Kalahari Resorts Sandusky

I have sent this email to the guest services manager, Brandon. He has yet to respond.

It seems that Kalahari Resorts Ohio does not care about the incident that occurred at their resort. I have tried to reach them on multiple occasions but without much luck.

Hello Brandon,

By now, I presume that you have been informed by Marissa about the bug bite incident from November 23-24, Thanksgiving weekend stay at Kalahari Resorts in Ohio. I am trying to reach you so that this mess is addressed in an appropriate and timely manner. It was our very first time at Kalahari Resorts and expected to have an amazing time with our family, nothing short of a pleasant and happy Thanksgiving holiday weekend.

Unfortunately, the stay at Kalahari Resorts turned out being a terrible experience that led to a doctor's visit and needed treatment afterwards in addition to all the other issues we've had once we arrived at the resort.

First of all, I'll begin with what happened initially upon our arrival. We had reserved a room with a balcony and a fireplace. We couldn't check in for some reason and we were told to speak to Marissa (manager) about the check in issue. Without any mention of the fact that our room was no longer available due to overbooking, we were downgraded to a regular room.

We go upstairs to our room to settle and I realized that the room given was NOT what I've booked and paid for. I called customer service on the room phone and a not so gentleman answered and was very unpleasant, unprofessional and simply brushed me off when I explained to him that the room I was in was not what I booked and I wanted the room I reserved. I was told that they have no availability due to overbooking and that's that. Well, that was very upsetting, so I went to speak to Marissa immediately.

I mentioned how unprofessional it is to downgrade someone to a room when they booked something different instead of upgrading to make up for the Kalahari mistake of overbooking and not even mention it to the customer hoping that they wouldn't realize. Very unprofessional! Marrissa apologized and looked to see if she could put us in a better room, but unfortunately there were no rooms available. She did offer to take off $50 per night (2 night stay) and move us to a different room the next day as one would've been available.

We decided not to waste our precious time moving rooms the next day due to wanting our time there to be spent on having fun with our kids; our whole purpose in coming to Kalahari.

That first night, I have found several pieces of clumped hair on one of the pillows on the bed I slept in. I removed the pillow from the bed and let it go. Apparently, housekeeping does not do a good job cleaning the rooms. Unless one is blind, there was no way one wouldn't have noticed the hair when cleaning the bed.

Secondly, the most upsetting issue I had was the bug bites on my right hand.

I woke up in the morning with 9 bites on the dorsal surface of my right hand. I was the only one bitten; the only one to sleep in that bed. I've mentioned the bites to Justin (manager) who helped us checkout that morning. All he said was, "I will let housekeeping know to look into the room for bugs!" I left Kalahari thinking that perhaps the bites were some kind of a spider/mosquito type that in a few days will completely go away with no issues.

Well I was wrong. My hand started swelling up a little and it was very itchy. After approximately 1 week of it getting worse, I have decided to go to the doctor to see why it's not healing. I had to take time off work due to this matter, paid a doctor's visit and paid for medication to address the bites and the infection it has caused.

This issue has caused me much pain physically and mentally. It was very difficult working while trying to heal my hand from these bites.

Due to everything that has happened during our stay at Kalahari Resorts, I am requesting that Kalahari Resorts refund me the entire amount paid for the 2 night stay. Secondly, I am requesting that the doctor's visit and amount paid for the medications needed be fully reimbursed. I will provide the receipts if needed.

I cannot explain to you in words, how extremely hurt my family and I are over our horrible experience at Kalahari and the stress and pain it caused me physically and mentally.

I hope to hear from you soon regarding the above mentioned situation. I look forward to you addressing this matter in a professional way.

Please feel free to email or call. Thank you for your understanding.

Simona Neculai

Good evening,

I was a guest at your Ohio location yesterday April 19, 2024. I came with my fiancé and 2 daughters ages 4 and 11.

When I was exiting the water park after it was closing for the night I was walking down the stairs toward the bathrooms and came across a pink yeti tumbler on the garbage, Since the park was empty I grabbed it with intentions of turning it into guest services in the morning also, when I returned my remote for my cabana no one was at the services table (I just left the remote next to the computer). After I grabbed the cup, I set it down on the table near the restrooms and went to the bathroom. When I came out of the bathroom my friend had put it in her bag along with all of my other stuff and my childrens stuff from the park. I went back into my room to change and about 45 minutes after I got to my room 2 police officers knocked on my door asking if I had seen a pink cup.

Of course, I said I had and I gave it to them immediately. Without letting me speak they told me they had a zero tolerance for theft, and I was to exit the premises immediately. I made another attempt to speak with the police officers before I left and was not given the opportunity. I was made out to be a thief and was treated so poorly after spending $700.00 just for one day at the resort.

I am most definitely not a thief and have never even had so much as a speeding ticket in my life.

I have never been so embarrassed and felt so mistreated about something so small. I called the resort this morning requesting a refund for the room since I didnt stay and the manager I spoke with was extremely rude and not at all wanting to help me.

Thinking of going here for Spring Break? DON'T!!

My daughter developed a rash in the early evening of day 2.

They gave her some capsule Benadryl (we had to go out and buy chewable tablets - she's 7). I bathed her and put her to bed. The next morning she seemed better, so we went out to the park for our last day.

By 4pm her entire jaw began to swell (she couldn't eat), she had horrible hot rashes on her face, knees, thighs, and back (with 12 inch raised welts). we rushed home to Cleveland and took her to Rainbow Babies ER where she was diagnosed with cellulitis and put on antibiotics.

She remained very sick for days, missed the Daddy Daughter Dance at her school and basketball.

Another little girl who was with us also developed a nasty rash on her face, but it did not devolve into cellulitis.

I called the Erie Cty.

health department. They went out and read the water safety logs. There were tubs and pools whose numbers were off. They have an automated system that supposedly monitors water quality; well apparently they were not properly functioning.

We went Monday- Wednesday to avoid crowds and filthy water, but obviously Kalahari takes their down time seriously and couldn't be bothered to ensure the safety of their guests.

Also, they offered absolutely NO accommodation for this horrible experience.

Didn't even bother to call me back like they said they would after our first conversation, even though I had huge effort to be polite.

DONE with them.

DON'T GO! There are plenty of other places in the area that take the welfare of their invited guests (paying exorbitant sums) seriously.

We just returned home from our terrible stay at Kalahari. It's sad to type that as I have been many times before and have always had a great time, but after this weekend, I will not be staying at your resort ever again.

The staff was incredibly rude, the room was an absolute mess, and the entire weekend was a misguided shit-show. When we checked in on Friday the room was a disgusting mess with a bunch of broken appliances. When I addressed the issue I was disrespected and treated rudely by a supervisor in front of my children and other guests. We were supposed to receive a "VIP" package which was not waiting in our room.

I had to request that as well. Not that it was anything special. We were refunded for the VIP package to rectify that and given arcade tokens for our kids, which really doesn't seem like enough, but what about us? We paid for a vacation and we didn't get to have one because most of the time was spent in the room dealing with someone else's mess, or being disrespected for no reason by your staff.

On the second night after the arcade my fiance and I waited in line at Starbucks with a sleeping baby for 15 minutes before getting to the register only to be told THEN that we won't be served because they closed. Don't you think we should have been told when we walked in and started waiting for nothing? The final day we thought would be fine. We decided to go to the hot tub and were told our son cannot go in, and when I pointed at a child younger than ours sitting in the hot tub, the lifeguard said, "I already got in trouble for that." And when I said that he needed to kick them out, he smiled at me and did absolutely nothing other than make us decide to pack up and end our trip early.

We were "VIP" and "special guests" when money was being spent and that's it. We do not feel as though the VIP package being refunded was suffice for what we endured. We should have at least been comped for the entire first night if not more and that is what we would like to remedy this. There is honestly no reason for what we dealt with especially how much money we paid to have a nice weekend.

Something we tried very hard to do and spent months saving up for.

All for nothing. I'm glad my kids had a little fun, but all in all, we deserve our money back and we will not be returning to this resort.