Indiana Beach Amusement & Resort, Monticello

Our Ideal Cottage was in a great location but totally overpriced ($279/night) for a cabin that has filthy air vents, dust/dirt in every corner of each area, dirty dishes (that stay in cabin), insect carcasses in every outside crevice, and also insect carcass smears all over walls. There was not any guidance (even after talking with "customer service" dept) on what items I needed to bring along versus what items come with cabin. They need a list somewhere. Additionally, the grill ignitor was broken and the front desk told us they didn't have a lighter or a match to light it! And the maintenance man wouldn't be able to come for 2 hours! So we used the stove to light some paper towels on fire to light the grill. Stupid situations lead to stupid actions, but we had all the food ready to grill. The pricing is also deceiving. When you are told that your cottage fee includes price of admission, you think that means into all the parks in the tiny area, right?! But you don't get the truth until you get there. Your cottage fee only includes the $2.50 TRUE admission fee + waterpark (not really a waterpark as only 1 ride, the rest is "beach" and splash park). You have to pay an additional $18+ per person for the "UPGRADE" (as customer service agent Kathy described) to actually ride on ANY of the amusement park rides. You CANNOT buy individual tickets to amusement park rides; you have to pay the whole UPGRADE price per person. They penny-and-dime on everything possible, including not giving your money balance back for these park debit cards they sell. Everything is totally aged and needs redone and it is in terrible shape. The representative from Morgan (who owns the whole deal) told us that they've spent $12 million renovated the place, but not sure where all that money went! See review by "Heartbroken"....totally agree with everything she says.

This place is a joke, absolutely horrible! DO NOT WASTE A PENNY at this so called "amusement resort". The advertising for Indiana Beach is very misleading. It looks nothing like the commercials or the website. Our whole group was very upset once we arrived. Incredibly rude and unprofessional staff, broken rides, slides & dirty bathrooms. The whole place is about to fall apart. The best part of this whole adventure was the walk back to the car for our 2 hour ride home after spending only an hour at the park!! I wouldn't even come back here if it was free.

I was very optimistic about planning my daughter's 11 year old birthday get away! Her birthday is August 11, which happens to be in the summer! Indiana Beach would be the perfect surprise for her. I then begin to think of how I spent every summer of my childhood there. Boy, was I in for a rude awakening! My sisters and I was disappointed on so many levels, to say the least! This was our first time visiting Indiana Beach since 1996, and things have taken a change for the WORSE!!! Upon our arrival, we learned that we would be staying in Cottage 200! At a glance, the place looked perfectly normal! Later on that night, we learned otherwise. The place had NO hot water in the shower, meaning that we had to wash up over the sink! We looked under the bathroom sink, only to see a bucket was placed there, almost full to the rim with water from a busted pipe. We called the front desk, only to learn that there was no on call emergency staff. The MAIN office was based in New York, so nobody assisted us that night! The next day, the water from the bucket was over flowing! When a janitor came and poured the water out, it left the WORSE ODOR known to mankind! Immediately, I walked over to the management office! I DEMANDED that they move us to another place, preferably a hotel room! The one thing that I can say good about the place was the staff was very pleasant! They had no problem moving us. They placed us in a Penthouse, which was MUCH BETTER than the cottages! The only thing that disliked about the Penthouse was the fact that there was so many dead bugs and spider webs on the balcony! That place could be better maintenanced. The amusement park was a far cry from what it was when the Specman's owned it! Half the rides were broke. I was told that the Sea Dragon was down for months because it didn't have a part, we were on a rollercoaster (formerly known as the Superstitious Mountain haunted house) that broke down while we were on it, and at night, half the lights on the rides don't work! In my opinion, the lights on the rides at night bring the amusement park to life! I was told that when Morgan RV purchased the park from the Specmans that they only wanted the campgrounds! The Specmans informed them that they can't just give them the campgrounds. The Campgrounds and Amusement park was a package deal! So while they're taking care of the campgrounds, they are running the Amusement park into the ground! What they don't realize is that the rides is what attract customers, not the camps! I pray that they sell Indiana Beach to somebody who cares! In all of my 27 years of visiting this place, this time was the WORSE experience! The only joy that I got out of being there was the joy on my daughter's face! Other than that, as far as hotel stays and getting what you pay for, I may try Wisconsin Deals or Kings Island next year! I'm very disappointed at how my favorite childhood place is almost in ruins!

This is the biggest rip off. I called and made reservations. She said I had two days before to cancel. I called 26 days ahead to cancel and they refused. I am now out $800. The customer service manager called me a liar. She said she couldn't trust me that the person who took the reservation said I had two days to cancel. Their recording before they get on the line says they record the calls.I asked them to play it back then to verify that is what i was told when I booked the say. She said they do not record the calls. Honestly, at this point I wasn't even yelling or even that mad, because I still thought we could work it out. I had to get a different manager and I was told I was just out of luck and out the money or could switch the dates, but really who wants to stay at a place that calls you a liar and doesn't even follow through with their promises.

We use to go here every summer because it was a short drive, and pretty cheap. We had a big group(17 people), so we bought our tickets online, and had all our tickets pre-printed and ready to go. It took them over 20 minutes to figure out how to handle that, so our day started with a 20 minute wait at the front gate. Finally, we are in and several rides are down for the day. The staff is basically a bunch of kids with no manners or professionalism. They swear and yell at guests. It was like being at a county fair ran by drunk carnies. The food is over-priced and gross. $2.50 for a water is crazy, and what you would expect to pay at Disney World, not Indiana Beach! I got a water and it was completely warm, so before I opened it or even stepped away I asked if I could have a cold one and the rude girl said sorry you have to wait in line like everyone else. Since the line was about 15 minutes long, I enjoyed a nice warm $2.50 water. The rides are old and ran down. The wooden coasters are fine, but beat the heck out of you. Their new iron coaster is ok, but lasts about 40seconds, and has a long wait, so it is not worth waiting for. They have added some things like a zip line and obstacle course for kids, but it costs and additional $10. Needless to say nobody was doing it when we were there. The restaurants are run down and dirty. There are leaky ceilings and broken tables/chairs. We stopped at the Noble Romans pizza place, and the ceiling was dripping onto one of the tables. Come to find out, directly above it was the showers/lockers for the water park. Was that filthy shower water dripping onto the table? GROSS! The new owners of the park (Morgan RV) have let this place run down so bad, it is hard to overlook the issues, while paying $25/person to get in. We will not be returning for a long time, and won't miss it.

What we liked about the park, we all had fun. I brought my congregation. we had so much fun. The staff was pleasant with exception of a couple of young people. All of the ones that was over the rides was great! The B.B.Q chicken at roman pizza was nasty but the pizza was good. some of the rides is not for people that has a handicap or is fat. LOL. I love you staff exspecially the boy that song if you happy and you know, it helped me to take my mind off all my troubles and the lady on the roller coaster after helping me get strapped in the ride she asked me if i'm alright. There was others as well. You got a great staff. I love the older man as the train conductor. We will come back every year, next year my church want to rent the cottages. Now what I didn't like was the ladies bathroom stayed dirty, there was no toliet paper in the stalls, floor stayed wet, I almost fell twice. advertisement coming from Gary, It use to be a big sign of Indiana, Beach all I knew was to get off 24. the direction are poor. I stopped at 5 locations asking for directions. Need more benches. The overall stay, I rate you a 4, we will be back next year. open some more rides.

I used to go regularly in the 80's when I was a kid. Took wife and kids there first time yesterday and they had a great time. Park is 85+ years old and I was skeptical when I read a few poor reviews and recent controversy. Well the park was just as much fun as I remember and the kids had the best time of their lives. This was a Monday so there were no lines, no issues. Each ride was staffed. A couple rides were closed but there were people working on them. Better time than Six flags where you have to wait in line 20-30 minutes for each ride. No waiting at this park. Can't wait to take the kids back!!! Maybe needs a little cleaning and a little paint here and there but great time had by all. We bought POP for my wife and I and 3 kids age 5,4, and 2. Came to less than a $1 per ride as we were on rides for about 3 hours. When I was a kid we rode our boat to park. Love to do that again, need to see if you can still do that. We did not use water park.

Have been coming here since I was little so over 30 years now and the past 4 years since new ownership took over it has just completely gotten worse each year. After my experience this past week; I can no longer support this park. Rides were shut down (Tilt A Whirl, Sea Dragon, Big Flush, Sky Coaster, Falling Star, Lost Coaster for a few hours and Double Shot for a few hours), they were out of things such as nutty bananas, no shakes at the ice cream place by Galaxi or at the Waffle cone place (we gave up trying to find anywhere that had shakes), 1 employee was running both the sno cone place and the hot dog stand and had to keep running back and forth, Bought a Lemon Shake Up for $5.00 and the sign clearly states $1.50 soda refills and went to refill it and only 2 places out of 7 would honor the refill price! Guest Services said there was nothing they could do and all I could do was file a complaint with them and they would pass it on but they pass on complaints all the time and Morgan RV doesn't care. My fiancee and kids got stuck on the Cornball for 10 - 15 minutes while maintenance came up with a screwdriver to hammer away at a lapbar to go down for a guest a few rows behind them and then they just started the ride like normal! Found out this happens all the time and sometimes it goes up during the ride! Needless to say we didn't go on any more coasters or rides and we left! Guests do not matter, safety is comprimised and the prices are a rip off...Spend your hard earned money somewhere else!

Do not go to this park! Take your hard earned money and spend it elsewhere! Dirty, run down, rides not operating, trying to charge you extra for everything; parking, adventure point, zip lines, Shafer Queen, etc. Shorthanded employees so the ones left are running 2 or 3 rides and 2 eating establishments and are overworked and have attitudes because of it, guest services doesnt care as they cant do anything; they tell you their hands are tied and point to signs that say NO REFUNDS! HORRIBLE way to run a park! I will ensure all my family and friends are aware of what has happened to this park! It's such a shame too as this used to be a wonderful park but has been going downhill for 4 years now and has now reached rock bottom.

Expensive and rude employees. Our family was expecting a charming place boy were we in for a suprise, long lines and rude customer service.