Travel Advisory – CoCo Key Water Resort

Photos courtesy CoCo Key Water Resort.

The Crowne Plaza Boston North Shore in Danvers ranks among the more unique hotels we’ve visited. The sprawling campus is home to the CoCo Key Water Resort, an indoor water park that offers a plethora of wet and wild family activities.

We stayed in a fourth-floor room just a short elevator ride away from the indoor fun. Despite being unremarkable as rooms go, we found the beds and pillows to be especially inviting and comfortable after a busy evening of recreation in the water. It was a clean and pleasant space with all the basic amenities of a standard hotel room. The real star, however, is the water park, an aquatic delight that also features an arcade, food counters and beverages for both children and adults.

A section with small slides and play areas for the younger resort guests is located near the main entrance to the park. As the ship’s mast towers overhead, a movie is projected on its vast, flat sail.

The central indoor area, where a variety of devices are constantly spewing water, features two mid-size slides circled by a lazy river with inflatable tubes for those seeking a less hectic pace. At the top of the main area stairway, a giant bucket the size of a small car continues to refill and dump its contents, without warning, onto unsuspecting patrons below.

Four large blue twisting tube slides offer high-speed fun. Two tubes are for body sliding, and two are for single and double inflatables. A double raft run is a high-speed thrill ride starting at the top of a three-story stairway and barreling through slides that are actually built outside of the park but then exit back inside to the pool below.

We’ve been to a few water slides over the years, and I must say these are among the fastest. Two of the slides are constructed of translucent plastic, allowing some light in, while the other two are almost dark. Hurtling down at a breakneck speed is great fun for all ages, and despite our visit on a holiday weekend, the waits were reasonable.

Another play area features water basketball hoops and huge disks floating beneath a lattice of ropes for more water fun. Hot tubs offer a relaxing respite from the wild water rides.

Food vendors offer pizza and other standard park-style food at average prices. There’s plenty of table seating and poolside lounge chairs. Towels are provided for overnight guests, as are plastic wristbands for each family member. A barcode on the wristbands is associated with each guest’s room number and allows food and other park amenities to be charged to that room. An excellent feature of this convenience is the ability of parents to put a spending limit on each child’s wristband or to deny access altogether. A deposit taken upon check-in also allows budget-minded guests to control expenses, always a good idea for any family with young adults who tend to lose track of such things.