Castaway Bay Recap and GIVEAWAY!!!!

Let me just start this post off with some housekeeping notes:

  1. This will be a fairly long post, but I think you should read through most of it to get the best information
  2. This post will contain a lot of CAPS because I am SERIOUSLY SO EXCITED ABOUT IT!
  3. There is an amazing GIVEAWAY at the end of the post, so make sure that you stay around long enough to enter!!!
*I was provided a free one-night stay at Castaway Bay, in exchange for my honest review. All opinions expressed are my own*

Castaway Bay is Cedar Point’s indoor water park, and is located in Sandusky, Ohio. It is located right on the bay and contains a hotel as well as a massive indoor water park, several restaurants, an arcade and a clubhouse.

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From the moment we walked into the lobby, we were so impressed!

Shipwreck in the front lobby

Fireplace in the front lobby

As we made our way up to our room, we were also impressed. We stayed in a Starfish room, which had two double beds and a pull out chair. They have MANY other room combinations that sleep up to 6 comfortably. Prices vary depending on the time of stay and the room needed. When booking a room, passes to the waterpark for the day are automatically included. Package deals are also available for meal options and passes to the arcade and clubhouse hangout.

I will also go ahead and mention here that at Castaway Bay, kids under 3 are entirely FREE. They don’t have to pay for the food or the waterpark admission. YES, PLEASE!

We really enjoyed the colors and ambiance of our room! It was clean and the aesthetics were wonderful! To me, it was very similar to the last hotel we stayed in at Wyndham Garden/Holiday Inn.

As you can see from the below picture, there was a coffee maker, microwave, fridge and TV as well as doors to adjoining rooms. I always like it when hotels have that as an option because it really helps facilitate family reunions or even putting the kids to bed in one room and the adults can hang out in the other room.

We arrived late, so we didn’t have a chance to hit up the waterpark, but I did walk around the building while Theo was putting the kids to bed. I was SO impressed with the front desk staff, the cleanliness of the entire place, and the fun decor all over the place! These were the shutters for Mango Mike’s Restaurant.

The arcade looked really fun, although we didn’t have time to hit it up:

We went to bed as soon as we could, because we knew the next day would be a fun one!!!

When we woke up, we got the kids dressed and headed downstairs to the breakfast buffet at Mango Mike’s.

 

 

Tera is ready to go!

The breakfast buffet was $12.99 per adult, so a little bit more than we would have normally paid for a meal, but it was the best breakfast buffet I have ever been to!

 

Isn’t it such a cute restaurant??

The spread included fruit, applesauce, yogurt, eggs, French toast, biscuits and gravy, sausage and bacon, pancakes, an assortment of breakfast breads and donuts, and cereal. Drinks were free/included in the buffet cost.

And, finally…on to the water park!!!

Tera was telling Kiah he needed to sit up, but stop pulling on her arm. #siblings

I’m going to fully admit that when you walk in, it is absolutely overwhelming. It’s a total sensory overload, and I think all four of our eyes were as big as saucers.

First things first: measure the children!

Depending on the height of the child, they are allowed into certain areas/on certain rides. If they do not meet the height requirements, they can still go on several rides with adult supervision and a lifejacket. Each ride is clearly marked what is allowed and not allowed.

SO MUCH TO DO!!! SO MUCH FUN TO BE HAD!

When we walked in, we immediately entered into the toddler wading pool. Um, I’m pretty sure we could have spent all day in just that one tiny section!

 

Just look at Tera’s face!

The atmosphere in the water park was amazing! It was extremely loud from the running water, so that did sometimes made it difficult to get the attention of my over-excited toddler. The water park is set at 82 degrees, and the water was not cold at all. It made it so enjoyable because there was no chill when you got up out of the water.

The three of us older people really enjoyed the entire water park, but I think that Kiah was a little overstimulated. He started fussing a little ways into it, and I realized he was really hot! For the rest of us, we were wet and 82 didn’t feel very hot, but for little man who was just dipping his toes, it was pretty toasty in there! After sitting him down in the water and dripping some water on his body and head, he calmed right down.

Let me tell you a little something about my Tera-girl. She is very reserved and VERY cautious. Usually I have to go down the slide with her 25 times before she will do it by herself, and she is the kid hanging onto mommies legs when other kids are running around. However, she LOVED Castaway Bay. She went down this slide over and over again with absolutely no holding back. She even went into the wave pool and wanted to go down the slides and into the waterfalls. I was SO IMPRESSED!

The family clubhouse was like a giant playground being drenched in water. So much fun!

There was also a large indoor/outdoor hottub! I had really wanted to go in this, but it was closed while we were there. The water goes outside and you can go outside in the hottub, even in the dead of Ohio winters!

The wave pool was really awesome as well!

I want to mention real quick that I was thoroughly impressed with the lifeguards at Castaway Bay. I have worked with children in many different settings, and have taken my entire camp cabin/daycare to many different pools. Most lifeguards I have seen are twirling their whistles and working on their tans, and I highly doubt they could react fast enough to save (or even see) a drowning child. These lifeguards were ON POINT. They were watching very intently, they were not distracted and they were not working on their tans. The one lifeguard in the toddler pool even moved constantly so he had the best eye on the children. Again, I just wanted to say that I was impressed.

Lest you think Castaway Bay is only fun for toddlers, Theo and I also had a blast and could have spent well over a day there! They had this super fast roller-coasterish ride where the lifeguard at the top instructed Theo to “not let go no matter what”. HA. After much begging and pleading, Theo finally convinced me to go on it, too. Um, I’m glad I went to say I did it, but I probably wouldn’t do it again. I’m NOT a roller coaster person.

We tried to get Kiah to sit in the water. Haha.

 

One of my FAVORITE family pictures!

Theo and Tera in the wave pool

 

We were only able to spend a little over an hour at the water park, and we could have seriously spent an entire weekend there. It was amazing!

And now….for the fun part!!! The GIVEAWAY!!!!

I am GIVING AWAY four day passes to Castaway Bay!! I will pick two lucky winners to win two passes each. These passes are worth $29 each, so this ain’t no small thing! The pass is for a 9am-10pm day at Castaway Bay. The coupon is good until 10/28/17.

Here’s how to enter:

  1. Follow The Glorious Mundane AND Castaway Bay on Facebook
  2. Leave a comment on this blog post telling me what would be your favorite part of Castaway Bay
  3. For 5 bonus entries, share this blog post on Facebook, make sure that you tag me (either my personal or blog page) so that I can see that you shared!

 

That’s it! Good luck!!! I will be picking a winner on FRIDAY, so this contest will run from Monday, April 3rd to Friday, April 7th at 12 pm EST. I will announce a winner on Saturday morning, April 9th!

 

44 comments

  1. Amanda Wilson says:

    OK! I was actually looking into this for this summer. However I wasn’t sure what it would be like. So I’m so glad that you reviewed it! It sounds like a perfect getaway for us and a perfect time for my two-year-old to play in the water! Sharing it on my Facebook now!

  2. Amy Msouty says:

    Oh my stars! It’s on our summer bucket list to take the kids to an indoor water park for a mini family vacation. We live in North Eastern Indiana so this is actually relatively close to us. My husband works overtime and is finishing his MBA so my favorite part – if we won, would be getting him all to ourselves for a a day or two. Our 5 year old just learned to swim but with a 2 year old and newborn what drew us to this type of getaway was having stress free options for all the kids!!

  3. Amanda Scroggs says:

    Oh my goodness! This would be a prefect retreat for nana, grandad, and our tribe of gorgeous grand babies. The water slides would be Milo’sfavorire and I’m sure sure Evelyn would love the wave pool!

  4. Samantha Command says:

    Honestly I didn’t even know that Cedar Point had an indoor water park! I always use to go there when I was younger but haven’t been in probably 10 years! It looks like some place Maddox would love to go to! The toddler area is calling our names! Winning this would be amazing because we really couldn’t afford to go at this point! Unfortunately I don’t have Facebook!! 🙁 I will definitely be sharing on Insta though and hopefully that counts! Now I’m going to go look up everything about that place!!! Hehe

    • sdevalve@cedarville.edu says:

      OF COURSE it counts! Thanks so much for sharing! I really can’t wait to see who wins! Even if you win the day passes, I would highly recommend staying in a nearby hotel that is cheaper. The price for the hotel rooms was more than I would pay, although it was really nice and the location was so convenient!

  5. Jamie Lebak says:

    My favorite part would be the water slides! Of course spending time with my family too! I know my two year old would love it!

  6. Jena says:

    A water park trip has been on our radar! Our son was invited to a birthday party recently at one & had a ball – we would love to take our daughter as well & our whole family go together 🙂

  7. Vanessa C. says:

    The roller-coaster ride for adults, the toddlers pool/play area for our kiddos, the friendly, colorful and cheerful environment for all the family!! Plus being at bay..I truly miss living <20min from the Atlantic Ocean in the southern hemisphere for 20+yrs! So Lake Erie will have to make it up for it this time! 😉 Thank you for the review and post, Suzanne! The pics are great and very inviting as well!! Also shared this page on my fb, already had liked and followed your page long ago ;), but followed the castaway bay as well 🙂

  8. Jess says:

    I’ve seen a million mentions of Great Wolf Lodge lately, and wonder what younger kids actually do at these places. I appreciated the pics a day description of what Tera liked. I’m on the fence whether this would be a hit with our kids or not, but would love to find out with free passes! 🙂 I assume the toddler area would be our fav.

  9. Jessica Mitchell says:

    This looks SO awesome! Kiley LOVES water and the pool and this place looks straight up her alley. I think the best part is being able to take kids without worrying about sunburn and lotion haha! (That always takes forever to do!!)

  10. Rachael Kolker says:

    Don’t think our four-month old would really care about it, but my husband and I would enjoy going and just having some all-around fum for a day!

  11. Rachel says:

    We took the twins to the water park at soaring eagle casino not too long ago and they loved it!! I’ll have to show my husband and make a trip soon! They would love this!

  12. Stacy Becker says:

    What a perfect little trip this would be!!!! Aleida has been begging to swim at a hotel for weeks now. I can just imagine her fave when she walked in to see that!!!! Lol

  13. Samantha says:

    Looks like you had fun! How awesome is it that kids 3 and under are free! I’d love to win 4 tickets so I could bring my brother along. Thanks for the giveaway.

  14. Rachel says:

    My favorite part would be taking my little fishy, my 4 year old, down some of the fun slides with daddy! And I would love to just hang out in the shallow end with my 14 month old

  15. Margaret says:

    I think my favorite part would be watching the kids on the water slides. They already love slides at the playground anyway! Thanks for posting the review, looks like a great place!

  16. Bethany says:

    Wow! That looks amazing. I’ve been to Cedar Point many times (I grew up in Ohio) but never to the waterpark. Thanks for sharing all that great info about it!

  17. Nancy Borg says:

    Looks like so much fun! I think I would enjoy the variety of fun and atmosphere for everyone in the family!

  18. Laura says:

    This place looks absolutely amazing! My little guy loves water and I think he would have a blast at this place. The would make for a great family friendly weekend!

  19. Catrina Barker says:

    We have never been to Castaway Bay but it looks like a great family water park to check out. So much fun things according to your review. Family fun for every age! Thanks for the opportunity! We would love the water slides the most 😉

  20. Elizabeth Dzuba says:

    We would love the family getaway time! And the kids would definitely flip out over the water slides.

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