Top 10 most anticipated new indoor waterparks for 2024/2025)

February 12, 2024

In random order (some of) the most anticipated new indoor waterparks set to open in 2024.

Some things to note: 6 parks are in North America and 4 in Europe. Looking at water ride suppliers: Proslide is the preferred supplier for 4 parks, followed by WhiteWater (2x) and Aquarena (1x), SplashTacular (1x) and Polin (1x). One park (Zavidovo) is unknown to date.

Most parks (8) are part of a hotel or resort development. Three parks are a so called ‘second gate’ and part of a larger development including a theme park or museum. It seems almost impossible these days to develop a mayor stand-alone waterpark without a hotel, resort, theme park or convention center attached to it.

The size of a hotel is starting for most developments at 400+ rooms, focusing on families as their main target demographic (meaning rooms with 4-6 beds). Regarding the water park sizes, it is not completely clear what the ‘wet space’ sizes are for most water parks, however most parks seem to be around 10.000 m² average.

1. OKANA Resort (Oklahoma City, OK – USA)

Scheduled to open late 2024 this downtown Oklahoma City development will feature an 11-story, 404-room hotel that provides guests with luxurious accommodations and spectacular downtown riverfront or lagoon views. The site offers easy access to the heart of Oklahoma City and the Boathouse District. In the center of the property, a 2 ha (five-acre) outdoor adventure lagoon will be lined with sandy beaches and a pedestrian bridge that crosses over. A family entertainment center will include a 9.300 m² (10.000-sqft) indoor waterpark, golf simulator, multiple retail outlets and restaurants, plus a conference center. Water Rides will be supplied by North American market leader ProSlide. WhiteWater will be supplying a Flowrider surf simulator.

EDIT: Park opening has been delayed until 2025

2. Oceana Waterpark Liseberg (Goteborg – Sweden)

One of the highly anticipated new indoor waterparks in Northern Europe. This second gate addition to the Liseberg Theme Park includes a historically themed hotel with 457 family rooms. The indoor part of the waterpark will be 6000 m² A second phase outdoor expansion (4000 m²) will follow later on. Water rides are supplied by WhiteWater and these include the first six-person raft rides in Europe, and the highest mega-drop Master Blaster in the World. The thing with Master Blasters is that they aren’t very powerful compared to other technologies, so a big drop will surely help to get the boats up the hill.

EDIT: due to a blazing fire this park is severely damaged and won’t open anytime soon

3. Gameday Bay at the Football Hall of Fame (Canton, OH – USA)

This 13.000 m² (144,000-sqft) water park will coming to the Pro Football Hall of Fame Village in Canton, Ohio. The indoor wet space spans almost 8.000m² (85,000-sqft) and will feature a waterslide tower, a lazy river, and a wave pool. The water rides will be supplied by WhiteWater and will include a set of kids slides, and aquatic play structure and several slides. It is not certain the slide tower will have the controversial Tailspin ride, since a US court ruled that this feature is infringing several of competitor ProSlide’s patents.

EDIT: Gameday Bay is scheduled to make its public debut at the end of 2024

4. Aquascope at Futuroscope (Poitiers – France)

This French new indoor waterpark will become a second gate expansion to the existing Futuroscope park and is part of a multi-year multi-million euro investment. This waterpark is actually one of the few mayor parks in Europe that picked Turkish company Polin as their slide supplier. The park will include several different zones: in the immersive Sensation Zone, visitors will find 8 slides from the central tower: 2 Blackholes, an Outdoor Slide, a Mat Racer, a Racer Twin Spheres, a Family Combo Slide, a Looping Rocket and an Aquatube. In addition, the area will also offer other activities such as a small wave pool. The Distraction Zone is intended for children aged 0 to 9 and spanning 1,700 m². It will include softer slides for little ones and activities such as a water maze. The third one, the Immersion Zone, will offer aqua-digital technological activities such as video and VR interactions on the water surface. The 4,500 m² outdoor area will offer an outdoor river, a pool and a beach with several relaxation areas.

5. Great Wolf Lodge (Naples, FL – USA)

Maybe not very well known in Europe, but this brand can be seen as the North American equivalent to Center Parcs. Resort based water park market leader GWL operates currently 20 parks (3 more coming) in the USA and Canada. As a comparison: Center Parcs has over 30 locations throughout Europe. The main difference between them is that Center Parcs’ focus lies on a nature experience with cottages surrounded by nature, while GWL is focusing on city trips with their hotel-resorts with a much smaller footprint in the outskirts of cities, in highly populated areas. The Naples location water park will be 9.000 m² (95.000-sqft) and the hotel will have 500 family-friendly suites. Water Rides will be supplied by long time partner ProSlide and are set to include a dueling PIPEline, a family rafting FlyingSAUCER ride, a kids area and a huge aquatic play structure.

EDIT: Great Wolf Lodge in Naples, FL, is expected to celebrate its grand opening on September 25th, 2024

6. Center Parcs (Nordborg – Denmark)

Speaking of Center Parcs….in 2024 they are set to open their first Danish resort in the city of Nordborg, close to Germany. This resort will become a main competitor for the famous Lalandia brand that already has 3 resorts in Denmark. The Aquamundo Waterpark will be around 7.500 m², which will be in line with most of their newer parks. The waterpark will include their signature gravity wild river attraction and multiple slides supplied by the German company Aquarena. Center Parcs is not known for working with 1 specific water ride manufacturer (many parks have a different supplier), however some of the newest additions are done by Aquarena.

EDIT: Park opening has been delayed until 2025

7. Moana Waterpark (Mirabel, QC – Canada)

A lot is going to happen in North America and Canada cannot stay behind. The Moana Resort-Waterpark is scheduled to open in 2024. It will be located at Cité Mirabel and will be 37.000 m² (400,000-sqft) in total. Its construction cost is estimated between 175 and 200 million dollars. Rumour has it, that ProSlide will be the slide supplier and that the ride line up will include a RocketBLAST water coaster, a TornadoWAVE raft slide, a bowl slide, a lazy river and several kids attractions.

EDIT: Park construction start has been delayed until 2025

8. Blue Surf Bay (Blue Springs, MO – USA)

Since 2000, the community of Blue Springs, Missouri, has asked for an aquatics park with modern amenities like slides, lazy rivers, etc. Fast forward to November 2022, and the city answered the call by breaking ground on Blue Surf Bay Waterpark. Blue Surf Bay Waterpark will offer over 10.000 m² (110,000-sqft) of indoor and 5.500 m² (60,000-sqft) of outdoor area for patrons. The outdoor portion will have a 40-foot-tall slide tower with four different slide experiences including a tube slide that will twist its way into a plunge pool that flows into a 600-foot-long lazy river and a speed slide with a timing system. There is also a wave pool and a social pool attached offering basketball, volleyball and traditional swimming opportunities, The amenities don’t stop there: there also will be a zero-depth entry pool with a play structure for the little ones to enjoy the water, and while they are playing parents can relax on the sun shelf which offers lounge chairs in a few inches of water.”

For more adventurous guests, the Blue Surf Bay Waterpark will have a Murphy’s Air Dual Surf Simulator for boarding and standup surfing. The indoor aquatic center will have a slide, splashpad for children, sauna for guests to utilize after workouts, whirlpool, lifestyle wellness pool with warm water and a four-lane, 25-meter cool water lap pool. The slide supplier will be the American company SplashTacular.

EDIT: the park opened for the public on Friday, May 24, 2024

9. Great Wolf Lodge (Houston, TX – USA)

2024 will be a big year for Great Wolf Lodge, because they are opening 2 new resorts. Next to the Florida based one there is another one scheduled to open in Webster/Houston Texas. Great Wolf Lodge Gulf Coast Texas in Webster, will become the second Great Wolf Lodge indoor water park resort in Texas and the company’s 22nd resort in North America. The water rides are also here supplied by Ottawa, Canada based company ProSlide. The 532-room resort will encompass 10 ha (27-acres) and feature a 9.000 m² (95,000-sqft) indoor water park and a Great Wolf Adventure Park. It is estimated the resort will open in mid-to-late 2024.

EDIT: Great Wolf Lodge is set to open its doors sooner than expected, with a new grand opening date of August 29, 2024

10. Zavidovo Resort (Zavidovo – Russia)

Yeah, Russia….what to say of this country these days. Well, despite everything going on, they still are building the beautiful Zavidovo Resort. It will probably for the years to come only be visited by Russian and Belarussian guests.
The tropically themed Zavidovo waterpark will include several interesting looking slides, including a water coaster.