Summer Under Glass

A 920-foot lazy river meanders around the 125,000-square-foot, glass-enclosed complex. You can swim against the current, or let it carry you around and around.

That's more to my taste, but to prove I'm not a wuss, I take on the FlowRider.

Two 85-horsepower, jet-propelled motors blast tens of thousands of gallons of water over a smooth surface, creating up to 300 waves as high as five feet every hour. The faux surfing experience, invented by a California company called Wave Loch, is available at more than a dozen outdoor water parks in the United States, but this is the first indoor FlowRider.

Two people at a time can take a turn surfing the waves on the FlowRider, and my bad luck teams me with a teen who obviously spends all his spare time at the Kalahari. I jump headfirst into a fast-moving stream of water, lying flat on my boogie board and hanging on for dear life.

A surge of water propels me forward until I meet another surge aimed at me. Together, the two forces crest into a wave. The teen gets on his knees and surfs the wave. I cling to the board in a prone position. You know your turn is done when you lose your fight against the water, crash into the wave and are catapulted into deeper, slower water.

I repair to the Monsoon Saloon within the water park to recover before taking on the Master Blaster.

The Master Blaster is a screaming jag of terror that is billed as the only uphill water roller coaster in the United States. You sit in a raft, and a raging torrent of water with the force of three open fire hydrants pushes you up an open incline, then drops you down an open chute, then pushes you up again, and down. Four 60-horsepower engines shoot 5,600 gallons of water a minute through the Master Blaster, and you hang on until the ride ends by plunging you into a diving well.

I would like to compose myself by spending the remainder of my trip in a gentle wave pool or lazy-river tube. But my vocation demands that I see if the other parks can frighten me even worse.

Great Wolf

As its name suggests, Great Wolf has a rustic but luxurious lodge feeling, with big stone fireplaces and walls of giant logs. It, too, has multiple restaurants, a spa and shops. Its 64,000-square foot indoor play area includes 10 water slides, seven pools, a lazy river, kiddie bumper boats, a rock-climbing wall and a four-story treehouse with suspension bridges, webbed nets for crawling and 60 different ways to shoot water at your friends and family.

Great Wolf has particularly extensive dry play areas. A four-story playhouse called Wiley's Woods next to the water park features dozens of video games, bridges and mazes to crawl around, and ball pits. For younger kids, the Cub Club includes crafts and storytelling.

That, apparently, was not enough. Next month, Great Wolf will debut an addition that will double the current indoor water park, adding eight more water slides and two pools.

I go straight for Great Wolf's biggest thrill ride: the Howlin' Tornado. The six-story funnel ride requires at least two people per tube, and as I gaze at the ride, thinking maybe I won't have to do it after all, another lone woman asks me to ride with her.