OKANA Resort & Indoor Waterpark — Hotel in Oklahoma City

I sent this in an email reply to our reservation. No response. I also sent this as a reply to the survey that was given three days after departure. No reply. I have also said similar on Facebook. No reply. I just would like to be acknowledged if nothing else. ....... We checked in around 4ish, but our ADA room wasn't ready and they couldn't tell me when it would be ready. I relented to a regular room after I was assured it would have grab bars in the bathroom. We got to our room, there were salad and food crumbs on the desk and bench and chair. I called to the front desk. They offered for us to switch rooms if we came back down to make that switch. Around 4:45 we went down and I asked if our original room reservation for an ADA room could be offered now since the bathroom didn't have the grab bars. They said no one isn't ready yet and no ETA. I then said can I pay for a room upgrade so we can at least have a bathroom that's larger? They said no none of those rooms have been cleaned and asked again why I needed an ADA room. I reiterated that grab bars and more room in the bathroom was a major necessity. They said they could not accommodate that but the one room they had left that was clean was my only option. I took that since we had been waiting over an hour at that point to get into a room. Guys, it's pretty important to have ADA options available and when not, there was no compensation or accomodations offered instead. And it's not like I wasn't willing to pay for any upgrade but nothing was available due to lack of cleaning. It really made our stay more difficult. There were also no auto openers on the doors to the elevators/hallways. It was a task to get into the hallway each time. When I mentioned hoping to have a room by the elevator, I was unaware that ALL of the amenities are at the opposite end of the property. That knowledge would have influenced which elevator I'd need access to. Is there absolutely no entrance to the water park on the first floor? :-( At 10:30am house keeping tried entering our room on checkout today. We were in the middle of getting ready and it led to an embarrassing situation. Why are they entering rooms before the checkout time? We ended up not visiting the park at all our last day. We just weren't having the best time. As of this review, I've STILL not been sent an itemized receipt from our stay. -Your website lists the arcade (at the time) to be open 24 hours. My teen got turned away by security at 11:50pm. It embarrassed her and frustrated us all that info on the website isn't correct. -Also it says parking is included with the resort fee. I wouldn't be posting that if your lots aren't fully ready yet and thus pushing most people to the parking garage with a 30.00 fee each time they leave. That's deceiving and honestly made us feel a bit more like prisoners since we felt like we couldn't come and go as we like due to that fee no matter how long or short the parking stay was. -Reception and signs need to make it absolutely clear that the park is located on the 2nd floor. In fact everything is on the second floor and not in the hotel wing at all. Finding a bottle of water at 2am proved fruitless. -You could really maximize buy-in and accommodate guests by having a c-store in the hotel. Not only do you guys not have anything available to guests after hours, we're trapped by that 30.00 parking fee to go search for it outside the hotel. -There's also no merch to buy on the hotel side. You're losing a great opportunity for both branded merch and medicine and supplies. -Hours to things need to be posted clearly and not just a QR code on the TV screen that takes to a website that we find isn't always accurate. -A clear map of the park and location of things is a must. We've been to Great Wolf 17 times and we always refer to the maps for everything. -The price of the cabanas isn't the price posted on the TV screen outside the park. They're inconsistent. Difficult to tell which are on second floor on map. -Souvenir cups need to be for the entire stay not just a single day. Not...

We stayed during the week to avoid the crowds. What I will say is that, if you’re going to go in the near future, go with some patience because they are definitely learning as they go. I attached my receipt so you could see a breakdown of the $90 in taxes you pay after the room price just for transparency. The good- it’s a really cool place. Will be even better when the outdoor part opens. Everyone was super friendly. There is a lot to do. The slides are great, the lazy river was fun. Felt very safe to let the kids go off on their own a bit. Was not crowded at all during the week. The bad- the website is not a good reference. Says to bring your own towels. But, they provide towels. Website says you can’t bring food or drink in, but a majority of the people had outside food and drink. They didn’t check our bag. Website also doesn’t specify if tickets come with the room price. I tried to call and sent me to a VM. So, we bought pool tickets for the evening and next day. Happy to say that upon check-in, the lady did say tickets came with the room and we were able to swim at night and next day. (also happy to say that the assistant GM was very gracious about refunding the tickets that I bought.) Check-in- We were the only ones checking in. Got there around 5 with hopes of having a good amount of time to swim. Check in is very frustrating. They are definitely learning the system. The lady checking me in was very confused and was having a lot of issues. So, just be prepared for that. Only reason it was a little frustrating is that it took 45 minutes off of our time to enjoy the pool. We did get from 6-8 in the pool and it was great. Everything shuts down pretty early on weeknights. Disappointing that they don’t have vending machines or something to get snacks after hours. We opted to door dash which went smoothly. Next day, was a little more evident of the growing pains. Housekeeping knocked on our door 2 separate times to see if we were “still there.” Yes. It’s 9 and the Waterpark doesn’t open until 10. We get to the Waterpark at 10 and it has an overwhelming smell of paint. They were painting the wave pool during service hours. Okay, but why? Why couldn’t this be done overnight, so that the guests paying could enjoy that? That’s my son’s favorite part and it was closed the entire day with the nice smell of paint. Then, our favorite slide was closed. Again, why? First kid told me it would open in an hour and that they just didn’t have enough staff. Okay… can understand and be patient. 3 hours later next girl tells us they’re working on it bc someone got stuck the night before. Weird, bc our kids rode it over and over until they closed the night before. We were literally the last ones on it. It did finally open around 3. And I have a very tall 7 year old and they told them they couldn’t go down the slides in the middle because he was a half an inch too tall. Okay, so now, no wave pool, no favorite slide, and no fun section. For the amount we pay, this is not okay to have that many things off limits. WHY would you not paint at night to not disrupt business?? Be prepared to walk. And walk a lot. Stairs! A lot of stairs. You will be carrying tubes up a lot of stairs. The tube on the blaster slide is really heavy as well. One slide does have a conveyor belt and that was nice but it is 96 stairs to the top. May not seem like a lot, but when you do it over and over, you get worn out. All the food and drinks is on the 2nd floor so you’ll be going up and down that’s stairs too. Overall, we would go back when they get the kinks worked out. Just realize every little thing costs. Between the room taxes and internet , that was $100 extra dollars by itself. The 2nd day we were very frustrated at the rides being shut down. Poor planning. And if you do know, you should probably have a way like other amusement parks that will tell you what is down each day so we can make the decision if we want to pay or not. Wednesday should have been discounted and with the amount of “suits” walking around, the closures should have...

I had such high hopes for Okana, but unfortunately it fell short. I’m hopeful management will truly listen to these reviews and make adjustments. As a parent of young children and a travel advisor to hundreds of clients, I cannot say that I would recommend anyone visit this resort and water park; hopefully management will train their staff on proper service and lifeguarding.

Things we liked: We stayed in a junior suite and had plenty of space for 2 adults and 2 toddlers. I was impressed with the amount of storage space in this room. Everything was so close within the resort. We could get from our room to the water park in 5 minutes or less. The indoor water park was designed well. My toddlers loved the wave pool, fast river, and the kiddie pool under the stairs (we didn’t even see this part until day 2). My husband and I took turns doing the bigger slides that accommodated single riders and we enjoyed them.

Now for where improvement is needed: We spent 2 nights in the resort and paid over $1000 (just for the room stay + waterpark access). This is why my hopes were so high - to match the price we paid. We arrived Friday afternoon and checked in quickly. We went to our room and changed for the waterpark. The time to go to the waterpark is during the week - crowds were low. We noticed the lifeguards constantly blowing their whistles when people walked on the walkway between the cabanas and the wave pool. I felt like they spent more time watching that walkway than the actual wave pool. More signage needs to be added there and to the ladder that leads out of the wave pool to that area to tell people it’s off limits. We left the resort on Saturday between 9am - 4pm. Our room was not serviced while gone. My husband went down to the front desk to request more coffee and coffee cups only to be told housekeeping would bring them up. He was also told we had to request our room to be serviced each day. I was never told this at check in and not what I would’ve expected when paying $500+ per night. When housekeeping arrived, she had one single coffee cup (for 2 adults) and 3 k-cups for the coffee machine. We went to the water park again Saturday evening. And this is when I realized how much work this place needs. Both the wave pool and the kid splash pad area were not open - 2 HUGE areas of this place. This caused the other areas in the park to be extremely overcrowded, to the point that it was dangerous. Yet they continued to sell evening passes to the waterpark. We ventured over to the kiddie pool under the stairs and it was mass chaos. My two toddlers insisted on playing there and trying the slides. Other kids were running up those stairs not paying attention to anyone else, pushing kids out of the way to get to the slides. My 2 year old got scared at the top of the slide and decided to walk back down the stairs only to get trampled by other kids running up the stairs. The lifeguards did not seem to care one bit. I was absolutely appalled. I made sure my concerns were known to the lifeguards and someone stepped in to try to monitor the situation. But as soon as he left, the lifeguard left at the top of the stairs did not care that kids continued to run over smaller children and duck under the lifeguard’s pole that was supposed to be used for line control. If a lifeguard had to continuously blow the whistle on a child for rough playing, that child and their parents should be removed from the park. A child will end up seriously injured, if not worse, due to the actions of older children or parents and Okana will be held responsible. Sunday morning, we slept in. My husband went to pack the car while I got the kids changed for more swim time (we were getting our $1000 worth of park time). Housekeeping eagerly knocked on our door at 10:45am, looked at his watch, and gladly let me know check out was at 11am. You can’t service my room without a request but you can try to rush me out 15 minutes early? I would expect the behavior and attitude of people in the hospitality industry to be far...