The 15 Craziest Indoor Water Parks in the World

Water parks are undebatably awesome. Alas, weather and location are two serious limitations when dealing with water-based activities. Fear not! We humans are quite resourceful and will never let things we cannot manipulate gone un-manipulated for long.

Intrepid engineers and visionaries-of-fun have given us the indoor water park, where the temperature never dips below 80, and where there's plenty of soaked concrete and the humid, stuffy atmosphere resounds with the sweet sounds of shrieking children reverberating off the steel-reinforced ceiling.

Suit up: these are the 15 craziest indoor water parks in the world.

Written by Marc Yearsley

RELATED: Infographic: An Interactive Ride Through Coney Island's History
RELATED: World's Fastest Roller Coasters
RELATED: Green Label - 25 Cool Water Parks to Visit This Summer

Location: Boyne Falls, MI
Website: avalanchebay.com

This indoor water park doesn't just have a strange name—it's got a 25-foot climbing wall that dumps water on people who attempt to make their way to the top. How patrons manage to survive is beyond comprehension.

Location: McGaheysville, VA
Website: massresort.com

Overall a pretty unremarkable water park, with the standard slides, giant buckets that dump water on you and yours, and pools of many sizes. There is a surfing simulator as well. What sets this park apart is a Louvre-esque glass pyramid that encloses the 42,000-square-foot playland. However, what sits under the pyramid is not priceless works of art or fruitful knowledge but fried food and actual fun. Same difference.

Location: Grand Mound, WA
Website: greatwolf.com

Great Wolf Lodge has 11 locations around the U.S., but the location in Grand Mound has two special attractions worth shouting about. The first is Fort Mackenzie, a four-story tree-house/water fort. Aside from sounding like the most dangerous thing ever created, it also seems amazingly fun. The other is the Howling Tornado, which is the world’s first totally enclosed multi-rider Tornado tube ride. And yes, that apparently is a legitimate distinction to make.

Location: Wisconsin Dells, WI
Website: mtolympuspark.com

The Wisconsin Dells calls itself the “Water Park Capital of the World,” which, well, good for them. Mt. Olympus is a giant indoor and outdoor water-and-theme park complex that has a spot on this list because of Medusa's indoor water park. Expect lots of silly snake themed rides and fake Greco-Roman architecture.

Location: Anchorage, AK
Website: h2oasiswaterpark.com

Maybe the one place on this list that makes sense to have an indoor water park is Alaska. As for the particulars of this place, there is not much to say. It exists. It has a stupid name. It has no reviews on Yelp. But, if you're ever in Alaska (unlikely) and want to go to a water park indoors while there (inconceivable), look no further than H20asis. See how much fun they're having in the photo? So much fun.

Location: Wisconsin Dells, WI
Website: wildernessresort.com

This park is advertised as the largest indoor water park in the U.S., and it is, with one caveat. The park sprawls across three buildings, so it is the largest in terms of total area. In the Wild WaterDome building, they have what they call a “Foil Tec” roof that allows guests to tan all year. You never have to venture outside again!

Location: Sandusky, OH
Website: kalahariresorts.com

They advertise Kalahari Sands as the largest waterpark in the U.S. under one roof. They have tons of shit you can do, and we could list those things, but let's be honest, you're too distracted. We know exactly what you are thinking. It's in Sandusky! We gotta suspect business is suffering just a little bit lately.

Location: Bloomington, MN
Website: waterparkofamerica.com

The Waterpark of America has a 10-story water slide/slide tower, making it the tallest indoor water park in the U.S. It is another park close to a massive mall, so it makes a certain amount of sense, what with the underlying logic of malls being "jam as much shit into one building as humanly possible." But the Mall of America was none to happy with the Waterpark of America. They sued them for trademark infringement, claiming that people could be confused by the similar sounding names. Really? Anyone who mixes up the two deserves to have their kids mad at them for the day.

Location: Budapest, Hungary
Website: aqua-world.hu

Perhaps the least likely, yet somehow least surprising, location for an indoor water park is Budapest. The city is divided by the river Danube (the east side is Buda and Óbuda with Pest on the west, united in the late 1800s) and home to natural hot springs. This park is outside the city and thus takes no part in the hot springs. But it does have a large replica of a Cambodian Angkor Temple. Who needs hot springs anyways?

Location: Galveston, TX
Website: schlitterbahn.com

This family-owned company has a series of parks in Texas and one in Kansas. Most of their parks are outdoor, but the park in Galveston has one indoor section. Still, these people are seemingly important to water-related fun-tivities. They are credited with inventing the lazy river and blaster technology, which we found out has nothing to do with Star Wars. Instead, it powers uphill water rides, which is much less cool, though still significant.

Location: Erie, PA
Website: splashlagoon.com

This Polynesian-themed ("themed" is a very generous word) indoor water park is the largest in the state of Pennsylvania. In September 2011, they opened a 30,000-square-foot wave pool. They have slides with names like Big Kahuna, Maui Waui, and PJ's Plunge! If that doesn't get you excited, we just don't know what will.

Location: Beijing, China
Website: waterpark.water-cube.com

This building was constructed for the 2008 Summer Olympics. Once those were over, they converted half of the massive building into a water park. It's a very cool looking building, both outside and inside, and some kudos go to China for repurposing what could have been a monumental, single-use waste of space into something that makes more sense.

Location: Edmonton, Alberta Canada
Website: wem.ca

The largest indoor waterpark in North America is also the first. Fittingly, it’s located in the West Edmonton Mall, which is itself one of the largest malls in the world. It has one of the largest indoor wave pools, allowing you to have some of the largest indoor fun conceivable by man.

Location: Krausnik, Germany
Website: tropical-islands.de

This is the largest single hall (building) in the world without any indoor support pillars. It is one of the largest buildings in the world by volume. It was built as an airship hanger but was eventually converted into an artificial tropical resort. It has a massive artificial rainforest (over 30,000 cubic-meters of soil, 500 species of plants). There's also a beach and a camping ground. We give credit where credit is due—and these guys aimed a bit higher than your average water park.

Location: Miyazaki, Japan
Website: seagaia.co.jp

The Tropical Islands Resort almost took the cake, but we couldn't overlook the absurdity of the Ocean Dome, even considering that it is currently under renovation (there is no telling, if ever, it will be open again). It measures over three football fields in length and one across, has a fake flame-spitting volcano, and also holds the title for world's largest retractable roof. When the roof closes, it simulates a clear, blue sky.

But the best part? This park is basically within pissing-distance of an actual ocean. Like, an outdoor, natural water park, with real sand, and real water, and all those other things.