We just returned from a one-night visit to CoCo Key resort. It is definitely a much better value than GWL on the nights where GWL rooms spike up to over $300 per night. We only paid $179 for our room at CoCo Key.
The only drawback was the hotel's proximity to I-70 allowed for some highway noise (more of a trucker issue than a hotel issue) and no fridge or microwave in the rooms. They are newly renovated and very clean.
The water resort was great. I think it is on par if not a little better than GWL's water park. There is a nice kid's water play area with the tipping bucket on top, water guns and slides very much like GWL. There are two tube slides that go outside the building...they are completely in the dark. The other is a body slide that is also in the dark. The lazy river goes around the kids area (which means the two kids areas are separated by a bridge), but on the positive side it makes for a better lazy river than GWL. The zero-entry kids pool has a couple small slides and isn't any deeper than 18". There is a large boat and they show movies on the sail. Nemo & Little Mermaid were on while we were there. The hotel also has an indoor pool (totally separate from the water park) and an outdoor pool (also separate from the water park). We didn't get to outdoor pool, but it's more of a standard hotel outdoor pool. That might be the main difference between the two places. CoCo Key has a nice hot tub that starts inside and connects to the outdoor half of the hot tub. There are two other pools inside: one for basketball and the other for a lily pad obstacle course thing.
If GWL doesn't come down on their prices, I think we'll be making this place our winter water park (we usually don't go in the summer). There are a few places to eat nearby and a lot just a couple miles away in Independence, so we had plenty to do nearby, too.
