Kalahari Resorts Sandusky

Proceed with Caution I recently visited Kalahari with some friends and their families. While the resort appears to be a fantastic destination for those with children, there are some important issues to be aware of to avoid a similarly disappointing experience. To ensure we had seating at the outdoor park, we reserved a cabana for $400 on a Sunday, a price we agreed upon. However, our experience quickly soured due to several unforeseen complications. First, the online ordering system proved cumbersome, prompting us to place our food and drink orders through a server. We initially ordered two drinks and some food and continued to order drinks throughout the day, relying on the app for pricing information. Unbeknownst to us, our server automatically upgraded our drinks to souvenir cups and top-shelf liquors, neither of which we had requested. Additionally, upon later digging deep and finding an online PDF menu to see compare prices, we discovered that a 20% gratuity is automatically added to each order, regardless of party size. This was not communicated to us, and with all the chaos when paying, we did not see this on the bill before completing our transaction, leading us to add an additional 20% gratuity, resulting in a bill that was $130 higher than anticipated. Prior to realizing these issues, I accompanied a friend to the bar, where his bill was unexpectedly high. Believing it to be a mistake by the one waiter, I questioned the manager who stated that they were top-shelf. I informed him that we had not requested top-shelf drinks and refused to pay the inflated price. The manager discarded the drinks and remade them, seemingly unfazed by the waste. Fine by me, and just an indication that because of their shady practices, they can afford the waste. These practices left me with a very negative impression of Kalahari. Regardless of whether you have children, I would advise caution when visiting this resort, as I am unlikely to return

Highly Overpriced- No Service The resort itself was great, lots to do....mind you everything costs 10x what it should be. Kind of upset that after 3 weeks , my "room deposit " hasn't been refunded yet. BEWARE CANADIANS: 2 NIGHTS COST 2 PEOPLE $987cdn WITH ALL HIDDEN FEES JUST TO GET ROOM- BRUTAL. Going on 3 weeks no deposit refund and based on a few phone calls made already, can tell this will take months to resolve. Surely this is part of how they make money, hoping people won't be bothered. For this reason alone, I will never go back here. Breakfast for 1 adult and 1 child, pancakes, bacon and eggs...$65US ??? Horrible They make a buck everywhere they can except as I said, it's 10x what it should be.

never again. This place has terrible customer service. I booked a room 2 hours after my daughter and they charged me an extra $100. that is crazy. They said it goes by demand. I call BS it should not go up another $100.00. I requested to be near my daughter and they put me over 98 rooms away. I don't call that close. The prices are so outrageous. $10. for the safari and another $30.00 for food. How can you justify $30 for animal food which consisted of carrots and cones. The drink prices are outrageous and $27. and drink. Stay somewhere else.

Check access to resort facilities before you book Nice facility, nice rooms. Here from New Jersey for a baseball stay to play. We booked another night and were not informed that part of resort (outdoor waterpark) would be closed for a private party during when we were able to use it. Facility used text messages to let us know when room ready and to see if we wanted to add on extras and could have used this system to let us know of closure so we could rearrange our schedule. When brought up to manager he told us we could use the indoor park and told us we should have checked the website (who goes on their computer on vacation?). Left with a bad taste in our mouth when a simple apology and partial refund of resort fee just for that day would have smoothed things over. Instead we were told that we should have checked website and we still had access to part of the facility. Just want to give a heads up to those thinking of booking with this resort that you may not have access to whole park despite paying for it. Note to Corporate: 1) schedule private parties outside of your normal operating hours 2) use text message system to help guests currently staying there plan accordingly if allowing some guests to use park during normal operating hours and not others 3) train your hospitality management team that true hospitality is not telling us we should have checked the website. Manager on staff the morning of 7/23/24 at front desk did not handle this well.

Abysmal experience Have a toddler almost 4 years old so we decided to go to Kalahari in Sandusky to test the waters with him on vacation as it is only 3hrs away and could drive home early if things got bad. We ended up leaving early not because of the kid but because of the hotel. 1) Beds provide no support you sink in about 4 inches and then you are basically laying partially on the box springs and partially by the mattress 2) 0 of the Hot tub jets were working on day 1 and day 2. I was hoping for a relaxing hour or so in the hot tub while the wife played with the kid. 3) We were scolded with in 5 minutes of being in the water park for the type of life jacket my kid had on. We checked the website for the types and it just states coast guard certified much like other places we have taken him. Our life vest is coast guard certified but the life guard said I don't care you need to wear one like what we have on the racks. My kid has been in swim lessons since he was 6m old he doesn't need to wear a freaking life jacket in the kiddy pool which is 6" deep. Secondly all kids that have to wear life jackets have to have parents present so now i am standing in 6" of water while my son goes down slides only to land in 6" water wearing a freaking life vest. This rule by Kalhari is a freaking joke. 4) Last but no least there was 0 Hot water in the room day 1 and day 2. What is worse it was out when we checked in and they didn't say anything. One of the hotel guests informed us. The evening of day 1 their text message app stated they would have it fixed by 5am of day 2. It wasn't so we went to the waterpark came back around 3pm it still wasn't fixed. The wife went to the front desk to get some type of refund. A normal hotel would comp you the night without much hassle. This management team thought giving us $100 gift card to the arcade was sufficient. This is downright laughable and insane. After arguing with the front desk we finally got $50 off the room and a $50 arcade voucher. I have a freaking toddler the arcade provides very little for them and the wife and I just do not care for that we were there for the water park and "resort" style hotel. Overall unless it comes under new management, and they maintain the park appropriately do not stay here. I could have overlooked the Hot Tub jets and the life jacket incident, but they stand out because of the poor management of site overall. Everyone without water should have had at minimum 50% off their rooms but more appropriately 100% off for the nights.