Holiday World Travel Guide
We recently just took a family trip to Holiday World & Splash’n Safari in Santa Claus, Indiana and it was a blast! I wanted to be able to share all about it so if you ever decide to take your kiddos, you have a jump start on what to expect. So let's get right into it shall we!
My girls in front of Holiday World
The first thing to do is to obviously book the place your wanting to stay and tickets for the park. There are various places to stay like Santa’s Lodge, Santa’s Cottages, Lincoln’s Lakefront, or various hotels, but we ended up staying literally right next door to the park at Lake Rudolf Campground & RV resort! The reason we choose this place was because they had so many options to choose from as far as what we wanted to stay in, plus, they have a shuttle that runs all day long that will take you back and forth to the amusement park for free! {If you do decide to stay at another location, don’t fret because parking is FREE at Holiday World} Lake Rudolf does have a variety of different options of how you want to stay, such as, just renting a lot out to camp on with a tent, or if you have an rv, or four different size cabins to choose from! Along with a store on site if you need anything, a pool with huge slides, put put golf, golf carts you can rent, activities they host for kids & adults, plus so much more!
The earlier you book, I do believe the cheeper it is plus more availability, so just keep that in mind. We ended up staying in one of their holiday cottages, it was the perfect size for our family! These were some of the photos I took but they also have a ton on their website also! If you want to see all the different options of cabins, just put in a random date for a month out for however many people is going and it will pop up a ton of options where you can see all the different size cabins. Some are wheelchair accessible and some are pet friendly also!
One thing to keep in mind is that there isn’t a lot of restaurants around. If you google “places to eat by holiday world”, some of the options that pop up are actually INSIDE the park itself. There was two restaurants we did find outside the park and that was the Brick Oven Pizza and The Chateau. So I would suggest bringing a cooler with some food for breakfast for sure and then some lunch & dinner items also. If you do decide to stay in a cabin or cottage, they do come with a full kitchen to use plus a fire pit. There is a big dollar general right across the street if you do forget anything food, drink, or hygiene wise.
Now onto booking tickets for the amusement park. If you plan on going a few days in a row {which I do suggest because you can’t do it all in one day} you can get in cheeper by getting 2 or 3 day flex tickets. Meaning you can go 2 or 3 days in a seven day time frame, so you don’t have to go back to back. We ended up doing 2 days and I honestly wish we would of did 3. I believe the amusement park, you can do it one day, but the waterpark is a lot bigger than the amusement park it’s self and wish we would of had 2 days inside Splash’n Safari. Check out the amusement park & water park map here where you can zoom in & out to get an idea of the size of the parks.
Holiday World is so dang cute though! They have actual holiday themes such as Christmas, Fourth of July, Thanksgiving, and Halloween! I would say there is a handful of big rides {The Raven, Thunderbird, The Legend, & The Voyage} for adults but most of it is for younger & little kids. They have FREE drink stations through out the whole park & water park! Plus FREE sunscreen stations as well! You can rent out a wagon if you don’t have one or rent a wheelchair scooter if you have an elderly person with you but they do both go fast so I suggest being there when they open. To rent either one, it is immediately to your right as soon as you go through the ticket/front gate.
As a mom, I just really appreciate a place like this because I can’t tell you how many times we go to some amusement park and there is only one little section for kids & that’s it. Plus most of the time they won’t let you ride with your kid. but at Holiday World it is the exact opposite! There is kid rides in every single holiday section, plus multiple sections for kids in the waterpark! And you can ride them with your child if they are a little scared or a little too little to go by themselves! That I REALLY APPRECIATED because Kinsley didn’t feel comfortable going by herself until she got used to them and then she was okay to go by herself. Plus they have little pools that are made just deep enough so that they can get their body wet but they can still touch the bottom also! Kinsley’s and I’s favorites places to play at for awhile was defiantly Tembo Tides/Falls {#39 & #40}, Sam’s Splash Land {#44}, and then Kima Bay {#36}. I added a photo of the map & circled which ones they are because the waterpark does go quite a way back and at one point I wondered if it ever ended. haha. but once we found out what was where and walked the whole thing, we learned where we wanted to stay at and what Kinsley liked the best. So I hope this saves you some time on where the best kid things aren in the waterpark!
A few other things to note is that, whenever it became time for the waterpark to close, they actually would close the lines a half hour prior to close to be able to get the people already waiting in line, through the ride. {This goes for the amusement park as well} I had basically played with the Kinsley all day in the waterpark and when it came time for me to be able to ride one, the ONLY water ride I really cared to ride, The Cheetah Chase Roller Coaster, it was already closed even though it wasn’t time for the actual water park to close yet. So if you ever go, please ride this ride for me! It is basically a water slide plus roller coaster in one and looks really dang cool! I have never seen such a ride before, have you? Plus you can ride it with your family and race each other! How cool!
In conclusion, if you live close enough and have little ones, I highly suggest going if you can! It defiantly is not a “relaxing” vacation but is more of an “exciting” vacation and I don’t regret going one bit! We all had a blast and had the time of our lives! Don’t get me wrong, there was some really nice relaxing times also, like after the kids went to bed I would sit in one of the rocking chairs on the screened in porch, just enjoying the silence, listening to nature, reading a book or hanging out with my fiancé. Plus it kind of forces you to stay off of your phone because there isn’t much service around. Yes, they do have wifi you can connect to, but since everyone is using it, it does tend to run a little on the slower slide. And if I’m being completely honest here, we all need that break from our phones/social media and the world really and to just be in the moment with the ones we love the most!
If you have any questions at all don’t hesitate to leave a comment below, use the contact form on my website, or direct message me on Instagram!
This blog post is in no way sponsored or affiliated with Holiday World & Splash’n Safari or any of the other places mentioned in this post. This is purely informational, my own shared experiences, and opinions.