Family travel: Visiting Kalahari Resorts with little kids

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I really love traveling with our family and our kids are pretty awesome little road trippers. But I confess that I sometimes find myself looking at a place or a trip idea and thinking that it’s something better set aside for when the kids are older. As if somehow they’ll have more fun or it will be easier on me as the parent when they’re teens instead of toddlers. Maybe that does hold some truth on occasion, but I’ve also found that you can really make memories and enjoy the experience wherever you go and whatever their age. While it might look different with toddlers than it might with older kids, the important thing is that you went. This is kind of how I was feeling about Kalahari Resorts. It is, after all, America’s largest indoor waterpark. So how much can you actually do with a young toddler and a preschooler – both who cannot swim? The answer? Lots.

I received a complimentary stay at Kalahari Resorts in exchange for this blog post. All photos, words and opinions are completely my own. 

It’s funny that Jamie and I had never been to Kalahari Resorts before. I grew up in central Wisconsin, just a little over an hour from Wisconsin Dells. This is where Kalahari has its original location, which is why I’m surprised we’d never visited. Luckily, though, the Sandusky location is just a couple hours from where we live now. So the drive was super easy to do over nap time. Check in was quick and easy once we got there and our room was already ready for us. This allowed us to get up there and get changed into our bathing suits right away.

At a place like Kalahari, water safety is the most important thing. Not only do they have a lifejacket rule for little ones, they also have lifejackets of all sizes readily available throughout the entire waterpark. We actually meant to bring our own, but forgot them at home. I was a little concerned this would be an issue, since I didn’t know how many they had. Luckily, we had no trouble locating lifejackets and there were several lifejacket stations throughout the building.

I was pretty surprised that both kids wore theirs with no complaints.

Because of Liam’s age and height, he wasn’t able to do a lot of the bigger slides and activities. I wasn’t sure if he would notice or be disappointed about it at all. It turns out that there was still so many options for him that it didn’t really matter. There was still a large variety of options for him to choose from.

Liam’s favorite: the wave pool. I mean, what kid doesn’t love the wave pool? The waves were a little too strong for Caleb, even standing in the shallow end. But he and I watched Jamie and Liam jump up and down over the waves. Every time Liam heard the buzzer, he wanted to get back in the water.

Caleb’s favorite: the Kid’s Safari area. There are a couple of zero entry water play areas at Kalahari, but this one was Caleb’s favorite. There were slides for Liam, but Caleb preferred climbing on the giant turtle and through some of the jeep tires. It was also set in the far back of the waterpark, so it was a little less crowded with other kids. 
Our family’s favorite: the lazy river. It was awesome that all four of us could do the lazy river together. I half-expected Caleb to be super wriggly during the ride, but he was perfectly content to lay there and watch everyone go by. A few more laps and he probably would have taken a nap.

Another thing that surprised us about Kalahari is that they have a ton of food options on site. It made it so easy for us to grab a meal and then head back out to play some more. Also, the milkshakes at B-Lux Grill and Bar are even more amazing than they look.

Exploring the indoor waterpark was enough for us on the day we arrived. The kids were tired from the drive and there were already enough things to discover indoors. So we saved the outdoor activities for the next day. I didn’t even realize that Kalahari had an outdoor waterpark before we planned our visit. Just a warning – the Zambezi outdoor waterpark is only open from Memorial Day to Labor Day, weather permitting, of course.

Liam’s favorite out here was Bugs Burrow. It has several different water slides perfect for kids Liam’s size. Liam tried out every single slide multiple times.

Even better was that they had the baby swings available in front of the slides. This made it so easy for us to entertain Caleb while Liam was busy on the slides. Jamie could also easily manage both kids here by himself while I went back and forth between our locker. I know that I am easily overwhelmed with keeping them both entertained and safe when I’m by myself. So it’s nice to know that there are some areas at Kalahari where that is completely manageable.

While we spent the most of our time outside at Bugs Burrow, we also loved hanging out in the Kid’s Safari pool and Lagoon pool. Both are zero entry, which made it so easy to take Caleb with us anywhere. He and I hung out in the shallow end of the Lagoon pool while Jamie and Liam splashed around in the deeper end for a while.

Liam wasn’t tall enough for the other waterslides, climbing walls and ropes course. It was fun to watch older kids participate and especially to see them fly across the sky on the zip lines. Liam’s excited to be able to do some of these activities on return trips in the future.

We didn’t spend much time in the arcade, since the weather during our visit was perfect. In addition to arcade games, Kalahari also has things like bowling, flow-in-the-dark mini golf and laser tag. I’m sure as Liam gets older, or if we visit during the winter, we’ll probably do some of these activities too.

While we were at Kalahari, I was also able to find some time to sneak away to the spa. I tried a float session for the very first time. It was a fun experience and I’d definitely do one again.

Although you can purchase day passes to get into the waterpark at Kalahari, I definitely recommend staying on the resort if you can because it is so much more convenient. The wristbands we got at check in had our room key programmed in. You can also opt to have this include your credit card information.  This way, you can walk around Kalahari without any extra personal items like a wallet or key. It was so nice to be able to head back to the room for something because it was so close by.

When you stay at Kalahari, you get access to the waterpark both on the day you arrive and also on the day you check out. Depending on what time you need to get back on the road, you can stay at Kalahari until the waterpark closes. It was great to get in a few more hours of water play before we headed home. Insider tip: plan to spend the money to get a locked on this day. We were able to lock up my camera, wallets and car keys, as well as our dry clothes for the ride home, after we checked out of our room. This maximized our time at the waterpark and Jamie didn’t have to run to the car to grab our clothes when we were done.

I am so glad we decided to visit Kalahari with the kids. Caleb probably won’t remember a thing, but we have so many photos to show him how much fun he had. And if photos weren’t enough, he has his big brother to tell him about all the things we did on this trip. Liam’s already planning on all the things he wants to do again the next time we visit.

Have you been to Kalahari Resorts before? What was your favorite part about staying there?