the chicken strips and fries and stick with the hot dogs.

Otherwise I’d plan on packing a picnic lunch and spending money on some treats instead. The kids were over the moon about their sno cones.

Calaway Park opened their new log ride, Timber Falls, late in the season this year. We didn’t go on it (Gordie was tall enough but thought it looked too scary, Nicky thought it looked like fun but wasn’t tall enough and I was pregnant) but it looks like fun.

They’ve improved the load time so the line moves much quicker, have more comfortable boats, a zig zag river section  and interactive components (that were not yet working).

Our kids had so much fun that we ended up taking them back the next weekend too. We’ll be back again next year without a doubt.