CoCo Key Water Resorts

A top trend in family travel is "resorts with indoor water parks". Families love to pile in the car and head to a friendly resort with built-in waterslides and wave pools and 1000-gallon dumping buckets.

CoCo Key Water Resorts -- with a name inspired by Key West, Florida-- jumped into the pool with a big splash by opening several indoor water parks at once. Unlike other brands, which build their water park resorts from scratch, CoCo Key Water Resorts are added on to existing properties, such as Sheraton hotels.

Features of CoCo Key Water Resorts

With temperatures of 84 degrees, "It's always Florida inside". Signature attractions include:

• Shark Slam, Gator Gush & Barracuda Blast - three body- and raft-waterslides
• Parrot's Perch Play Island: interactive adventure zone with water cannons, spray nozzles, and thousand-gallon bucket dump
• Palm Grotto Indoor/Outdoor Spa - giant whirlpools
• Dip In Theater - float on a tube in the waterpark and watch a flick
• also: snack bar, lounge, arcade, cabanas, bar, birthday party spaces, and a six-foot-tall plush parrot mascot "CoCo” (available for party appearances)

Individual resorts may also offer CoCo Kids Club (seasonal) and activities for families and for teens.

A couple of points to note:

• a 50,000-square-foot indoor water park is modest compared to some of the giants such as the Kalahari and Great Wolf Lodge
• typically the water parks are open to the public, which could mean line-ups at the waterslides

CoCo Key Water Resorts - Locations

• Cherry Valley Lodge, Newark OH
This property -- in Newark, Ohio, just 25 miles east of Columbus -- has rustic interior and large grounds, and gets a 50,000 sq. ft. CoCo Key Water Resort.

Read more about CoCo Key Water Resort at Cherry Valley Lodge.

• Clock Tower Resort, Rockford Ill.
- has a 60,000 sq. ft. CoCo Key Water Resort.

• Sheraton Chicago Northwest
- has a 65,000 sq. ft. CoCo Key Water Resort.

• Sheraton Ferncroft Resort, near Boston MA
has a 65,000 sq. foot CoCo Key Water Resort.

More CoCo Key Water Resorts:
Additional CoCo Key Water Resort developments are planned for Omaha, NE; Cincinnati, OH; Kansas City, MO; and Mt. Laurel, NJ.

CoCo Key Water Resorts is a partnership of Wave Development LLC and Sage Hospitality Resources, a hotel management and development company.

Find out more:

• check the CoCo Key Water Resorts web site for updates and latest locations

• always check visitor comments at a site like TripAdvisor.com for any individual resort

[su]Photo courtesy of CoCo Key Water Resort