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Looking for summer vacation ideas for three adults under 20 hours driving distance. We’ve been to Calgary, Edmonton, etc as well as Minneapolis and Chicago. We like to do things on vacation like shopping and ball games and bus tours and casinos. We’ve thought about Kansas City or St. Louis but other ideas are appreciated.  
Thoughts?

Hear me out on this one. My wife and I go every year. It's an AMAZING way do a fun vacation and surprisingly cheap. TONS of young adults. There are families of course. But lots of adults. Younger and older.  
 
We go to Mount Olympus Resort because it's crazy cheap. But it's on a 10 acre water park with lots of water slides, roller coasters and the best wave pool ever.  
 
$90 USD/night gets you a room with two beds, wristbands for two adults (for a third there's probably a small charge) and those wristbands can be used to purchase things in the water parks like food or drinks. But you also get $20 worth of free spending on those wristbands, so there is no need to bring your wallet or anything. I honestly have no idea how they can make money.  
 
There are also Go carts and golf and the small town has shopping, lots of restaurants, bars, etc.  
 
There are also other/more expensive water parks there, but we dont bother going because Mount Olympus is pretty huge and for the money, we dont see much need to go to the nicer ones. They have waterslides there that are simple and good for kids, or ones that you're afraid will kill you. And everything in between.  
 
The other cool part of this trip is we usually stay in the Minneapolis area for a night on the way home and then do shopping at the Albertville outlet mall.  
 
Every year, driving down, staying 3 or 4 nights, eating out every meal, and then doing our shopping in Albertville and then paying for an additional night in the more expensive Minneapolis, we spend less than $1000 total. Including gas. It's a lot of fun for not a lot of money.

underXtheXradar said "Hear me out on this one. My wife and I go every year. It's an AMAZING way do a fun vacation and surprisingly cheap. TONS of young adults. There are families of course. But lots of adults. Younger and older.     We go to Mount Olympus Resort because it's crazy cheap. But it's on a 10 acre water park with lots of water slides, roller coasters and the best wave pool ever.     $90 USD/night gets you a room with two beds, wristbands for two adults (for a third there's probably a small charge) and those wristbands can be used to purchase things in the water parks like food or drinks. But you also get $20 worth of free spending on those wristbands, so there is no need to bring your wallet or anything. I honestly have no idea how they can make money.     There are also Go carts and golf and the small town has shopping, lots of restaurants, bars, etc.     There are also other/more expensive water parks there, but we dont bother going because Mount Olympus is pretty huge and for the money, we dont see much need to go to the nicer ones. They have waterslides there that are simple and good for kids, or ones that you're afraid will kill you. And everything in between.     The other cool part of this trip is we usually stay in the Minneapolis area for a night on the way home and then do shopping at the Albertville outlet mall.     Every year, driving down, staying 3 or 4 nights, eating out every meal, and then doing our shopping in Albertville and then paying for an additional night in the more expensive Minneapolis, we spend less than $1000 total. Including gas. It's a lot of fun for not a lot of money. "

MTO is this the same place?? I got excited after reading your story and thought it would be a good summer holiday for the kids. I happened to check TripAdvisor and it looks like it might have gone downhill. Just a heads up if your planning to take the wife this year it might be a long wait for a hot dog!  
 
https://www.tripadvisor.ca/Hotel_Review-g60403-d247932-Reviews-Mt_Olympus_Resort-Wisconsin_Dells_Wisconsin.html

just because MTO was given a bad review doesn't mean Wisconsin Dells wouldn't be worth the drive there is many different water slide parks there besides MTO, its the biggest outdoor water park in the world.  
 
if your looking for something in Canada to do go to Drumheller/Calgary. maybe even throw some Banff in there for the mountains.

Black hills is great, go to the state park caves, museums, reptile gardens(really nice actually) take the old passanger train, see mt rushmore, lots and lots to do there

Lots to see and do - don't forget Deadwood, a taste of the old wild west, casinos. Medora Music outdoor production is also supposed to be good.

Orion's-Belt said "just because MTO was given a bad review doesn't mean Wisconsin Dells wouldn't be worth the drive there is many different water slide parks there besides MTO, its the biggest outdoor water park in the world.     if your looking for something in Canada to do go to Drumheller/Calgary. maybe even throw some Banff in there for the mountains. "

Who said it wouldn't be worth the drive??  
 
We've been to the Dells before and there are lots of other parks. Noah's Ark is our favorite. Just never been to MTO. But going by the recent reviews I think we'll skip that nightmare if we go this year. Just trying to help people avoid bring disappointed. Their deals on their site are almost unbelievable until you read about people's experiences.

This is interesting because we went in August last year. And I mean, yeah the hotdog line was stupid long. But it's not like you had to have hotdogs. You could just buy your food like you would have to anywhere else and skip the line. I feel like anytime someone is offering free food to thousands of people, a lineup is inevitable.  
 
I'm not saying that MTO is the be-all-end-all. I'm just saying that the slids are awesome, the wave pool is mental, and there is a lot of fun to be hand for an extremely cheap price.  
 
I'm sure the more expensive parks are pretty awesome. For us, we just really love that wave pool. We can (and have) spent hours and hours in it.  
 
If the other parks had a sweet wave pool we'd absolutely go. But we asked around our last couple years there and were told that nothing compares to Poseidon's Rage at the other parks.  
 
But to each their own. I just think the Dells is a fun vacation on the cheap.

Okay, so I just went through those reviews. Some of them seem legit. Some of them seem like people were annoyed that a waterpark was closed in April. So take that with a grain of salt.  
 
That said, there does seem to be people complaining about experiences that my wife and I have never personally had in all our times there.  
 
Totally possible that between last august and now, things have been terrible. And admittedly, last August we were a little annoyed that the waterslides shut down an hour earlier than they used to. But again...we paid $90/night for a cheap hotel and that included all day passes at a giant waterpark.  
 
But like I've said before, if you want to spend more money and go somewhere else, I'm sure it would be even better.

Thanks for the ideas so far! Wisconsin dells is interesting- what do you suggest to do there other than water parks?  
We have been to Mt Rushmore and I feel once was enough.  
Has anyone been to St. Louis?

fuzzybunny said "Thanks for the ideas so far! Wisconsin dells is interesting- what do you suggest to do there other than water parks?   We have been to Mt Rushmore and I feel once was enough.   Has anyone been to St. Louis? "

https://www.wisdells.com/wisconsin-dells-things-to-do.htm

fuzzybunny said "Thanks for the ideas so far! Wisconsin dells is interesting- what do you suggest to do there other than water parks?   We have been to Mt Rushmore and I feel once was enough.   Has anyone been to St. Louis? "

It depends really on what you like.  
 
We really enjoyed the Dells boat tour that went through Witches Gulch. That was actually really cool. And we got great prices through Groupon. Actually...we call the kiosk and said "Hey, Groupon has tickets, will you match the price?" And they said yes. So that was even better.  
 
If you like to be active, the Big Foot Ropes Course is pretty awesome.  
 
The Lumberjack show is neat. It's more for kids because they do lots of silly things there, but it's also downright impressive what some of those people can do.  
 
There are lots of great little local shops if you dont mind paying the extra fee for tourist traps. There are like 4 candy shops within two blocks of each other that some of our friends really liked.  
 
Also, another recommendation of mine. If you're there and you happen to like Mexican food, dont go to any of the Mexican restaurants that are actually in the Dells.  
 
Instead, go to Jose's Authentic Mexican Restaurant in nearby Baraboo. It's about a 20 minute drive but easily worth it. We got there and there was probably a 35 minute wait for a table. But the reviews were so good we decided to wait. TOTALLY worth it. Easily the best Mexican food of my life. Too bad we didn't discover it on previous trips. But it was honestly mind-blowingly impressive.

Haven't been many places but in 5 weeks were going on a road trip to banff then vancouver for a week and a half I'm super excited. And next year were planning on maybe a road trip to vegas.both places are closer to 24 hours though

I have been in St. Louis. There is an arch you can go inside which has a museum Then you can go to the top with electrical wagon. It is very interesting as your path to the top is not vertical. It stops at the top of the arch. There is an amazing place that is very different than anywhere else and it is called The City museum. It is an amusement park inside a huge 10 story building and weird museums at top 3 floors. Amusement park is combination of caves, tunnels, slides and different things that you can climb, slide, get scared and so on. There was a bus on the roof of the 10th floor came out of the roof, half length in the air that you could go inside. There was a slide from 6th floor( I guess) to the first going through a shaft not knowing where you were going. That place was combination of amazing, interesting, scary, strange, and weird at the same time.  
I went there maybe 5 years ago hope that place still there. If you go to St Louis do not miss the city museum. You never forget the experience in there.  
 
Edited by Deb1, 2018-04-20 23:52:13

I did not mention about Kansas city in my last post. That city has also lots to offer. we went to a nice mall that Hallmark also has a museum in there. That was very nice to see the process of all kinds of greeting cards making and history of the company. Outside of the mall had nice gathering area with water fountains, trees and flowers. There is also Harley Davidson factory close by that you can go and take a factory tour. It was fun and interesting.  
 
Edited by Deb1, 2018-04-21 15:54:25

I was in this city in Jan of 2017, stayed in a motel for a convention a block from the infamous arch. Went to see it, but they were doing maintenance so couldn't go up, but saw a video on the building of it and bought souvenirs. Close to it is an old courthouse that was interesting to tour. Also within walking distance was the ball stadium, which we got a tour of and also took a tour of the Budweiser facility and got a couple of free tasters. Ate at some good, different restaurants downtown as well. That's all we could do during the convention, but there probably is other things interesting to do there. Wherever you go, enjoy the trip and time spent there!

We also went to money museum and world war museum in Kansas city. Hope to enjoy your road trip whenever you go.

It sounds like we may have decided on Wisconsin Dells! What other hotels would people suggest staying at? What’s the best water park to go to? Any other must dos?