I rarely leave reviews, but what happened at Kalahari Resorts in Sandusky, Ohio, on July 15, 2026,…read morewas so deceptive that I feel obligated to warn other parents. First, let me be clear: my children and my brother's children--seven children altogether--and I had an amazing time. The water park, accommodations, food, and attractions were fantastic. This review is not about the quality of the resort. It is about what I believe is a deceptive practice that targets families. I booked a one-night, two-day stay with early check-in, late check-out, and purchased the Ultimate Package. When we entered our room, there were numerous snacks and treats displayed alongside the items included with the Ultimate Package. To a parent walking into a room with excited children, everything appeared to be part of the package or a complimentary welcome gift. Only after we had already enjoyed our stay did I receive an email informing me that I had been charged $303.18 for those snacks. I immediately went to the front desk while I was still at the resort and spoke with a manager. His response was, "I understand, but I can only cut the bill in half." That response completely missed the point. The issue is not whether I should pay $303 or $150. The issue is that the snacks were presented in a way that reasonably led guests to believe they were included or complimentary. The manager claimed there was a note somewhere indicating the snacks were not included. If there was, it certainly was not obvious enough to prevent this misunderstanding. If you are going to charge hundreds of dollars for snacks, every single item should have a clear, unmistakable label stating that it is NOT INCLUDED and that consuming it will result in additional charges. Hiding a small disclaimer while placing the snacks next to the package items is misleading. As parents, we save for months to give our children a memorable vacation. We budget carefully for the room, the attraction passes, the meals, and the extras we intentionally choose. What we should not have to budget for is a surprise $303 snack bill because children naturally assumed the snacks left in the room were part of what had already been purchased. Frankly, I don't care if Kalahari refunds every dollar. My purpose in writing this review is to pressure Kalahari's management to stop this practice. If enough parents speak up, perhaps they will redesign how these items are presented instead of relying on confusion to generate additional revenue. To every parent considering a stay at Kalahari Sandusky: be extremely careful. Before your children touch anything left in the room, ask exactly what is included and what is not. Better yet, tell your children not to eat anything that has been placed in the room until you have verified that it is free. Kalahari has built a wonderful destination for families. It should be known for creating lasting memories--not for leaving parents with unexpected charges that sour an otherwise wonderful vacation. Until this practice changes, I cannot recommend Kalahari to other families without this warning.

So much fun the food was great the slides are fun and are room was perfect if your looking for a…read morefun Waterpark this is the one but it is a bit expensive other than that its great

Good price for a clean and safe room. Room looked to have been remodeled relatively recently…read more Bathroom definitely a little small, but serviceable. Shower never ran out of hot water. Bed was comfortable. AC, TV, and WiFi worked. Awesome ice machine at the end of the building. Overall, a decent place to stay. I think their clientele spends their time fishing on the lake or shooting at Camp Perry, but it seemed perfectly fine for anyone if you just need a place overnight until you take the ferry over to Put-In-Bay (only a couple minutes down the road). No restaurants or even convenience stores nearby without driving the few minutes into Port Clinton. Front desk lady said to book directly on the website to save a couple dollars. No pool, but otherwise a good, solid value. Four stars.

Wow, the cutest ever motel! Clean and pet friendly, newly renovated rooms with wood like floors,…read moredefinitely a well priced, quaint place to stay! We will be visiting again.

Made a reservation for a full service RV site. A few weeks before check in, I was told that there…read morewas an issue with the sewage and I would have to move to another site with less grass. Ok fine, things happen. I got here on Saturday evening and was handed a map. No signage on the rows, finally a worker offered to show me to the site. Great, got the RV hooked up. I did get a call on Sunday morning offering to move me to another site that was not full hook up as this site has no grass at all. Heavy rain last night, I am now in a sea of mud, thank goodness that I put everything away last night. The employees are super nice and are trying their best. They are the only reason for the 2 stars. The showers are nice and very clean as well. I hope the owners make some serious improvement. Our group hoped to make this an annual trip for our family reunion but I don't see that working out.

I was a member here for a couple of years. There were a lot of promises made, but nothing…read moredelivered. I would talk to some of the long time members and they would express the challenges they had with getting anything they were sold over the years. The investment group here hired their retired mother who was an engineer to run the place.... Serious need of proper management and marketing. My wife and I called it quits this year. Cedar Point season passes were cheaper than the seasonal sites that are under powered. Too many broken things. It has potential with proper support.

My daughter and I brought my 9 and 10 year old grandsons here. We were a bit nervous of the mixed…read morereviews. The price for a family suit on a Wednesday with 4 passes to the water park is very reasonable. Upon arrival check in was simple and went pretty quickly. You are allowed to start your fun before the room is ready, which is good because the waterpark closes at 8 and opens at 10 am. You can also continue to play after check out. We found this very nice because you wouldn't get much time to play if not. Our room was ready early but our bands didn't open our room so they gave us new ones. The girls working were friendly and helped us sort it out quickly. We were disappointed to find hair in both of our beds. We called and requested fresh bedding because we wanted to get playing. They never came but they did give us a new room, also with hair on the sheets. Our cleaning person came in and we watched her replace the pillowcases with clean right off the cart and guess what? Still hair! This is a laundry issue but we were relieved to know it wasn't because our beds were dirty. This was our only negative issue. Our room was clean and spacious. The pull out sofa wasn't the most comfy but we were so wore out we slept well. The Waterpark wasn't very crowded and it was very fun for our boys! My grandson said he felt like a VIP and they will both remember this fun time. The workers keep a very good eye on things. We felt safe. There's a Dunkin Donuts in the lobby and you can order on an app which I recommend because I ordered at the kiosk and waited 30 mins for 2 coffees. ($9) I would recommend ordering ahead and pick it up when you get a text to save waiting too long. We brought in snacks and drinks to our room. We had a fridge but no microwave. Overall we all agree it was a great time and we will return. The kids loved everything and they said their review is "great"!

My feelings are really mixed here. The good: The staff were…read morevery friendly. The kiosk check in process was a breeze, and I LOVE that water park wristbands double as room keys because it's one less thing to worry about losing. The onsite Dunkin offered good food at reasonable prices. The drinks were really good and felt like they justified their price because they were huge. The hotel rooms were very nice. The arcade was nice, and provided a good variety of games. The bad: Paying for parking is a huge turn-off. It's $20 per day just to park in an ordinary parking lot, which seems like an excessive charge that the resort knows it can get away with because people have to park. Strategies like that feel like they're trying to squeeze every nickel and dime out of patrons. The water park, itself, isn't great. There's two nice-sized tube slides and some very short body slides. The lazy river is also very short and filled with empty tubes in a way that feels claustrophobic. The hot tubs are nice. But it just doesn't feel like there's anything particularly exciting to do. Once you've been down the slides a few times and checked out the hot tubs, that's mostly it unless you're a little kid (there's a few activities that are geared for young kids). Overall: If you want a good resort experience, you can get it here. If you want a good water park experience, you've got much better options nearby.

I'll start off by saying that the water park, itself, is very nice. It's a good size, with a…read morevariety of activities for younger and older folks to enjoy (although no lazy river feels like a serious oversight). The arcade is also nice and spacious, with a great variety of games that seem well-maintained. However, there's some issues that really detract from the experience. Customer service was my biggest gripe. The check in guy was pretty cold at first, but later he was more helpful. I was especially disappointed with the snack bar staff. The water park snack bar is in a dimly-lit corner, and when I went in, there was no one visibly working there. After a minute, a lady came out from the back, and I asked if the snack bar was open at that time. She gave me a condescending look, and didn't say anything, as if I should obviously expect the location to be open, despite the lack of an open sign or employee behind the counter. Then another guy comes out and starts making the order and neither him nor his coworker talked at all, just kinda scowled and made my partner and I feel like we were doing something wrong just by being respectful paying customers. They were the kind of workers I'd expect to see at a run-down McDonald's late at night, not a family vacation resort. The hotel itself is also nothing special. The beds are small and not particularly comfy, but the rooms are clean and nice enough. But the walls are THIN and you hear way too much noise from other guests. Overall: good waterpark+okay hotel+bad staff=mixed experience

Ooooooh, where do you start when you want to say, "What the H*ll?!"…read more The very first offense was the entire room smelling like MOLD AND MILDEW. What caused this?! We don't know - what did we find? Water left in a tub! LEFT. IN.A.TUB. HOW LONG?! Who knows?! When I immediately complained, all they did was send someone to clean the tub. Did this work? Absolutely not. The room absolutely REEKED of mildew. The next night, I could NOT stand it. I asked for spray. How does one sleep with mold filling their room and no way to vent or open a window?! There were 6 people staying in this room. Four adults and two children under 8. Our room was at the fuuuuuuuuuuuuuurthest end of the hall, which leads one to believe it's forgotten about... The second offense were the crumbs and the blood left on the pull/ out bed (which in and of itself was an absolutely terrible bed for sleeping. You could feel every piece of hardware holding that crappy bed together.) Knowing that we JUST opened the pull-out bed and there were crumbs in it - NOPE! Not only was there crumbs, but when we took the actual sheets off, because we also had to do that ourselves as well, there was old BLOOD ON the sheets! As a woman, we know what old blood looks like and it was on this bed on the sides tucked in. That's unacceptable. Before we went to go to sleep, we saw 8 lovely legs creeping beneath another bed. Imagine what we didn't see. On Sunday, we stripped the sheets and piled them on all the beds and BOTH mattress were covered in yellow stains. Sweat? Urine? Who knows...?! The staff was less than enthusiastic for an environment that's supposed to cater to kiddos. Seriously, if you don't like kids, don't work there? The 'dance party' for the kids last maybe a half hour. If that? Who does that? And it's in the 'lobby' of the main entrance where there's a giant boat with barnacles, a mast you can light up and a talking-tube that goes up to the second floor. That's it. Literally. The rest is hotel and one craft room and arcades that charge you extra if you're not 'VIP'. Very few staff working the food places or around to ask about it. The best employee interaction came from a lovely girl in the late hours, when asked if the dock was okay to walk on, could we get back in, etc. She was so polite and friendly! I didn't see her name tag, but she had a bow in her hair - (Thank you for showing compassion and courtesy!) On Sunday, the slides were 'shut down' in random locations, we assumed it was due to a lack of staff since they slowly opened up after noon, but by then a good chunk of people are leaving due to check out. In the end, our visit was disappointingly-lack-luster and downright unsanitary. I expected more from a location dedicated to kiddos and their families. Even in the beginnings of the 'off season' as Halloweekend is around the corner, I had higher hopes. I understand 'bad days' and 'off weeks' but what I didn't understand was the lack of genuine care in a company that literally houses hundreds of families throughout one season. It said opened in 2004?. 22 years and this is the best you think you can do? In a world full of chaos, kids need fun and good memories. Do better Castaway Bay, do better!

First the positives. Excellent location. Great views of…read moreLake Erie from every room. Convenient parking. Nice (but tiny) shampoo, conditioner and lotion containers in bathroom. Comfortable beds (though high). The two pools and a large spa pool were nice, with many lounge chairs, and extra towels available in the lobby. Now the negatives. - When they say "check-in at 4 pm", they MEAN 4 pm. We arrived at 3:45 and they wouldn't check us in until EXACTLY 4 pm. - Room wasn't perfectly clean - carpet dusty, some dirt around the edges in the bathroom. - We were there three nights. Room was never cleaned nor towels replaced. - Some photos on VRBO showed microwave/small refrigerator and coffee maker. There were none. - No breakfast available. No complimentary coffee. There was a small bar in the lobby with coffee to purchase. - Room air conditioner was noisy. - Automatic night lighting on all room balconies could not be turned off, so we had to have the drapes fully closed to sleep. - Loud music was broadcast all afternoon and evening. We were on second floor and could hear even inside our room. We were told the music was required "for the Tiki Bar". - The room's balcony was screened, but at least twice a day birds got in underneath the balcony side adjoining room walls. After 20 or so minutes the birds got out the same way on their own. - No phone in the room and we had a hard time finding the front desk phone number anyway. Finally just had to go down to the front desk when we needed something.

DO NOT STAY HERE!! Absolutely filthy and falling apart! I rented a pool cabana for the day, a room,…read moreand a golf cart. The pool is disgusting! The chairs are all falling apart and the cabana was dirty and crawling with spiders! I could not sit under it! The staff do not even try to make it presentable for you despite paying $150!! The pool water was not heated, it was cold, and dirty! Our room had soiled linen on the beds, the head boards were weirdly mismatching, and the bathroom looked like something out of movie like a prison toilet! I rented a 6 seater golf cart and the because it had rained the previous day you could not even use the back two seats, they were soaked, and they don't do anything to try to keep them dry despite paying $180! We opted to not stay here, showed our photos & expressed our concerns to the front desk, and was promised a full refund. Over a week later and we see are still waiting for it. Very shady operation!! Never again! I hope my review saves you money!!

Another holiday another amazing stay! First class accommodations and first class company!! NE best…read moreresort!!

The bathrooms are very clean, and there are several ice makers on the property as well. Food is…read morealways good, but they never have waffles on the menu - but you can't have everything.

Sorry but I love this place. The villas are where it's at. Says you can sleep 6 but we have crammed…read more8-10 people before. We rent them for $500 a weekend and it's worth it. Bring your cooler and drinks and head on up. The pool is solid and the bar/restaurant is as well. The villas have AC and stove, fridge and microwave. Villa 5 has a huge deck and grill. Bring your own towels and linen and you are set. Sometimes we don't even make it over to PIB. Middle Bass more for locals and not near as rowdy. Good weekend

Good food, reasonable prices, laid back and easy. Service was excellent. Good vibes here. Would go…read moreback often.

My husband and I stayed here during our first trip to KI for our first anniversary. I'd give it…read moremore of 3.5 stars if I could. The front desk ladies were very polite and helpful and I'm pretty sure they stayed late for us to check in because the ferry line was backed up on a Friday evening. The location on the island is great, I think maybe the only hotel/resort on the island? That we saw anyway. And the free bike usage was amazing and we took advantage and rode them to the public beach and glacial grooves. We had lucky weather for mid September and were glad the pool was still open. You're allowed to bring down your own alcohol and drink it poolside, which was great on the hot day we had. The few downsides would be one, our room felt pretty outdated. There were several large stains on the carpet upstairs and downstairs. Two, the description for the Iroquois room boasts a private balcony and while there is a balcony overlooking the beautifully kept grounds and lake, it's not private. It's the entire front walkway connected to every other room so people walk through your "space". That was one of the reasons we chose this room option over a smaller, less pricey one. So definitely misleading. I would return because our overall experience was great and the pool and free bikes were big perks, but we'd probably opt for a smaller room!

KI Venture LAST resort ........ first arrived noticed a very filthy lobby. Started getting worried…read more The room was gross had spider webs along the ceiling all the way around, dirty toilet and floor. They moved us to another room which was cleaner. No manager on site. If there is an issue you must call her yourself . The staff will not. Pool is dirty and hot tub too since the filter is broke. Not usable. It is NOT worth what they charge. Please find another option.