CORRECTING and REPLACING Kalahari Resorts & Conventions in Wisconsin Dells Announces $85 Million Indoor Waterpark Expansion

WISCONSIN DELLS, Wis.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan 10, 2025--

Please replace the release dated January 9, 2025 with the following corrected version due to multiple revisions.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20250109105161/en/

The updated release reads: 

KALAHARI RESORTS & CONVENTIONS IN WISCONSIN DELLS ANNOUNCES $85 MILLION INDOOR WATERPARK EXPANSION

A 75,000-square-foot glass-enclosed, open-air waterpark with a retractable roof, expected to open in Fall 2026

Kalahari Resorts & Conventions is reinforcing its title of America’s Largest Indoor Waterparks with an exciting $85 million, 75,000-square-foot indoor waterpark expansion at its Wisconsin Dells resort. Construction is now underway, with the expanded portion of the waterpark slated to open in fall 2026.

The highly anticipated glass-enclosed, open-air waterpark with a retractable roof introduces three exciting new water slides: the Wild Wildebeest and Green Python, both six-person raft slides, and the Cheetah Mat Racers, a four-lane racing slide. Guests will enjoy an array of other new attractions as well, including the Lost Lagoon Spa Pool, the Watering Hole Pool with zero-depth entry and tanning ledges, the Coral Cove Kiddie Slide Pool, and The Grotto adult swim-up bar.

"Kalahari could not be more excited to announce this indoor waterpark expansion in the Wisconsin Dells, the Waterpark Capital of the World," said Todd Nelson, CEO, owner, and founder of Kalahari Resorts. “With new slides, pools, a swim-up bar, spas, and more, there's something for every member of the family to enjoy!”

Todd and Shari Nelson, both born and raised in the Wisconsin Dells, have always had a passion for waterparks. After a family trip to Africa, Todd was inspired by the concept of Ubuntu – the African philosophy of “togetherness” that emphasizes a universal bond of sharing and connection. This idea led the Nelsons to open the first Kalahari Resorts in Wisconsin Dells in 2000.

“My wife and I opened the first Kalahari Resorts in the Dells 24 years ago, and it’s been an incredible journey,” said Nelson. “Kalahari is so much more than a waterpark - It’s a place where families can come together. After two and a half decades of creating memories here in Wisconsin Dells, we’re excited to expand our offerings and invite even more families to experience the spirit of togetherness.”

In addition to the new waterpark attractions, guests will enjoy a 40’ wide big-screen TV display, additional food and beverage options, and enhanced seating and comfort options, including new cabanas and whirlpool cabanas.

The new indoor waterpark is one of several new amenities and renovations Kalahari has added in recently. Other additions include 237 new rooms, a renovated Spa Kalahari, an all-new splash pad and dry playground, an expansive lobby renovation, and two additional dining options: Sortino’s Italian Kitchen and Cinco Niños, a modern Mexican restaurant and tequila bar.

For more information, please visit the Kalahari Resorts media site at kalaharimedia.com.

About Kalahari Resorts and Conventions

Kalahari Resorts and Conventions in Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin, Sandusky, Ohio, the Pocono Mountains, Pennsylvania, Round Rock, Texas, and opening soon in Spotsylvania County, Virginia, deliver a beyond-expectations waterpark resort and conference experience all under one roof. The African-inspired Kalahari Resorts, privately owned by the Nelson family, are home to America’s Largest Indoor Waterparks. Todd and Shari Nelson, the founders of Kalahari Resorts, were honored with an induction into the Wisconsin Business Hall of Fame in 2023. All Kalahari Resorts feature well-appointed guest rooms and suites, the full-service Spa Kalahari, a fun-filled family entertainment center, on-site signature restaurants, unique retail shops and a state-of-the-art convention center. For more information, members of the media are encouraged to visit kalaharimedia.com.

Location of new indoor waterpark expansion of Kalahari Resorts and Conventions in the Wisconsin Dells. Courtesy of AP.

Rendering of interior view of new indoor waterpark expansion of Kalahari Resorts and Conventions in the Wisconsin Dells. (Photo: Business Wire)

Rendering of exterior view of new indoor waterpark expansion of Kalahari Resorts and Conventions in the Wisconsin Dells. (Photo: Business Wire)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Becky Pepper-Jackson finished third in the discus throw in West Virginia last year though she was in just her first year of high school. Now a 15-year-old sophomore, Pepper-Jackson is aware that her upcoming season could be her last.

West Virginia has banned transgender girls like Pepper-Jackson from competing in girls and women's sports, and is among the more than two dozen states with similar laws. Though the West Virginia law has been blocked by lower courts, the outcome could be different at the conservative-dominated Supreme Court, which has allowed multiple restrictions on transgender people to be enforced in the past year.

The justices are hearing arguments Tuesday in two cases over whether the sports bans violate the Constitution or the landmark federal law known as Title IX that prohibits sex discrimination in education. The second case comes from Idaho, where college student Lindsay Hecox challenged that state's law.

Decisions are expected by early summer.

President Donald Trump's Republican administration has targeted transgender Americans from the first day of his second term, including ousting transgender people from the military and declaring that gender is immutable and determined at birth.

Pepper-Jackson has become the face of the nationwide battle over the participation of transgender girls in athletics that has played out at both the state and federal levels as Republicans have leveraged the issue as a fight for athletic fairness for women and girls.

“I think it’s something that needs to be done,” Pepper-Jackson said in an interview with The Associated Press that was conducted over Zoom. “It’s something I’m here to do because ... this is important to me. I know it’s important to other people. So, like, I’m here for it.”

She sat alongside her mother, Heather Jackson, on a sofa in their home just outside Bridgeport, a rural West Virginia community about 40 miles southwest of Morgantown, to talk about a legal fight that began when she was a middle schooler who finished near the back of the pack in cross-country races.

Pepper-Jackson has grown into a competitive discus and shot put thrower. In addition to the bronze medal in the discus, she finished eighth among shot putters.

She attributes her success to hard work, practicing at school and in her backyard, and lifting weights. Pepper-Jackson has been taking puberty-blocking medication and has publicly identified as a girl since she was in the third grade, though the Supreme Court's decision in June upholding state bans on gender-affirming medical treatment for minors has forced her to go out of state for care.

Her very improvement as an athlete has been cited as a reason she should not be allowed to compete against girls.

“There are immutable physical and biological characteristic differences between men and women that make men bigger, stronger, and faster than women. And if we allow biological males to play sports against biological females, those differences will erode the ability and the places for women in these sports which we have fought so hard for over the last 50 years,” West Virginia's attorney general, JB McCuskey, said in an AP interview. McCuskey said he is not aware of any other transgender athlete in the state who has competed or is trying to compete in girls or women’s sports.

Despite the small numbers of transgender athletes, the issue has taken on outsize importance. The NCAA and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committees banned transgender women from women's sports after Trump signed an executive order aimed at barring their participation.

The public generally is supportive of the limits. An Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll conducted in October 2025 found that about 6 in 10 U.S. adults “strongly” or “somewhat” favored requiring transgender children and teenagers to only compete on sports teams that match the sex they were assigned at birth, not the gender they identify with, while about 2 in 10 were “strongly” or “somewhat” opposed and about one-quarter did not have an opinion.

About 2.1 million adults, or 0.8%, and 724,000 people age 13 to 17, or 3.3%, identify as transgender in the U.S., according to the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law.

Those allied with the administration on the issue paint it in broader terms than just sports, pointing to state laws, Trump administration policies and court rulings against transgender people.

"I think there are cultural, political, legal headwinds all supporting this notion that it’s just a lie that a man can be a woman," said John Bursch, a lawyer with the conservative Christian law firm Alliance Defending Freedom that has led the legal campaign against transgender people. “And if we want a society that respects women and girls, then we need to come to terms with that truth. And the sooner that we do that, the better it will be for women everywhere, whether that be in high school sports teams, high school locker rooms and showers, abused women’s shelters, women’s prisons.”

But Heather Jackson offered different terms to describe the effort to keep her daughter off West Virginia's playing fields.

“Hatred. It’s nothing but hatred,” she said. "This community is the community du jour. We have a long history of isolating marginalized parts of the community.”

Pepper-Jackson has seen some of the uglier side of the debate on display, including when a competitor wore a T-shirt at the championship meet that said, “Men Don't Belong in Women's Sports.”

“I wish these people would educate themselves. Just so they would know that I’m just there to have a good time. That’s it. But it just, it hurts sometimes, like, it gets to me sometimes, but I try to brush it off,” she said.

One schoolmate, identified as A.C. in court papers, said Pepper-Jackson has herself used graphic language in sexually bullying her teammates.

Asked whether she said any of what is alleged, Pepper-Jackson said, “I did not. And the school ruled that there was no evidence to prove that it was true.”

The legal fight will turn on whether the Constitution's equal protection clause or the Title IX anti-discrimination law protects transgender people.

The court ruled in 2020 that workplace discrimination against transgender people is sex discrimination, but refused to extend the logic of that decision to the case over health care for transgender minors.

The court has been deluged by dueling legal briefs from Republican- and Democratic-led states, members of Congress, athletes, doctors, scientists and scholars.

The outcome also could influence separate legal efforts seeking to bar transgender athletes in states that have continued to allow them to compete.

If Pepper-Jackson is forced to stop competing, she said she will still be able to lift weights and continue playing trumpet in the school concert and jazz bands.

“It will hurt a lot, and I know it will, but that’s what I’ll have to do,” she said.

Heather Jackson, left, and Becky Pepper-Jackson pose for a photograph outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Heather Jackson, left, and Becky Pepper-Jackson pose for a photograph outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Becky Pepper-Jackson poses for a photograph outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

The Supreme Court stands is Washington, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

FILE - Protestors hold signs during a rally at the state capitol in Charleston, W.Va., on March 9, 2023. (AP Photo/Chris Jackson, file)