Castaway Bay - Any feedback on this resort?

I do love cedar point and would not want to take away money from the company. I have went to Castaway with a day pass numerous times. Because of the half off with the CP pass. BUT, Kalahari waterpark is much better than castaways. Although the hotel is pricey compared to Castaway.

They will be remodeling and when they are done they will be more than 4 times bigger than castaway. They are doubling in size. They have 2 spas, a surfing simulator, 6 water slides, a water coaster, a basketball pool, and a kickass arcade that is bigger than castaways. And that is before the remodel.

Castaway has 1 spa, 3 waterslides, a smaller coaster, a basketball pool, and a wave pool. Granted kalahari does not have a wave pool, but they will have a bigger one after remodel.

I have never been to great wolf. So, I cannot comment my personel opinion on it.

If you can afford the extra I would consider staying at kalahari. The only reason I was able to stay there was a gift cert. from my mother.

Peace, Mikey

Kalahari does not have a water coaster. What they have is different. It does not use water to propel riders. It is the more dangerous/cheap version.

One thing Kalahari has that Castaway doesn’t, horrible lifeguards. I would not trust Kalahari guards with watching my paint dry. If I had kids, no way in hell would I step foot in that water park.

Edit>UPDATE:

I just found out that their zip coaster has been closed for awhile and a section of it has been dismantled. I was also told that they plan on taking it out completely because of its unreliability. I know it has more downtime then Dragster and if I remember right, people have had minor injuries on it before. So I guess Kalahari has finally done the right thing with taking it out. Whether or not they get a real water coaster (Master Blaster), I’m not sure.

I guess that is why its not listed on their website.

*** Edited 3/3/2007 7:11:31 PM UTC by 99er***

I am sorry, Bad info. It was closed when I was there, but I thought it was temporary. I did not know they were dismantling it.

Sorry to revive this zombie but...
After today's visit:
The GOOD: day pass prices with Platinum, low crowds in October, knowledgable front desk staff, fun for families with small children, ok room accommodations from past visits.

The BAD: small overpriced storage lockers for valuables.

The UGLY: new Worst FOOD, IMO, at a Cedar Point owned restaurant/snack place. Stay away please from...
Big Daddy's Fresh Baked Pizza. Pretty awful. They truly need to fix this, yes it's that bad. Yes, I'm emailing them about it. Fair warning.

We have stayed at Castaway Bay several times and have always enjoyed it. All of our stays were during the winter months so we went there for the Waterpark. There is a nice mix of slides and pools that people of all ages can enjoy. They have a nice hot tub area that has a section that goes outside which was fun.

The rooms aren't anything special but they were a decent size and were just fine to relax and sleep in. Contrary to some of the other reviews you may read online we have always found Castaway Bay to be clean and well kept.

Wow I just read this entire thread before realizing it was an undead zombie thread...

CPfan1976 said:The BAD: small overpriced storage lockers for valuables.

You have a room, and the hotel has no problem with you walking through the halls in your swimsuits to reach the waterpark. Don't bring your valuables to the waterpark. Keep them in the room.

Please read the GOOD more carefully: Day pass prices with Platinum.
To clarify this point we DIDN'T have a room on this particular day, (just in the past). You can just purchase a day pass for one day without staying, which is what we did.
So the BAD: $7 for a locker that is so small that it just holds a folded up pair of jeans w/a wallet(credit cards inside) and not much else is bad IMO.
The $15 sized lockers for a family of 4 might hold some of the other stuff, still overpriced in my opinion.

When we went with day passes we just put our stuff in a beach bag on a lounge chair. If you just bring enough cash for something to eat and don't bring the rest of you wallet aside from maybe your platinum pass if you used it for the discount there's not much to worry about.

We stayed at Castaway Bay on 10/4. Here are my impressions:

First I'll start with the positive. The hotel includes early entry into Cedar Point which we used on this trip because we don't have season passes for 2014 (we were actually there for our free 2014 visit since we purchased 2015 passes). I managed to find a deal through Booking.com on the day before we checked in and saved over $50 off the regular rate so I was pretty happy about that. Water park passes are also included with the room and you can use them during operating hours on each day that you are there, including the day that you check out.

The hotel includes a good sized arcade that the kids loved. The indoor water park is nicely themed and everyone loved the water coaster and wave pool. The whirlpool goes outside (as mentioned above) which felt great on a chilly October evening.

The air conditioning / heating unit in the wall includes a setting which allows the fan to stay on at all times. This might sound like an odd thing to notice, but as someone who has a tough time sleeping without background noise this was greatly appreciated. Earlier this summer we stayed in a hotel where the fan only ran when the AC kicked on and off and it was incredibly annoying.

Now for some things that could have been better. There was only one person working at the check-in desk when we arrived at 4:30 and I heard him mention that there were no rooms available that night so they were definitely busy. Fortunately there was only one person ahead of us when we arrived, but once we got checked in there was a pretty long line behind us.

As we made our way back to the room I started to second guess my decision to stay there. The ugly interior corridors smelled musty, were poorly lit, and it made me apprehensive about the quality of the rooms. Fortunately our non-smoking room, which smelled like smoke, was clean and relatively modern. We noticed that the light on the patio could not be turned off - at least not that we could find. It wasn't a huge deal since it was too cold to sit outside but I could see this being annoying in the summer. The railing outside was in desperate need of a paint job.

The metal stairways inside the hotel, which we took often because the elevators were slow and absurdly small, reminded me of the stairs that you might find on an old metal slide in a city park. They were loud and felt like they were constructed of really thin metal. I'm an average guy in terms of size and I wondered whether or not I was going to end up putting a foot through one of the steps. On the plus side, the stairways were actually well lit and clean.

This was our second stay at a Cedar Point hotel this year, the first being at Sandcastle Suites in August. On our way home my wife said she was surprised that Cedar Point hasn't done a better job maintaining their hotels especially at the rates that they charge. Overall there were aspects of each property that we liked, but there is also a lot of room for improvement. Hopefully the Breakers renovation is a sign that more attention will be given to the resort properties in the future.

Castaway Bay's waterpark is overall good. The rest of the hotel, while relatively clean, just seems old, dingy and way too plain once you get away from the entry atrium. Places like Great Wolf, Kalahari, Wilderness, etc. can spoil you when it comes to room theming.

On a side note jsmith, I'm also a fan of the constant-running fan. Check out the Relax Melodies app, it's great for background sleeping noise.

The problem with Castaway is that it was originally built as a Radisson Hotel with an attached Shooters Restaurant (now TGIFriday's) that was supposed to revitalize the Pipe Creek area and be a destination for boaters. It had nothing to do with Cedar Point, and I believe the ownership was the organization that built Shooters in Cleveland, Sandusky and Toledo. Only the Cleveland Shooters is still open and successful.

The hotel and restaurant complex was eventually purchased by Cedar Point, which ran the hotel as a Radisson for a few years and the restaurant, which was now a T.J. Muskey's, was converted to TGIFriday's.

Cedar Point then announced that the Radisson would be converted to an indoor water park called Castaway Bay. While I think they did a really nice job with the water park and in converting and renovating the hotel property, they were still stuck with the original Radisson layout and rooms. So while Great Wolf and Kalahari were planned from the beginning to be a indoor water park resort whose design was optimized for that purpose, Castaway Bay had some limitations as they had to work within the original design of the hotel.

Maybe, but I only see that affecting the path from the rooms to the waterpark, i.e. making the guests comfortable when they move between - those stairwells are so disconcerting.

Inheriting an old hotel doesn't prevent them from adding lots of aesthetics to sell the dynamic of the Caribbean theme. Simply hanging pictures in the rooms does not really do it. If I were paying less for the CB rooms, I'd generally agree with you, but CB/GW/Kalahari are comparable in pricing.

Nice review, Pete. Some of the worst shortcomings at CB aren't necessarily a result of those limitations.

We've stayed at CB a few times now, and while our experiences have generally been good, there are some glaring problems.

The first is the food. Our visits to CP have typically been in May and September/October, so we're familiar with and understanding of their personnel issues.

Even with that in mind, our service has been very hit-or-miss. Some employees were fantastic - our 2 year old daughter was a disappointed that she couldn't "play" one of the car "games" (where you drop money in and the car bounces around), as it was out of service. No big deal, we easily redirected her toward something else. However, the guy behind the counter noticed, and a few minutes later appeared with a small plush toy as consolation. That made her day, which made our day. Probably cost the arcade a buck or two, and made a huge impression on us.

Other times, like at Friday's and Mango Mike's, the service has been absolutely AWFUL. It took us 25 minutes (during which our server took orders for two other tables served their drinks) for my Wife and I to get our drinks. When they finally came, there wasn't a word mentioned about the tardiness, and certainly no apology.

Mango Mike's not only has some awful servers as well, but the food there is just horrible. Even for a buffet.

As mentioned by jsmith and Scottyf, the hotel area's hallways are dingy and dark, and do not lend to a nice impression of the hotel area. This is especially jarring coming from the lobby, as that area is nicely done.

The hotel rooms are adequate, and that's as good a compliment as they deserve. Nothing special, but adequate.

In the context of CB's competition, we've gravitated there based on the value proposition. You can stay at CB for less than you at other indoor waterpark resorts, and CB is obviously much closer to CP, and includes early entry. And given what seems like high occupancy, perhaps what they offer is good enough.

For us though, being Platinum Pass holders, we've elected to stay elsewhere when we want to include an indoor waterpark as part of our trip.

Scotty, thanks for the suggestion. I actually did end up downloading a sleep fan app on that trip out of desperation and it helped immensely. I'll check out the one that you suggested.

Pete, thank you for sharing what you know about the hotel's history. I've always known the property as Castaway Bay and had assumed that CP constructed the hotel and added the waterpark later.

I use an app called White Noise. It works great. I plug my phone into external speakers, and it makes it easy to sleep since it helps block out outside noises. I'm a light sleeper, so the app helps.

Here's what you need: :)

http://www.amazon.com/Cloud-b-7303-Z8-Sleep-Sheep/dp/B00IABHYV4/coasterbuzz-20

If they had a Snoopy they could sell it in the gift shops. :)

To completely hijack the thread, I like that Relax Melodies thing because it lets you mix all sorts of things, waves, frog peepers, pan pipes, you name it, and it sounds good using just the phone speakers.

^^ I was there the same day as you were and am curious as to whether you visited the Snack Shack there for food? The pizza is disgusting, sorry. Not just my opinion but other guests as well.

Like Brandon (djDaemon) stated above, one of the shortcomings of CB is the food,(I've never tried Mango Mikes' BTW but have frequented the TGIF before) which is a shame because there is a lot of competition down rt. 250 to go eat at.

I do think CB is a great starter waterpark for families with kids (prob ages 2-8) but Kalahari after that.

Still waiting back via email from CB about the food quality.
Will post their response when I hear back.