SANDUSKY, Ohio – My daughter was 6 when I first took her to Kalahari, the massive water park resort in Sandusky.
Twenty years later, she’s grown and evolved. And so has Kalahari. water play equipment for kids
The resort, celebrating its 20th anniversary in 2025, has become a major player in the region’s tourism economy, drawing hundreds of thousands of overnight guests to Northern Ohio every year.
Over the past two decades, Kalahari has added slides, pools and other attractions; swapped out restaurants and retail shops for new concepts; and increased the number of overnight rooms to nearly 1,000.
“What’s not to like?” said one dad, Jeramy Rubalcaba, on a quick overnight from Canton to celebrate his daughter’s sixth birthday. “It’s semi-relaxing,” said another.
For a time, Kalahari was both the largest indoor waterpark resort in the country and the biggest hotel in the state.
It had been years since I suited up and got soaked at this overheated, oversized play zone. I was long overdue for a return trip.
And who better to join me than my daughter, Rachel, now 26.
Anyone who thinks this waterpark resort is only for young kids and their parents needs to think again.
Twenty years later, I can attest: It’s nearly as much fun for parents and their adult children.
When Kalahari opened in Ohio in 2005, it was the third indoor waterpark resort in Sandusky, following the debut in 2001 of Great Wolf Lodge and Cedar Point’s Castaway Bay in 2004.
It was the nation’s second Kalahari, the family-owned chain of resorts founded in Wisconsin in 2000. Today, there are four of the African-themed resorts, with a fifth opening in Virginia next year.
These were the early years of the indoor-waterpark movement, both in Ohio and nationally.
In Sandusky, the waterpark resorts were hoping to capitalize on the tourism draw of Cedar Point and extend the tourism season into the off-season.
The effort largely succeeded, said David Sangree, president of Hotel and Leisure Advisors, a Cleveland-based hospitality consultancy that has studied the waterpark movement.
“They definitely have made Sandusky a year-round destination,” said Sangree, noting that each of the three parks has its own niche. (A fourth, Maui Sands, has been closed for years and is scheduled to be torn down later this year.)
Kalahari, however, has always been the largest and loudest.
After an expansion in 2008, which added a wave pool and additional slides, Kalahari Sandusky was deemed the largest indoor waterpark resort in the country.
It lost that title in 2015, to sister park Kalahari Poconos in eastern Pennsylvania (which lost its title to DreamWorks in New Jersey). But by anyone’s calculations, this place is still cavernous, with 174,000 square feet of slides, pools, rivers and hot tubs.
With 890 overnight rooms, it was the largest hotel in Ohio until 2022 when the Hilton Columbus Hotel added a new tower, nearly doubling in size to 1,000 rooms,
There’s a full-service spa here, plus a dozen restaurants and bars, a massive arcade, laser tag, indoor miniature golf and myriad other activities.
“There’s something here for everyone,” said Nicole Pennington of Canton, visiting with her husband, four kids, one son-in-law and two grandkids.
The outdoor play area – not currently open -- has grown over the years, as well, with a new pool added in 2023, more slides and water attractions, plus a zipline, ropes course and small zoo.
Nearly 1,000 year-round employees keep everything running (relatively) swimmingly.
Kalahari Sandusky also features 215,000 square feet of meeting space and hosts conferences and conventions almost continuously.
About 30% of the resort’s business is from group travel, according to Bill Reed, the resort’s new general manager.
Indeed, I booked my recent stay on a Sunday and Monday, hoping to avoid some of the weekend crowd. But the place was surprisingly packed, in part because of back-to-back conventions.
Reed said he believes the resort can handle more.
“I’d love to have more rooms,” said Reed, the former general manager of the Flats East Bank development in Cleveland. “There’s room to do it.”
But first: Kalahari is in the final stages of a $20 million investment, which includes a major new water slide in the indoor park, plus two new restaurants and upgrades to several retail outlets.
The new restaurants include MACs, with more than a dozen kinds of macaroni and cheese; and Cinco Ninos, with upscale Mexican fare.
The new waterpark attraction, Dawn Breaker, is what’s known as a boomerang slide, with a 46-foot descent that propels riders, two to a raft, up a second incline, which they “boomerang” back down, backward.
I’ve gotten older, too (sigh), since my first visit to Kalahari in 2005. But 20 years later, I was still able to hoist that raft to the top of the slide, screaming all the way down.
Upon arrival, my daughter and I checked into our room, swapped street clothes for bathing suits, and made a beeline for the waterpark, heated to a toasty 84 degrees, eager to see what was both familiar and new.
Our first stop: Victoria Falls, another raft ride, one of Kalahari’s originals, which winds around inside and out, careening rafters through a mostly dark tube, twisting and turning into the wading pool below.
“It’s still my favorite,” my daughter declared, nearly 20 years to the day after she rode it for the first time.
* Dawn Breaker, built on the footprint of the park’s former zip coaster, which was dismantled a few years ago due to ongoing maintenance issues.
* Swahili Swirl, added in the expansion of 2008, one of two so-called “bowl” rides, where riders, three or four to a raft, spin around a giant bowl before being flushed down the drain.
* Storm Chaser, racing slides that debuted in 2017 as a video-game themed ride. The theming has largely disappeared – due to technical issues, I was told – but the ride is still a thrill.
We also did a couple of laps around the lazy river, bobbed in the wave pool and got doused by the big red bucket, just for old time’s sake.
We finished our day in a way I couldn’t have even imagined 20 years ago – enjoying a cocktail together in the 21-and-older indoor-outdoor hot tub. Try that with a 6-year-old.
Kalahari Resort Sandusky: If you go
Where: 7000 Kalahari Drive in Sandusky, about 60 miles west of Cleveland between Ohio 2 and the Ohio Turnpike.
How much: Room rates vary greatly depending on the day you visit; I paid $310 for a Sunday night stay, which included taxes, a $40 daily resort fee plus two waterpark passes. Note: Waterpark passes are good anytime on the day of your arrival and until 3 p.m. on your day of departure.
Kalahari also sells day passes to the waterpark if you’re not staying overnight. Again, prices vary greatly but start at $45 during the week.
New since my last visit: Kalahari now uses kiosks for self-check-in, which were efficient and reportedly cut down on long waits. The resort is cashless and guests are given waterpark wristbands with RFID technology that act as both room key and credit card. “It’s extremely convenient,” a fellow guest told me. “It also makes it too easy to spend a lot of money.”
More information: kalahariresorts.com/ohio
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