One of the things that I love to do for my daycare is to go to conferences that pertain to those of us in the child care field.

Twice a year there are conferences that I attend. One of them is in October and pertains to Child Care Centers and Home Family Daycare. The other one that was just this past May weekend is filled primarily with home providers.

This is the first time I’ve attended this conference, but it surely won’t be the last time. This year it was held at the Kalahari Resort/Convention Center/Waterpark in the Wisconsin Dells in Central Wisconsin.


The Hotel

This is a Huge hotel…with 738 African theme rooms and suites. They have so many different floor plans and types of rooms available. Some are a Royal King Whirlpool, African Queen Suite, Two-room family Suite and many more.

The Lobby area is just gorgeous. While it is rather plain where you actually check in, the areas surrounding it are filled with lots of interesting areas to sit and relax. We sat in an area where there was fireplace and huge carvings of water buffalo, elephants and lions on the rock wall surrounding the fireplace. There are plants and lots of greenery in keeping with the African Motif.

In this same area are a couple of glass cages that are used for displaying some wild animals. Now, these aren’t usually grown but rather babies and they are only in these cages for a few hours at a time, so you never know what you’ll get to see. We saw the cutest tiger cub and there were a couple of larger, but not full-grown, tigers as well. This whole area brings the African theme alive.

Also included in this hotel is a very large Convention Center with approximately 25 various sized meeting rooms. While we were there and using about 11 of these rooms, there was also a wedding reception, dance recital and they did a Mother’s Day buffet in one of the larger rooms. I think most any size convention or conference could be handled at the Kalahari

There is also a huge indoor water park. One of the things that I think that made our conference so successful was that families could come and have something to do while Mom (or Dad…we had few men attend also) was at the conference. The Water Park includes several hot tub areas, swimming areas, one of only two stand up and surf FlowRider. It was awesome watching people surfing on this wave rider. Very cool.

The Water Park also includes two different small children play areas with small slides and Johnny jump ups along with very shallow water and spraying water everywhere. There are tubes available (no charge) just floating around and these can be used to float down the Lazy River or to have fun in the Wave Pool.

You will receive a free wristband per each person that is registered in your hotel room otherwise the purchase price of a wristband is a ridiculous $40 for 3 p.m. one day to 3 p.m. the next day. You can purchase a nighttime band for $25 but that is only good from 3 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. when the Water Park closes.

There is also an outdoor water park, but since the weather hasn’t decided to stick to being Spring/Summer yet, here in Wisconsin, that wasn’t open so I don’t really know what all is included in it.

There is a game room where there are arcade types of games. We had fun winning tickets…and giving them to the grandkids or handing them tokens to have some fun with. While this can be an expensive place to play, we didn’t stay too long, but long enough for the kids to really have a ball.

There are pool tables, ping-pong tables and a birthday party area where you can celebrate with your little ones.

Whew…this place is big and includes 3 sit down restaurant/bars with Ingraffia’s having a view of the indoor Water Park. There is also a coffee/pastry shop and a Sweet Hut…that makes some delicious candy apples. (Thanks again Chalathra)

My third daughter and her family arrived several days before we did and found the Pottery Pizzazz a lot of fun for buying and painting plaster pieces and they will fire them in a kiln for you so they have a very finished look. She did a baseball that had a hat on it for her son and it looks fantastic. My grandchildren also got to paint a chip and dip bowl together and had so much fun and the worked together…which is awesome.

There are also a couple of gift/souvenir shops for T-shirts, sweatshirts and swimsuits too. Of course the prices of these is bit high…but if you want a great way to remember your visit these shops have whatever you may want.

There is also a fitness room that you can access using your room key. We never did go in, but as we passed by I could see a stationary bike, a treadmill and a couple of other pieces of equipment. I had visions of working out, but after walking back and forth on Friday and Saturday I found I had gotten quite a work out anyway.


Our Room

The only hotel rooms that I saw were the three that my family was checked into over the weekend. All three were the same and were called the Hut. Each of these rooms were priced to sleep four people. One of the important things about how many a room is priced for is that each day you are given wristbands for the water park and will only receive the amount that the room is sized for.

The rooms had two queen sized beds with a headboard and netting that was draped from the ceiling down the side of the headboard. The bed was awesome! I slept better than I have in a very long time. I actually think I slept 7 hours straight, which is something that I never do anymore. I’m wondering if the pillow top kept me from feeling the motion of someone else (hubby) moving in the bed. While we are used to sleeping in a King size bed, this queen size made me sleep like a queen. Of course each bed had two, rather flat pillows on each one but I managed to snag the extra pillow from the closet. There was also an extra blanket available as well, that two of my grand daughters used to have a hotel room ‘sleep over’.

There is a 27” television situated on the long dresser across from the beds that includes all standard stations as well as a few cable channels. There is even a water park channel that you can use to watch people playing in the indoor Water Park.

This room includes a small refrigerator, a microwave (this wasn’t included in the room description that I read before going so it was a pleasant surprise to find the room had one) an iron and full size ironing board, a safe, a blow dryer and a coffee maker. Thankfully the coffee maker was placed in the sink area, which is separate from the toilet/tub area. I hate making coffee in a bathroom and am always happy when the vanity is away from the facilities. There were also small bottles of generic shampoo/conditioner and lotion. Nothing fancy, but they smelled good and did their job.

There is an attached table with two chairs and also each room has a balcony that has two outdoor chairs. It was nice sitting out there and watching people come and go.

The colors of the rooms were mostly a rust color, browns and oranges. This whole hotel has an African motif and the rooms, as much as possible, followed with this style.

The room had several pictures, a large oval mirror and a full length mirror on the bathroom door. This really came in handy because you could use it to reflect off of the vanity area mirror and see the back of your hair.


My Feelings

I absolutely loved this hotel and would definitely consider going back…in fact we all will for sure in two years because this same conference will be held there again. I can hardly wait.

The staff was cordial and helpful with us running into a very friendly desk clerk when we went to pick up our keys. He was the only one who offered us directions during our stay and had a great smile.

The rooms were all clean and fresh looking as were the hallways, conference rooms and the Water Park. The Kalahari really does a good job with upkeep and I’m sure housekeeping and maintenance is kept very busy.

The only things that I could call a con are the long walk that it is from the rooms we were in to the waterpark and restaurant area. There is really nothing that they can do about this, but boy did I get my walking in!

I do think that because of the way this hotel is configured they really should hand people maps of it in order to make it easier to find your way around. There is a skyway that we needed to walk on to get to what is called the Sands building. The thing is, you have to go to the second level for the skyway but then use another elevator for your floor. We were on the top floor of this four story building. At times it was confusing.

While the Wisconsin Dells is a pretty touristy place to go in Wisconsin…a visit to the Kalahari is well worth battling the crowds, or you could go in the winter and have fun in a bathing suit while there is snow on the ground.


Nuts & Bolts

Kalahari Water Park Resort and Convention Center is located on 1305 Kalahari Drive, Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin. This resort is just north of Interstate 90/94.

The phone number is 1-877-KALAHARI (525-2427)

You can check out this wonderful resort by going to their website at http://www.kalahariresort.com/Main.aspx
I would really recommend checking it out if you’re at all interested in visiting this resort. A picture is worth a thousand words (and this long review has a couple of thousand).

Prices vary so much that it is really hard to give you an idea of what you may pay. The prices vary by season but I will say we paid a very reasonable $120 a night for our room. It would usually go for $169 and up so our conference package deal saved us quite a bit.

UPDATE May 5, 2011:  This past weekend we stayed at the Kalahari again and our stay was as pleasant this time as it has been in the past.Sadly, I left a stuffed lion (probably got mixed up in the sheets) and while it isn't valuable it has a tremendous amount of sentimental value to my husband and I. I was so pleased when Kim in Lost & Found called to tell me she had found it and she put it into a large envelope and sent it back to me.  Hooray!  Thank you so much!

Recommended: Yes