The Provo Rec Center Pool is one of our favorite spots to go swimming after we spent the afternoon there. There is an outdoor pool area and an indoor pool area, and the best part is that you can play at both for one price. We are excited to share about this amazing swimming spot.
The outdoor pool area has three main places to play. First is the splash pool area. This area is only 1 1/2 feet deep at its deepest part, and is very shallow by the edge. There are tons of fun things for young kids to play, as well as a few little slides. Our five year-old loved turning the water on and off on the different features. All he had to do was turn a wheel. There is also a small splash pad next to this pool area. This is the perfect spot to play for smaller kids.
The other two areas are geared more for older kids. There are two huge slides! You have to be 48 inches to go on them, or younger kids can go with someone older. Our older boys said these slides were very fast and they had fun sliding down. The other spot is the wave pool where they spent most of their time. This pool starts shallow, only 2 feet deep, and ends up at about 6 feet deep. So younger kids can stay in the shallow end. This pool is different than a regular pool because it has waves going. You can look at the end of the pool and see a huge red ball. It shows how big or small the waves are. We had fun in this variation of a pool.
The indoor pool has a lot of amazing features. There is a pool with basketball hoops where our older two boys played a few games, a lazy river that is always busy, and a small child play area with shallow water and small slides. It’s not quite as large as the outdoor area, but still lots of fun. There are two indoor slides. These slides don’t drop into a pool, but rather slide into a shallow tube, so kids only have to be 40 inches tall to ride. Our boys loved these slides, too. Especially the five year-old since he was tall enough to go. We also liked that as you walk from the outdoor pool to the indoor pool, you can see people sliding on these slides since the tubes are clear.
The other area that is inside is for older, confident swimmers. There is a 12 foot deep pool with two fun activities. The first is a high dive, but it isn’t your standard diving board. It is a ledge over a waterfall. So you feel like you are actually cliff jumping. On the other side of this 12 foot pool is a climbing wall. You swim over to the climbing wall, climb as high as you can, and once you fall off, you swim back. Our older boys enjoyed having something different to try at the pool.
With all of these different places to play, you could spend a lot of time the Prove Rec Center. We spent 4 hours, and could have easily stayed if we didn’t have other adventures to pursue. The indoor pool area opens at 10 am in the summer, so you could begin by playing indoors and then head outside once it opened at 12 pm. What we chose to do was sunscreen up first, and play outside for a few hours. Then we went inside for the next few hours. We reapplied sunscreen and headed back outside for the end of our day. You could also go back and forth between the two pools all day, but I found it easier to keep track of kids by staying in one section all together, and then moving to the other area.
There is no outside food or drink allowed at the Provo Rec Center Pool. They do have a little cafe, but we didn’t eat anything. It looked to be pretty affordable and had standard cafe hamburgers and hot dogs. You can check out their menu here. We did take our own water bottles in. They had drinking fountains where we could refill them, too. You can also get your hand stamped and go eat somewhere else, and then come back in later. And there are tons of great places to eat in Provo.
We think the best part is the price. You can play at all these fun places for $4/kid, and $5/adult. That is normal pool prices, but you get to play at two pools for the price of one. You can’t beat that. You can also use the other amenities in the Provo Rec Center with that admission fee, so if you want to run on the indoor track, or let your kids play on their indoor playground, it is included in the cost.
We definitely recommend spending a fun swim day at the Provo Rec Center Pool. I know we will be heading back soon.
