Kalahari Waterparks
Kalahari Waterparks
4
10:00 AM - 8:00 PM
Monday
10:00 AM - 8:00 PM
Tuesday
10:00 AM - 8:00 PM
Wednesday
10:00 AM - 8:00 PM
Thursday
10:00 AM - 8:00 PM
Friday
10:00 AM - 9:00 PM
Saturday
10:00 AM - 9:00 PM
Sunday
10:00 AM - 8:00 PM
About
Join us for 174,000 square feet filled with Wet. Wild. Fun. At the Midwest's Largest Indoor Waterpark. Water you waiting for? Come splash! Waterpark included with your stay or Day Passes available!
Duration: More than 3 hours
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Most Recent: Reviews ordered by most recent publish date in descending order.
Detailed Reviews: Reviews ordered by recency and descriptiveness of user-identified themes such as waiting time, length of visit, general tips, and location information.
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4.0
1,448 reviews
Excellent
661
Very good
430
Average
166
Poor
84
Terrible
107
BDZTravels
Pittsburgh, PA375 contributions
Jan 2020 • Couples
The good:
The walk up indoor/outdoor hot tub jacuzzi area was great! The specialty drinks seemed a bit overpriced, but overall was a great idea! We went on several slides that were good as well. All corresponding bartenders were very nice as well.
The bad:
The smell in the water park can be awful. I realize this isn’t Kalahari’s fault because I’m sure there are accidents from young ones amongst other things that are unforeseen but the smell is truly bad. That was the worst lazy river I’ve ever seen and experienced! Too low and it’s so lazy you barely move at all until rambunctious kids want to bump you forward.
The OK:
My wife tried out the new 7D underwater virtual experience which was $10 for 5 mins. She said it wasn’t anything great and she would not do it again. “It was just ok.”
Overall:
I simply cannot believe that a day pass to this place is about the same as admission to a Disney park! There is nothing special about this water park other than the fact it is indoors! The value for the money is really poor if you have to pay full price for this place. Luckily since we were staying at the resort, our tickets to the water park were inclusive with our stay. If I could have selected 2.5 stars out of 5 I would have because there’s nothing great here, but it may be worth doing at least once for some people.
The walk up indoor/outdoor hot tub jacuzzi area was great! The specialty drinks seemed a bit overpriced, but overall was a great idea! We went on several slides that were good as well. All corresponding bartenders were very nice as well.
The bad:
The smell in the water park can be awful. I realize this isn’t Kalahari’s fault because I’m sure there are accidents from young ones amongst other things that are unforeseen but the smell is truly bad. That was the worst lazy river I’ve ever seen and experienced! Too low and it’s so lazy you barely move at all until rambunctious kids want to bump you forward.
The OK:
My wife tried out the new 7D underwater virtual experience which was $10 for 5 mins. She said it wasn’t anything great and she would not do it again. “It was just ok.”
Overall:
I simply cannot believe that a day pass to this place is about the same as admission to a Disney park! There is nothing special about this water park other than the fact it is indoors! The value for the money is really poor if you have to pay full price for this place. Luckily since we were staying at the resort, our tickets to the water park were inclusive with our stay. If I could have selected 2.5 stars out of 5 I would have because there’s nothing great here, but it may be worth doing at least once for some people.
Written 4 January 2020
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Shakeilah U
1 contribution
May 2021 • Family
We had a three bedroom suite with a kitchen and everything. The room was pretty nice. The overall quality experience was not. You can’t check in until for. We had 10 people in our party, so we had food with us. They say you can arrive at 12 and use the park until your room is ready at 4. No one wants to arrive early use a water park, be wet and cold for hours until a room is ready. Then you have to check out before 11 am. You can use the park until 3pm. So this entails dragging our family of ten with all of our bags n food to the parking, put it in the car. Find a place to change before and after. Totally uncomfortable!! We paid $700 to enjoy the park for 2 hours after we checked in at 4 and had to be out before 11 am the next morning. We checked at four after getting settled we didn’t use the park until 5. It closed at 8, we left at 7pm. We were tired because we were celebrating our holiday all day and wanted to sleep in, which was impossible because you gotta go before 11am. Waste of money. They need to do better when people are spending crazy money on these rooms because it’s not cheap at all!!
Written 15 May 2021
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
jenvecc123
Pittsburgh, PA5 contributions
Jan 2020 • Friends
A great time traveling with our children age 12 and 8 they're both thrill-seekers and loved all the slides. We ate at the Burger Restaurant Wichita extremely long (1 hour wait) we arrived at 8 and it was not busy but the food was good in the end! Had a great breakfast at the sit-down restaurant and a great waitress. There were some issues when checking in they never notified us when our room was ready and we had lots of issues with our wristbands and needed to be replaced several times. Room was clean as well as the water park.
Written 18 January 2020
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Mindy67
3 contributions
Mar 2020
I had a conference here and was looking forward to staying at Kalahari, but it's been days and I've still not been able to cancel my reservation. I started with the email they sent me to the reservation supervisor, but they responded the next day and said I had to cancel by phone. I called the number they gave me the following day and when I chose the correct option, it transferred me to a queue and then disconnected. It did this twice; it was not a blip. Then I called the number a third time and chose a different option and was transferred to an offshore call center. After speaking with this gentleman for five minutes and giving him all relevant information, he took my "best number for a Kalahari agent to call me to cancel my reservation." Four days later, and I'm now awaiting a call from a number I don't know to (hopefully) finally cancel my $500 reservation. Maybe their $25 cancellation fee is to pay for emails and offshore call centers, neither of which get the job done. I'll never book here again.
Written 11 March 2020
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Muhammad S
1 contribution
Mar 2021
Please be careful when you book this resort. They will likely overcharge you for using facilities that you will never have the chance of using!
We took our two daughters to Kalahari resort last week. When signing the booking contract, they charged us for using their water park even for the days of arrival and departure. But, the problem is that you cannot check in before 4:00 PM and you have to leave by 11:00 AM. While you could theoretically come early and use the water park, in reality, it is not possible. By the time you check-in it is already past 5:00 PM and it is hard to use the water parks after that- especially if you have small kids.
I would urge folks looking to come here to please call in advance and make sure you are not charged for the days you cannot use their water park. Personally, I would stay someplace else the next time where we can be close to nature and don’t have to deal with such issues. Also, checking in earlier would definitely be something I would want.
We took our two daughters to Kalahari resort last week. When signing the booking contract, they charged us for using their water park even for the days of arrival and departure. But, the problem is that you cannot check in before 4:00 PM and you have to leave by 11:00 AM. While you could theoretically come early and use the water park, in reality, it is not possible. By the time you check-in it is already past 5:00 PM and it is hard to use the water parks after that- especially if you have small kids.
I would urge folks looking to come here to please call in advance and make sure you are not charged for the days you cannot use their water park. Personally, I would stay someplace else the next time where we can be close to nature and don’t have to deal with such issues. Also, checking in earlier would definitely be something I would want.
Written 30 March 2021
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Jennifer B
Waterford, MI3 contributions
Jul 2020
We went to Kalahari after reviewing their website and it stating that they were taking all the precautions for our family to have a safe and enjoyable experience during COVID-19. The website said that masks would be required on all guests and staff, unless eating or in water & social distancing of 6 ft would be expected of guests. When we arrived and checked in, we were given the wrong room (we paid for a room with a balcony) and it took over an hour to figure out a solution to get us a room with a balcony. We noticed right away that the mask requirement was not only not be followed by guests but not being enforced or worn by staff as well. Kalahari is by no means a cheap vacation to take with your family, it is actually overpriced in my opinion. I would expect that if they say that masks are a requirement on the property, that their staff would enforce this to guests who are not wearing masks. We went to the indoor waterpark on our first afternoon and noticed that only 2 slides were open at a time with excessively long lines (it took 30 minutes to get through the line) and they were apparently operating at 50% capacity.
Our first night we heard a loud fight in the hallway outside of our room where the people involved were threatening to kill each other. We thought Kalahari was a family friendly resort and definitely didn't expect drunk fights to break out right outside our room. The biggest effort we saw from staff to clean and sanitize anything was an employee walking down the hallway with a spray bottle of something spraying the air. Our second day we used the outdoor pool, when a large group of people moved a table closer to our table and we asked them to please respect the 6 ft social distance they said "If you think COVID is real, you are in the wrong f***ing place." Our second night in our room we were sitting on the balcony and could hear the people above us chopping something up & snorting something... all while we could also hear a small child playing (after midnight). All in all, we thought we were coming to a family friendly resort and were presented with an overcrowded, understaffed, germ filled disaster of an experience. We will 100% not be back.
Our first night we heard a loud fight in the hallway outside of our room where the people involved were threatening to kill each other. We thought Kalahari was a family friendly resort and definitely didn't expect drunk fights to break out right outside our room. The biggest effort we saw from staff to clean and sanitize anything was an employee walking down the hallway with a spray bottle of something spraying the air. Our second day we used the outdoor pool, when a large group of people moved a table closer to our table and we asked them to please respect the 6 ft social distance they said "If you think COVID is real, you are in the wrong f***ing place." Our second night in our room we were sitting on the balcony and could hear the people above us chopping something up & snorting something... all while we could also hear a small child playing (after midnight). All in all, we thought we were coming to a family friendly resort and were presented with an overcrowded, understaffed, germ filled disaster of an experience. We will 100% not be back.
Written 24 July 2020
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Chad M
1 contribution
Feb 2021 • Family
Buyer beware...I would strongly not recommend ordering from the Pizza Pub. Ordered a pizza that they said would be 30-40 minutes. Called after it had an hour to ask if it was coming soon aince our 4 hungry kids wanted to eat and visit the arcade. They told us someone was in route with the pizza. 15 minutes later called again and they again said someone was in route to our room and confirmed the room number. Another 15 minutes went by and still nothing. Called again and this time we were told they had no order from our room. Odd considering we called from the room phone with the internal extension to order the pizza. Never mind the fact they clarified the room number when they told us someone was in route. COMPLETE JOKE! For the money you spend to stay here you shouldn’t have to deal with this. Now sitting at Pizza Boys at 9:45 waiting a pizza we originally ordered from Pizza Pub 2 hours ago. No arcade unfortunately tonight. I hate it for the kids but glad I won’t be giving this dump any more of my money. All this while they pretend to be following Covid protocols but most don’t wear mask nor practice social distancing. DeWine and his gang would shut this place down quickly if they saw what was going on inside. Been to Great Wolf Lodge multiple times. Much classier and they really focus on making sure your experience is good. Won’t ever come back here.
Written 28 February 2021
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
shala c
7 contributions
Mar 2021 • Family
The water park is well worth a day pass but the rooms are not worth staying in. We'd planned a weekend trip for my nieces birthday and got a two bedroom suit with a splash bar and living room which cost $1200+ for two nights. For that amount we were expecting a relatively nice room but instead the room was comparable to a dive motel room. Upon going in the room is was ovious the room wasn't cleaned, all the door handles had dirty handprints on them and there was a vape pen just sitting on the counter. The hallway and rooms themselves are extremely dark and poorly lighted, it felt outdated and dirty but we could look past that if the amenities where ok which they were not. One of the Tv in the rooms didn't work, the fireplace in the living room didn't work, the hairdryer in the master bathroom wasn't attached to the wall it was just hanging on the wall with the screws that used to hold it to the wall, the lamp in the living room was broken and there were all kinds of marks and holes on the walls. The worse part of the room though were the beds they were obviously old because they weren't soft but hard and lumpy, we basically didn't sleep for two days while trying to swim and keep up with two ten years olds. The arcade is pretty nice, the staff seemed nice, the water park even with all it's restrictions because of Covid is a blast but the rooms aren't worth staying in, we will never stay there again we figured we'd pry be better off grabbing a cheap room in one of the many hotels around Kalahari than stay there again.
Written 13 March 2021
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Kayla D
2 contributions
Jun 2021 • Family
We had a subpar experience and Nicole, the guest services manager was supposed to refund our 2 45 minute Halotherapy sessions because concierge was never at the desk and the spa never answered their phone. She was also supposed to refund the $139.99+tax for the more time more fun package, and I'd like to see my statement reflecting these refunds.
Unfortunately, this was our first vacation since 2018 and it was the worst experience we've ever had. Some of the staff are hidden gems, some of them show care and concern that is above and beyond what you'd expect at a hotel or a resort.
However, for Kalahari Resorts Sandusky Ohio to be called a resort is laughable. Your website is NOT consumer friendly, there is no way to look up a reservation after you've booked, your "automated" messenger sent me 2 messages back to back stating I could pay $209 for more time more fun, then it was $179, and finally after texting with the automated system, they said it'd be $139.99, then valet wasn't staffed Wednesday morning, we were told the buffet was included in our stay, by a supervisor, the same guest services supervisor that sent us to the 4th floor in the WRONG wing, for our room 2425.
Honestly, this is the same review that will be plastered on review websites and emailed to the Nelson Family and specifically Todd Nelson. The "solutions" that Nicole came up with on the phone were too little too late.
I'm a disabled guest, and when I inquired about a wheelchair or scooter, I was told by guest services "you should have requested one when you booked, they go fast", so I went on your website and looked again, nowhere on the website does it say you have manual wheelchairs or scooters, and Nicole said "it isn't advertised because we don't have many", then how dare your staff say I should have requested one at reservation.
Since im on ADA accessibility, let me tell you how "important" ADA accessibility is to Kalahari in Sandusky Ohio, they store the inner tubes at the indoor lazy river in between the railings for the ADA ramp, rendering it useless for the disabled. Literally the worst experience of my life, hotel OR resort. The only acceptable solution would have been for Nicole to offer a full refund and let us leave.
Instead I received excuses about a temp agency, about new guest services supervisors (im sorry, someone "supervising" my experience should know what is included with my hotel stay and the general direction to the rooms).
Unfortunately, this was our first vacation since 2018 and it was the worst experience we've ever had. Some of the staff are hidden gems, some of them show care and concern that is above and beyond what you'd expect at a hotel or a resort.
However, for Kalahari Resorts Sandusky Ohio to be called a resort is laughable. Your website is NOT consumer friendly, there is no way to look up a reservation after you've booked, your "automated" messenger sent me 2 messages back to back stating I could pay $209 for more time more fun, then it was $179, and finally after texting with the automated system, they said it'd be $139.99, then valet wasn't staffed Wednesday morning, we were told the buffet was included in our stay, by a supervisor, the same guest services supervisor that sent us to the 4th floor in the WRONG wing, for our room 2425.
Honestly, this is the same review that will be plastered on review websites and emailed to the Nelson Family and specifically Todd Nelson. The "solutions" that Nicole came up with on the phone were too little too late.
I'm a disabled guest, and when I inquired about a wheelchair or scooter, I was told by guest services "you should have requested one when you booked, they go fast", so I went on your website and looked again, nowhere on the website does it say you have manual wheelchairs or scooters, and Nicole said "it isn't advertised because we don't have many", then how dare your staff say I should have requested one at reservation.
Since im on ADA accessibility, let me tell you how "important" ADA accessibility is to Kalahari in Sandusky Ohio, they store the inner tubes at the indoor lazy river in between the railings for the ADA ramp, rendering it useless for the disabled. Literally the worst experience of my life, hotel OR resort. The only acceptable solution would have been for Nicole to offer a full refund and let us leave.
Instead I received excuses about a temp agency, about new guest services supervisors (im sorry, someone "supervising" my experience should know what is included with my hotel stay and the general direction to the rooms).
Written 10 June 2021
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Katie K
2 contributions
Jul 2021 • Family
This will have been our 4th time here, and 1st post COVID and I don’t think we will be back sadly. We purchased a total of two rooms, one for 5 days and one for 3. Once checked in, heading to the first room we realized they got the room wrong by giving us a standard queen when we purchased an upgrade. After having to hike back down stairs and wait in line they resolved their mistake by giving us a whole extra hour at the parks… Later in the day we got confirmation our second room was available which was a kitchen suite. When arriving everything seemed to be fine until we went into the bathroom to find a HUGE black mold spot on the ceiling which seems to have been there for a while. When I texted the concierge their response was “ I’m so sorry, we will get housekeeping up right away!”…… I’m pretty sure you have to clean the room with more than just what housekeeping has to offer when you have that stuff. We ended up hoofing it back down to the front desk and showing them pictures. Their solution… downgrading is to a double queen room and giving us the difference back on my card. At this point… im furious. Not only do I not get a room I requested but they aren’t going above and beyond to make sure im satisfied. After thinking this was the end of it… I was mistaken. We spent 1800 on cabanas for the week and unfortunately the cabana hostesses were no where to be found. After calling 6-7 times on the cell phone and caban phone, we ended up just getting our drinks and food ourselves. Once finally getting her attention around dinner time ( mind you we have been there since 10am) she takes off with our card to open a tab and doesn’t come back…. Until I text her telling her I needed it as we were leaving! Her response “Oh… sorry I forgot..” Conclusion: Kalahari seems to be just about the money now.. the rooms are dated and dusty, the hallways look like they haven’t been vacuumed in months and the staff truly doesn’t seem to care that your dropping THOUSANDS on a vacation.
Written 5 July 2021
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
How much would it be to stay at Kalahari water Park for the weekend Friday to Sunday
Written 7 July 2024
Hi! Can I book a room for 5 people (2 adults, 3 kids ages 5, 4 and 2? Do I need a wristband for the 2 year old?
Written 17 January 2023
I don't believe I saw any pets either.
Written 14 December 2022
If I have a water park day pass, can i leave and come back? How does that work?
Written 19 August 2022
you have in and out access and also part of the day you check out I believe
Written 21 August 2022
hi, we are 2 adults and two kids, 7 and 10 years old. how much is the ticket for the evening pass? thank you.
Written 26 July 2022
Would it be allowed for someone who’s religon doesn’t allow them to wear a bathing suit be dresses in a modest suit ( a long sleeve swim wear shirt and a maxi swim skirt) ?
Written 10 August 2021
Mary Elizabeth J
Round Rock, Texas
How much does it cost for 2 teens for a day pass?
I live in Round Rock.
Written 25 July 2021
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