Such an easy getaway: point the car toward the nearest resort with its own indoor water park, with crazy slides, wave pools, lazy rivers, squirters and dunking buckets. Some resorts add an outdoor water park in summer. Meanwhile, in places with tropical climes, resorts can offer outdoor lazy rivers and water-slides outside, year-round.
1. Great Wolf Lodge Resorts With Indoor Water Park
Photo courtesy of Great Wolf Lodge.
It's the big name, in the world of indoor water park resorts: Great Wolf Lodge started in Wisconsin Dells and has opened nine other Lodges since, in the Poconos, Sandusky OH, Williamsburg VA, and more.
Signature features -- besides great water parks-- include: Grand Lobby with animated Clock Tower, nightly story-telling; all-suite guestrooms; Northern Lights Arcade; spa with Aveda products; Wiley's Woods "dry play zone"; MagiQuest interactive fantasy game; and special seasons Howl-o-Ween in October, and Snowland in December ending with "Snowball" on New Year's Eve.
2. Wisconsin Dells: "Indoor Water Park Capital of the World"
This little burg started the indoor water park trend, as one resort after another built private indoor (and outdoor) water parks for guests. Visitors to "The Dells" will find family resorts with giant water parks and state-of-the-art thrills such as "Tanzanian Twister" waterslide (40 mph, 127 ft.; "toilet bowl" flush). Plenty of tamer slides and fun for little kids, too. Some resorts have extensive "dry play zones" as well.3. Kalahari Resort
Photo courtesy of the Wisconsin Dells Chamber of Commerce
The Kalahari Resort in Wisconsin Dells is a giant 125,000 sq. feet, and has pretty much every type of waterslide you could think of (uphill water rollercoaster, "Swahili Swirl" vortex slide...) plus river float, wave pool, kiddie play zone, FlowRiders for surfing, and lots more. In summer, the Zambezi Outdoor Waterpark adds more wet fun.
Incredibly, this is not the biggest Kalahari indoor water park: that one's in Sandusky Ohio.
4. Sandusky Ohio - Resorts with Indoor Water Parks
Photo courtesy of Cedar Point Amusement Park/Resort.
Sandusky Ohio has been drawing visitors for decades thanks to a sandy beach on Lake Erie and to the Cedar Point amusement park (- legendary for roller coasters). These days, Sandusky also has a cluster of indoor water parks at family resorts. There's a Great Wolf Lodge Sandusky; a Kalahari Sandusky (which claims the country's "biggest indoor water park" at a resort); and the Castaway Bay waterfront hotel.
5. NY: Six Flags Great Escape Lodge and Indoor Waterpark
photo courtesy of Six Flags Great Escape Lodge.
This Adirondack-themed family resort is part of the Great Escape theme park, and is also the first hotel with an indoor waterpark in New York state. Location is 50 miles from Albany, 210 miles from NYC. (The theme park's open seasonally; the Lodge is open year-round.)
6. CoCo Key Water Resorts
Cherry Valley Lodge indoor water park; photo courtesy of CoCo Key Water Resort.
CoCo Key Water Resorts builds indoor water parks that are added on to existing properties, such as Sheraton Ferncroft Resort near Boston, or Cherry Valley Lodge near Columbus Ohio. Sizes are more modest: say, 60,000 sq. feet. Maybe there's a CoCo Key Water Resort near you!
