Image courtesy of Experience Columbus. 

Toledo is the fourth largest city in Ohio. It is a community that celebrates art and entertainment, and used to play a huge part in the glass industry. There is a great food culture with many great restaurants to try. When it comes to water parks, there are several in the area that are lots of fun for kids and adults. Many of these parks are in neighboring cities, and they won’t make for too much of a drive. The water parks you can access from Toledo are all about an hour or less away. People are often willing to go much further for the chance to enjoy a water park, so to have several so close by is such a great perk of living in Toledo!

Great Wolf Lodge

The Great Wolf Lodge is a large indoor water park that you can visit all year round! It is just an hour away from Toledo, a drive that is worth it for what this water park offers. There are plenty of fun activities for adults and kids to involve themselves with. There are pools, hot tubs, and plenty of water slides. You can relax on your way through the lazy river and even play interactive games. They even offer great dining options right on site. 

This place is kept at 83 degrees all year round so that it always feels like summer. You can have a great time splashing around there even during the winter! It is a convenient perk for a water park to have when you live in the north. 

When you’re at the Great Wolf Lodge, you have access to more than just a water park. There are still many ways to have fun in those moments when you want to stay dry. There is Ten Paw Alley, a bowling alley with shorter lanes, the Northern Lights Arcade, and a Build-A-Bear Workshop. There are also many places on site to grab a bite to eat. 

Bowling Green City Pool & Water Park

Bowling Green City Pool and Water Park is a park that offers fun times for children and adults. It is located in Bowling Green, Ohio, just 30 minutes away from Toledo. It has a pool that is used for recreation and also used to teach swimming lessons. You can sign up for individual classes or a family class. To sign up for a family swimming class, you will need to have at most six people with you. 

You have to purchase a pass to get into the pool. You have the option to get a pass for a day or even for a whole season. Since this park is just 30 minutes away, a season pass can definitely be useful because of how easy it is to get there. There is a lap pool, a water slide, and a lazy river. There is also a diving board visitors can use. 

There is a splash pad where visitors can play within splashing water spouts. There is even a concession stand and a designated food area. You are not able to bring your own food, but there will certainly be enough available for you there!

Soak City, Cedar Point 

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Cedar Point’s Soak City has been open for 20 years. It is about an hour outside of Toledo. It is an 18 acre park that offers attractions like a 500,000 gallon wave pool, over a dozen slides, inner tube rivers, and a few play areas for children. 

There are rides that people who love chasing thrills and heights. There is a raft slide called the Zoom Flume that is 76 feet tall, and there is also Erie Falls, a dark tower with a slide that is fully enclosed. There are also many more smaller sized slides for visitors to enjoy. Soak City also grants you access to the beach!

The beach is right on Lake Erie, one of the great lakes, and a site of many water activities. People kayak and cruise across the lake all the time. Relaxing along the sand is one of the most popular activities on Cedar Point Beach. This park even has cabanas for rent and a swim-up bar. 

Kalahari Resorts

‍Kalahari Resorts is an African themed resort. At 174,000 square feet, it is home to one of the largest indoor water parks in the world. It offers just as many rides as an outdoor park does, with the added benefit of being open all year round! Since it is only an hour away from Toledo, it won't take long for you to enjoy what this park has to offer. 

There are many different slides and attractions that can be fun for kids and adults. There is a zip coaster, surfing simulators, and an interactive water play area. There is a family raft ride, a huge wave pool, and one of the longest lazy rivers you will ever see. 

This resort offers a lot outside of the water park as well. It has indoor to outdoor spas along with private cabanas, and a theater. Visitors even get to see real animals. There is a Safari Adventures animal park that allows guests to feed the animals. Elsewhere, you can find plenty of food and snacks for yourself. 

Black Beard’s Bay Water Park

Black Beard’s Bay Water Park is a park that’s located an hour and twenty minutes away from Toledo. It is a small water park, but it still offers people what they need to have a fun day in the water. One of the first things you will see when you enter the park is a large dump bucket that saturates people with water when they step under it. There is even a party room that’s available for rent, and lockers that visitors can use. There are lawn chairs and tables for the people who want to sit back and relax or just take a break from playing in the water for a while. 

There is a campground that you can call and make reservations to use. A day enjoying the water park and then resting in the campground afterward will likely be a good one. At the campground, there is access to water to go fishing and even kayaking if you choose. 

The Watering Hole Safari and Water Park

‍The Watering Hole Safari & Water Park is an outdoor water park that is less than an hour away from Toledo. It offers lots of fun activities that the whole family can enjoy. There is a kids tree house complete with slides, three story slide towers, and a lazy river. Aside from those features, visitors also get to enjoy heated pools! 

Some of this park’s rides are built for adventurous people. These rides include the Coral Reef River Ride and the Typhoon Rush Slide Tower. To get on these rides, you have to be above a certain height. You will also be required to wear a life jacket. Once you strap in, you’re bound to experience a really wild ride. 

This park is a safari as much as it is a water park. You get to ride through the safari and walk through the zoo. You’ll even get to feed awesome animals like cows and giraffes. The animals this safari features are from all over the world. You’ll find zebras, alpacas, and kangaroos! 

Turtle Cove Family Aquatic Center in Lower Huron Metro Park 

Lower Huron Metro Park is a park in Michigan that is less than an hour away from Toledo. It is a large park with lots of amenities. Some activities that visitors can do when visiting this park is play sports. The sports you can do there include basketball, softball, tennis, and volleyball. There are overall a bunch of activities to do in this park, including the water park. 

The Turtle Cove Family Aquatic Center is a water park that offers tons of opportunities for family fun. It is a massive water facility that has two water slides, a 300 gallon dumping bucket, and a lazy river. They also have a zero-depth entry pool. 

There is a spot in this park for boat rentals. Some activities you can do on the water are canoeing, kayaking, and fishing. All these activities take place on the lower Huron river. There are playgrounds, concession stands, and picnic tables. There is a campground on site that offers around 27 rustic campsites. 

Baylor Beach Park

‍Baylor Beach Park is a water park and campground in Navarre, Ohio. It is two hours and thirty minutes away from Toledo. Founded back in 1955, it was once known as Baylor Beach. It started off with just a small lake, a bath house, and a diving stand, and has grown into so much more in recent years. 

The water park has something for people of all ages. Some of their attractions include the “Tube of Terror,” a 90 foot slide that is fun for younger and older people, a “Fun Tube” to float around in, and multiple kiddie slides for kids who aren’t ready for the bigger ones. There are several fountains and water sprayers, and they also have “Buckets of Fun” that douse water onto the people standing underneath them. 

There is even a separate 1-acre lake for other fun water activities. This man made lake is surrounded by sandy beaches and grassy areas meant for visitors to relax in. On the lake, visitors can ride paddle boats, aqua bikes, and take kayak rides. 

There are ways to have some dry fun as well. This park offers basketball and volleyball courts and a place to play a game of Cornhole. There are picnic shelters available for groups of all sizes, which makes this a great spot to take your family and friends to. 

Pioneer Waterland & Dry Fun Park

‍Pioneer Waterland and Dry Fun Park is a park in Chardon, Ohio that offers entertainment for people of all ages. It is about two and a half hours away from Toledo and offers many attractions fit for adults and a whole “Kidsland” that is just for children. Some of the regular attractions include twin speed slides, a thriller spiraling water slide, and a black hole enclosed water slide. Each of these water slides is six stories high.  There is also a lazy innertube ride. 

This park has a swimming pond with a 60 ft. water obstacle course and giant water float tables. From there you can play water volleyball and water basketball. There are also several cool slides attached. There is a turtle slide, a frog slide, and a gorilla double slide. Visitors also get to ride a paddleboard across the lake. 

Kidsland includes several child friendly attractions. There is Kiddie Waterland, Adventure Island, and a Tot-land play area where kids get to ride on toys, crawl through tunnels, and enjoy a playhouse. 

There is a Sportsland Fun Area that offers some dry activities as well as wet ones. There is a basketball arcade, mini golf course, an air cannon shooting range, and a water cannon war zone. Visitors can even enjoy a go-cart super track. 

Toledo is a great city that has a lot to offer in terms of fun activities. Some features, like waterparks, can’t be found directly in the city, but can be found in many cities nearby. Whether you’d be fine with a shorter or longer drive, there are plenty of water park options available to you when you’re in Toledo.