Great Wolf Lodge
reviews and complaints

Well last night I state at great Wolf lodge in Williamsburg Virginia with me and my wife and my 3 daughters at around 5:30 to 6::30 p.m. somebody that was not invited went down to the front desk with just my name and got a room key to my room and access to my accounts with the charge bracelet he was not allowed to be in there and was not invited but yet Great Wolf lodge did not follow the proper security to protect my children and wife I had spoken to Matthew Lynch and he had told me he was extremely sorry this was not supposed to happen she did not follow the right procedure and 99% this would not have happened 1% this would have happened and I was that 1% he said in his own words how do you think that makes me feel as a father that I take them to a place like that where they're supposed to be protected in secure and that happens and all the security guy tells me as he sorry I have contacted an attorney in Newport News Virginia by the name of Chris Hendrick and we will be doing some follow up on this you're more than welcome to contact me at [protected] thank you

4/20/18 checked in - no information was given, had to ask where my room was, it was my daughters birthday and I got the birthday package. For 99.00 was told she would get a shout out, ears, (that we saw everyone wearing) neither were ever given. Got to our room, it is a small poster that said happy birthday, cake that was delivered was at least 2 days old, no one could eat it. About an hour in our room, the room started stinking really bad to the point we couldn't stand it, the carpet was soaked with mold and mildew. Called the front desk, they had us come get our wristbands to move to another room. Our first room was on the 2nd floor and they sent us to the 8th to room 8020, written on a sticky note, went to the room, the keys did not work. Had to fight the elevators and stairs all the way down, to go back to the front desk to find out why the keys didn't work, oh they sent me to the wrong room, it was 8040. Then I was told I had to come back down because my credit card was deleted out of the system. so in total I have to go back an forth to the lobby 4 times. All the kids in my daughters birthday party had to change and sit in the hall for an hour trying to get all of this settled, that's not exactly the service I would expect from a $250.00 a night room and to call it a resort. I have had better service at a motel 6 for $55.00 a night. No one even offered to take our luggage or anything to help us change rooms. My husband stayed at a Marriott and had to change rooms and they even insisted they come get his tiny suitcase and move it so he wouldn't have to, and this "resort"never offered to have someone help us move or have our wristbands redone for us, just laughed at us like they hear this all of the time and they are use to it by now. Then going up and down 8 floors and back to the lobby twice, was an hour and a half of running around in frustration because they only hire kids to work there, I worked in hospitality for many years, and this would have been unacceptable. People that work in hospitality should be respectable, professional, and accommodating, This was a horrible experience, especially for my daughter's birthday, The only thing they did was comp the $99.00 birthday package that I really should have never had to pay for. Everything was a rip off, except breakfast, that was the only okay part of the visit, It's unfortunate for a "resort" and a corporation to advertise their wonderful accommodations to be treated as such. It's also unfortunate that I am local and would have gone back many times had I had a great experience, I will never go back and I will share this experience with everyone I know to make sure they go to a more respected hotel or resort if they are looking for a getaway or a place for they kids birthday. This was a huge disappointment.

In planning a trip to Great Wolf Lodge's Poconos location we used the website to book our stay. Very first question asks to select which location you'd like to book, which we did. We continued and found a very good rate and booked our trip. The morning of we called the hotel to ask a question about cribs, that's when we where told that our reservation was booked for the Texas location! They told us this happens everyday and the website has problems. That was an amazing conversation explaining to my excited little kids that we're not going, that same day! Thanks (NOT SO) Great wolf!

Our previous visits to GWL were always planned through the GM due to my daughters health & disability issues. The 1st time we stayed we were unaware of the sulfur mine odors as well as some other obstacles. The 2nd time we contacted the GM before making reservations and she happily addressed every issue with a simple plan. We visited often enough that it took a simple phone call to her and everything was in place. It wasn't a burdensome or difficult plan but it was one that needed a GM to arrange. We were planning to visit again this year for my daughters birthday. I made the usual call and left a voicemail. I also sent an email. No response. I left more voicemails and sent emails again. No response. Yesterday, I finally made contact with the NEW GM. I started to explain the situation and how the previous GM had easily made arrangements so my daughter could have a healthy, safe, and fun time. I was rudely cut off and told she could only send me to guest services and I could speak to them. Then the called dropped. Knowing how hard she was to reach I immediately called back. Again and again. I finally left a voicemail asking her to return my call. She hasn't and I will be shocked if she does. Apparently it isn't important to her. It IS important to my daughter but I can't make a person that won't speak to me understand. She will be heartbroken. I have spent years sharing what an amazing place GWL is to parents of other disabled children because it is hard to find people that are willing to go the extra mile to assist with accommodations of disabled children. This is a waterpark resort FOR children but it seems disabled children or children with health issues aren't worth the time. I guess there is always a family with healthy, normal children that will fill the gap. This is wrong on so many levels. I will cancel our plans and probably forfeit our payment but I will never take my daughter anywhere that has no respect, concern, or compassion for an innocent child that just wants to have fun like other children. To make it worse, because of the previous GM's kindness, understanding and conscientious work ethic, GWL and the staff were family to my daughter that she will no longer have.

I'd like to describe our recent $1500 weekend at Great Wolf Lodge in detail, as I wish I had read a thorough review like this prior to choosing this experience for a weekend getaway. Upon arrival, check-in was extremely crowded. The minimum wait was over 20 minutes. I was directed to someone who informed me it was her first day and she was untrained. She took another 20+ minutes. The person next to her was supposed to be assisting but was too busy clearing her register to run out the door and leave for the day. She said that our story time packages ($80) would be delivered to the room. Upon arriving at our room we were underwhelmed for the price we paid. It was dirty and in desperate need of an update. The layout was extremely poor in that the kids' tv and ours were about 4 feet apart from each other, it was a volume battle all weekend. This could have been easily resolved with better planning. The bathroom was dirty and the shower/tub leaked the entire time. Water varied between scalding and lukewarm- I saw this on many other reviews as well. The only upside to our room was the location. We were very close to all of the action which was much appreciated. Walking to the room our kids recognized that everyone had wolf ears except them. I called front desk who told me they should have been given upon check in and I can go back to the desk to retrieve them. I asked if they honestly expected me to wait another 30 minutes in line because of their mistake and the person on the phone snapped and said "you don't have to come right now! Come late tonight or early tomorrow morning." Tell that to my disappointed kids. That evening, we waited 22 MORE minutes for wolf ears as there was only one employee working the desk. Every event (dance party, clock tower show, story time) started late. This is frustrating. They still had "snowland" signs up by the elevators and this ended weeks ago. Called front desk again our first evening to ask for extra pillows and extremely rude employee told me she was not allowed to give them per housekeeping. We don't need 4 pillows per person but two would be nice. We paid over $100 for our children to play magiquest and one of the main elements to complete several quests was malfunctioning. There was a sign saying to call the magiquest store for assistance. Nobody ever answered and when I pay $100 for a video game all of the major elements need to work correctly. Saturday morning we attended the Breakfast with Wiley and violet. This was a disaster. Some tables were visited many times while ours wasn't visited once. None of the characters had handlers and we saw a child get knocked over by the squirrels tail. Big kicker- Wiley and Violet's breakfast did not have Violet. We attended twice and never saw her. Poor advertising. We headed downstairs to redeem some of our wolf pass activities. The person working in the swim shop was texting on her phone for 6 minutes before I finally said "I wonder who she is texting. Let's hope it's important enough to keep us waiting all this time. Maybe we can find someone else to help." She rolled her eyes and threw two pair of goggles on the table and turned around. I am a former GWL employee trained by corporate prior to the opening of the Grapevine location and know where the standards should be. Unfortunately only about 10% of employees demonstrated that this weekend. At the dinner buffet we were not greeted for 10 minutes while the server was deep in conversation with his coworkers. The water temperature in the water park was still quite cold. My youngest child left crying and shivering cold with blue lips after half an hour both days. Do not advertise a year round warm water park if it is not in fact actually warm. 3-5 degrees would make a huge impact here. The floor in the hallways were extremely dirty and there were piles of trash bags and pizza boxes in the vending/ice closet. On Sunday morning prior to departure I realized that our story time packages ($80) were never delivered. I called the front desk and was offered a refund for the story times and the wolf passes as a consolation for our unfortunate weekend. We headed home with heavy hearts as our expectations were nowhere near met during this visit. Upon arriving home, I saw a $301 charge from GWL on my bank account. I called and was told this was a refund, I made clear that it was showing as a purchase on my acct and the person on the phone assured me it was fine. I had to drive an hour BACK to GWL on Monday and speak to FOUR different employees to get this straightened out. Instead of refunding me, I had been CHARGED an extra $301! They refunded it and granted the $300 refund I was offered on Sunday. Honestly, I do not feel like this is adequate compensation for my trouble. We had to drive two hours round trip and spend an hour at the great wolf front desk just to get them to do things correctly. They should have offered me something else for my trouble in addition to what I was given on Sunday for the packages that never arrived. Patricia, supervisor at the front desk, was extremely rude, arrogant and incompetent. Alice Z. was kind and helpful, I have only great things to say about her, but, I do not feel like she went above and beyond to make this right. All in all, it was a huge waste of $1500 for mediocre service and standards. We frequently visit Disney Parks and Cruise lines and we expect excellent service everywhere we go. You could stay 4 nights at Disney for the price we paid here and have a much better time with excellent service. I do not plan on returning to Great Wolf Lodge and am disappointed greatly to see how far downhill it has traveled in the last 10 years. The Great Wolf standard of Excellence is not effective in Grapevine and I believe we'll be seeing more and more of GWL on Groupon in the future.

December 10 2017 made reservations paid what was required. This trip was a huge part of the kids Christmas and my birthday so we booked the grizzly bear. On January 13 2018 my birthday we arrived. No call we stood in line get to the desk where we were told we had been downgraded to a kid camp. As we had been there several times I asked about the loft, royal bear, or majestic bear. Nope it was the kid camp. We weren't called or in formed of the change had we been given the option we wouldn't have gone at all. It was devastating. Upon leaving spoke with the manager who promised vouchers haven't gotten those either.

Date of our stay: 1/20-1/22
Date of incident started on 1/20 and 1/22 departure
Rooms 2114, 2105
1. Upon our arrival on 1/20, we were told that there was a leak in our room so they are moving us to a smaller room and we will get an upgrade the next morning. The check person didn't bother to apologize for our inconvenience or offered to do anything to make it better, just told us that we'll get a bigger room. This is the second time we got downgraded from our reservation; however, at least the first time last year, we were offered a free meal and then got upgraded. 2. Another incident happened that same night, there were uncontrollable teens and kids running in the halls, trash was everywhere, and just a nut house from our room to our other guests in room 4006. We didn't complain since it was still early around 8pm. Around 10:45pm while walking back to our room, my boys (ages 5/7) nearly got attack by screaming/running kids in the main lobby. Then again in the hallway near our room 2114. When we arrived at our room we found a huge trash can in front of our door. I called the front desk to complain then found an underwear while on the phone with the front desk. The girl on duty was nice of enough to give us 50% off of our stay but that wasn't close enough but she said that was the best she could do. The next day we were upgraded but it wasn't an upgrade to my satisfaction but we didn't feel like moving again, at this point, we had had enough of our stay! 3. The last incident happened during checkout. First, we stood in line for over 30mins then got cut off by another guest but the front desk girls didn't do anything. Another 10mins in line, we finally got service, I express my dissatisfaction of how we were standing in line and got cut off by another guest. The front desk girl didn't bother to apologize, nor care to listen to our complaints. All she did was stood there telling us that there are 2 separate lines and they didn't have to wait since they were "auto check-in"...I further explain that if that is the fact then why was there no sign and further I was checking out so the right thing to do in this situation was to just stop the other customer that cut the line and acknowledge the other guests that were patiently waiting in the line. Instead of ignoring us and just went ahead and service other people. I then got extremely frustrated and told her I don't care, I just want to check out because this entire trip has been terrible and I want the name and number of the regional manager. She didn't bother to listen, kept talking and asked for my ID and credit. I asked why do you need my ID/credit, I want to check-out! She said because I don't have your information. That really pissed me off even more because we have never been asked for those things when checking out. The other lady at the front desk saw my frustration and anger but she did nothing to help the situation. She just stood there. We normally go to this location 2 times a year if not more and the service has downgraded. This was the worst experience I've ever had at this location and I'm sorry to say that I will never recommend this location ever again. I will try another resort and another location if we do decide to go back. It may not mean anything to the so-called general manager Brian Pinkham since I've tried to get his direct contact and was never given but I hope that someone will consider my business and reach out. This kind of service is not acceptable and shouldn't be acceptable!

To whom it may concern :
Hi! I am calling your attention regarding our stay at your Williamsburg location on December 17, 2017 Sunday at Great wolf lodge in celebration of my son's birthday. I paid $400+ for a two storey loft. I was able to speak to Ms. Samantha since I asked for a manager when I checked out and voiced my issue with my room. She didn't seemed too concerned. I showed her pictures of the ceiling because it was too dusty, the bathroom upstairs wasn't properly cleaned and also the dryer on the bathroom downstairs sparked when my husband used it and my daughter was there and saw it too. Samantha didn't seemed too concerned and apologetic. She said those ceilings are hard to reach. That's a very lame excuse considering I paid more than $400 for a night. She mentioned she will put a note and they "might" give me a discount on my stay which wasn't satisfactory enough because she didn't seemed very apologetic and it didn't seemed like she really want to help in our next stay. Thank you for reading this.

Sincerely,
Honeylet bell

Sent from my iPhone

I was rudely spoken to and yelled at by the front desk director Isela at the location in Grapevine, Texas. She has broken english and does not need to be working with people. She would not even allow me to get a word in and then she hung the phone up on me after got caught in a lie. It was my first and last experience with Great Wolf Lodge. Save yourself the headache and take you family elsewhere. Majority of the staff are liars with very minimal people skills. Isela needs to go to college not just to learn how to speak but she needs to take a long sabbatical and learn some human relations skills.

My family had dinner at Gitchigoomie Grill located inside GWL Sandusky Ohio. My 5 year old was served an adult pina coloda drink, instead of a vanilla milkshake. I didn't notice until I tasted it, after he had already been drinking it. The waitress did apologize & brought a new one. I was only offered an extra soup, that was brought to the table by mistake. They still charged us for the milkshake! Mistakes happen, but what horrible customer service, especially after serving a young child alcohol. That's a terrible mistake... So I followed up with the manger, Perry who was nice & apologetic. He offered to refund all drinks from that dinner, but it's yet to show on credit card. Honestly, the refund is besides the point... When staying at a place that is geared towards kids, they should be just as careful in the dining areas, to ensure a child's safety..

The Great Wolf Lodge of Kansas City, Kansas located at 10401 Cabela Drive in Kansas City, Kansas 66111 is a dirty hotel mainly because the hotel employees mostly black male housemen who fail time and time again to do their jobs. Donald Starr a manager of the housemen, who smokes and sells weed, was told several times to put hand soap and toilet paper in the public restrooms and he spaces the instruction's off continuously. Donald was told to get a clean mop with clean mop water to mop public areas and restrooms and he promises to do it, but fails everyday to get the job done. Donald Starr and other black male employees focus their time on having sex with courtesans at work like a Latina named Vanessa, and a white girl named Ashley who is dating a white manager named Brett who works in the pool area. Ashley works as a stripper at the Shady Lady lounge in Kansas City, Missouri part-time. Ashley gives lap dances to men at works such as Donald, and even Vanessa. Ashley says she is bi-sexual, and what Brett doesn't know, won't hurt him. Brett is a nice guy and doesn't know Ashley is cheating on him with a black guy who smokes and sells weed, named Donald Starr. Vanessa is a Latin courtesan who lives with her boyfriend, and yet has sex with Donald and a black male who claims to be bi-sexual, DeAndre Ward. DeAndre Ward took Vanessa to a room on the fourth floor to have sex after the company bowling party in Johnson County. This is the kind of behavior that goes on at the hotel and why many chores are neglected.

The Great Wolf Lodge rooms of Kansas City, Kansas are infested with fleas and bedbugs. In the laundry room. dirty sheets are put directly into the dryer then folded and put on guest beds. The manager of the laundry room is a Hispanic male, who allows illegal Mexicans to work in the laundry room, who do not pay attention to detail and hygienic practices. Most of them stand idly by doodling on their cell phones. One of them named Vanessa, is a woman of ill-repute. She does sexual favors for most of the black male staff there. That is why she is allowed to not pull her weight in laundry.

Sexual harassment takes place among the employees of the Great Wolf Lodge in Kansas City, KS. Many of the male employees flirt with the female employees and expect everyone to accept their advances. There is a Spanish girl named Vanessa who lets at least six Black males touch on her breasts and bottom in front of everyone. Vanessa claims to have a boyfriend and is in love. Another girl named Ashley who works as a strip club dancer also allows many male employees to touch her breasts in front of everyone. Many of the maintenance male employees and pool room men expect all women to accept their unwanted affection. If you stick up for yourself and tell them to leave you alone, all of a sudden, you are a bad employee and have suddenly accumulated points on your attendance record and your job is in jeopardy. A Black male named D'Andre Ward steals pillows, trash bags and anything else he wants right in front of the camera. D'Andre is allowed to get away with these things because he is good friends with an obese, aggressive, ugly, mean woman named Lenora. This is not a good work environment at all. There needs to be a class action law suit brought against this property on the grounds of sexual and harassment in general.

The letter addressed to Great Wolf Lodge Corporate AND Niagara.

I stayed at the GWL Niagara on Monday April 4th 2011 with my husband and 3 boys. 2 of those boys were celebrating their birthday there as we do annually for the past 5 years and this visit was a huge disappointment. I am EXTREMELY upset with the lack of concern or acknowledgment on behalf of the GWL team in Niagara. Upon check in, at close to 1 pm we were told we would have a bit of a wait but it "shouldn't be too long" by our concierge. We decided to have lunch at The Antler Shanty to hold out a bit. Lunch came and went with no call for our room so I stayed in the waterpark WITH MY LUGGAGE until 3:58 pm. No one mentioned that I could store my luggage in a secure area so I too could enjoy the waterpark that I had just payed big money for. When I FINALLY entered my room I was greeted with an OVERPOWERING smell of air freshener to which I am HIGHLY allergic and had an asthma attack from AND the two birthday packages I had ordered online had not been delivered to the room, only one had. I called to Customer Service immediately and was told that they were too busy at the front desk but someone would get back to me. Eventually they figured out that they had not charged me for the two packages even after I specifically mentioned to the girl at front desk that there should be TWO packages. I went back up to the concierge after several attempts to reach them by phone at 6 pm to once again mention the birthday packages AND the air freshener issue to which I was told to pay for the second 69.00 package, I happily did but when I mentioned the air freshener again it was shrugged off without a concern. The gentleman at the front desk merely said, "that's too bad, we do apologize". Fast forward to after dinner, we headed to bed after the story in the lobby, we had a Wolf Den Suite and 3 boys so we needed to use the pull out sofa. I called downstairs for 2 extra pillows and was told they would be right there but they never arrived. I waited up for over an hour for the pillows. There were other little details about our room that after the main 2 incidences went completely overlooked I just gave up mentioning because I did not seem to be able to get a response previously. The tub did not drain properly or plug properly for the boys to have a bath, the toilet was not flushing properly and we had extremely loud and boisterous neighbours late into the night. I did head over to Customer Service upon check out because the front desk had only one person working and he was back logged with customers. The girl who was working there took down my information and wrote my issues on a piece of paper and assured me that someone would contact me. It is now Friday and we have not been contacted in regards to this matter. Add insult to injury, a fellow guest relayed a story to me about how he had waited 3 hrs for his room not knowing about the secure luggage area and when he complained about the delay he was UPGRADED to a Majestic Bear Suite from the very same room we had been in! All in all I spent OVER 700.00 to be treated like a second class guest after many years of loyalty to Great Wolf Lodge Niagara Falls and I am beyond angry. I feel duped and suckered out of my cash with little to no respect for my patronage. Until this point I have always been very happy with the customer service at GWL but this time I am very displeased. I have always referred GWL to clients and friends but now I feel that the customer service aspect that was so highly regarded in the past may be slipping greatly. It is no longer about pleasing people and hoping they return again and again and more about grabbing as many bucks as you can and make sure we spend spend spend.

I would like to mention after 5 years of not the greatest food in The Antler Shanty they have stepped it up quite a bit and I was very pleased with our meals and the meal coupon package offered.