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Monday, June 21, 2010

The One Where I Review Fort Rapids Indoor Waterpark

As part of our stay-cation week, we spent two days and one night at the Fort Rapids Indoor Waterpark (and hotel) in Columbus, Ohio. It's similar to CocoKey or Great Wold Lodge, water slides and water activities, all indoors. We've had a little experience with this type of place before so I feel like I know a little bit about indoor waterparks at this point.
Before I give my review, let me say that the boys had a blast (literally-there were water guns!). They really enjoy that sort of thing, so this was one of their favorite things that we did on stay-cation.

I will say this about Fort Rapids-the waterpark itself was great. There were tons of lifeguards, all of whom were friendly and helpful, and the park was very clean. We got there about 6ish on Monday night and it wasn't crowded at all. There was plenty of room at the available tables and chairs to spread out our stuff and head to the attractions. I liked that because it was smaller than Great Wolf, I felt more comfortable letting the boys roam a little on their own. There was a large area with tunnels, and slides and a huge waterbucket (Rascal Round Up) right in the middle when you came in. Then towards the right, there was a smaller areas for little ones (Kiddie Korral-the water was never deeper than 2 foot or so in this area-Moose loved it). Towards your left were the water slides, deeper activity pool (3-4 feet with basketball hoops) and the lazy river. Just beyond the little kids pool was a hot tub, but you had to be 18 years old to get in that. I totally took advantage of that on Monday since we had hiked earlier in the day!
The boys really enjoyed their time in the activity pools but the slides were definitely the highlight for the twins. (I even ventured down two of them!) There were 4 slides that you could go down using tubes or mats. My favorite was the  Black-Out Pass, the slide was enclosed and black, so it was pretty dark and then it shot us out into a funnel, before sending us down the final tube. I may or may not have screamed so loud the first time that Bryce no longer wanted to ride with me.

Moose loved the Kiddie Korral-there were slides just the right height for him to go down-which he did over and over and over again. Jackson spent a lot of time in the Rascal Round-up, the slides and waterguns there were perfect for our "medium-sized" kid-not too tall and not too short.

The waterpark had lots of clean towels and the staff was very helpful. Bryce scraped his leg and they were great about getting us a waterproof Band-Aid and making sure he was okay. We got dinner there the first night and the concession stand worker went out of his way to get us cups with ice for the boys and was very friendly.
 
Unfortunately, as great as the waterpark was, the hotel itself wasn't as nice. The hotel was showing it's age a bit with dated linens and faded paint. In our room, the bathtub had a stain in it-which wasn't a big deal because we were only staying one night but I would have definitely requested a new room if we had planned to stay longer. And then there was the TV issue. When we were done at the park, we headed back to our room to watch a little TV and unwind before bedtime. Oddly, the TV would just randomly change channels on it's own, as if the person in the room next to us had control of it. We called down to the front desk no less than 4 times, before giving up and going to bed. Those two things aside, it was a fine hotel, nothing spectacular.
Our room rate was $119.95, with an additional $26.95 charge for Jackson's pass to the waterpark (the room came with 4 free passes), Brody was free. This rate was lower than you'll find on the website or by calling, so your mileage may vary. All in all, I'd give the waterpark a B+ and the hotel a C. That being said, we'll probably go back at some point, because the boys LOVED it!

1 comment:

Stacey said...

Thanks Christina. My mom is starting a tradition of taking her kids and grandkids to waterpark hotels for a weekend every year, so it's nice to hear about different places. We've been to Great Wolf and Coco Key, and definitely preferred Great Wolf because it was larger and not as crowded. We are likely heading to Indy next year.