Holiday Inn & Suites Owatanna (Owatanna, Minnesota)

Not the greatest picture. It seems it was supplied by the hotel to Yelp back in 2010 (cropped)
Back a few years ago when we covered the Grand Rios Indoor Water Park Hotel in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, I had linked to an article mentioning another Minnesota hotel that was built a waterpark hotel in 1999, not trying to retrofit one onto a struggling hotel as part of an attempted turnaround attempt. What happened to that hotel?

Well, we know that this waterpark was far more modest than the more elaborate (outdoor) one in the Lake Buena Vista area (even before the partnership with Nickelodeon). It's also very isolated, between a Cabela's (now Bass Pro Shops) and a mostly-failed outlet mall.

Up until 2019 this remained a Holiday Inn & Suites with the waterpark (yes, before COVID) when it closed for a reason I'm not sure of (see article here). Within short order the hotel became Motel 6 and at the time I wrote the post on (I assume the waterpark never opened after COVID) and at the time I wrote about the Brooklyn Park hotel, it was closed. From what I remember reading of some of the reviews was that the waterpark may have been open in some capacity, but not to its full extent.

HotelPlanner.com currently has a description of the hotel when it was a Holiday Inn.

The Holiday Inn Hotel & Suites Owatonna home of the Great Serengeti Indoor Water Park! Come experience the adventure! Our award winning hotel, located just 40 minutes south of Mpls/St Paul and next to Cabela's, features 130 guest rooms and suites, including Kidsuites. We offer amenities for business or pleasure. The Great Serengeti Indoor Water Park features the exciting Kilimanjaro Tube Slide, Python Body Slide, The Relaxing Lazy Zambezi River, Zero Depth Entry activity pool, Water Basketball and relaxing waterfall spa. Our African Serengeti themed water park is decorated with trees, life-size giraffe, hippopotamus kids slide, spraying elephant and a mischievous monkey. The park features Café Zanzibar, our pool side café for snacks, drinks and even dinner. The Lion's Den features a large selection of the latest video games, as well as interactive games for adults and children of all ages. For the business traveler our guest rooms feature a spacious work desk, we offer complimentary high speed wireless internet, and a business center. Our Meeting/Banquet facility features 5 meeting rooms with multiple room combinations for up to 400 people. Events at the Holiday Inn Owatonna feature personalized menu planning with a wide range of food and beverage selections available. We have banquet and meeting specialists, as well as support service, on staff to assist with your event. For shopping, we're located adjacent to Cabela's – MN 2nd largest tourist attraction, and the Medford Outlet Mall is only 2 minutes away featuring several new stores, including Old Navy.

In June 2025 it reopened as DoubleTree by Hilton Owatonna with the waterpark apparently scheduled to reopen in January, from reading elsewhere. Unfortunately, if you go to their website (as of this writing), there's a message that "The swimming pool will be closed January 16, 2026 - September 30, 2026 for maintenance purposes. We apologize for the inconvenience."

Well, I guess that's that. Here's the scan of my 2002 Six Continents directory for this particular hotel (located at 2365 43rd Street NW, Owatonna, Minnesota) during better times.