Hotel Stay with Water Park Access at Great Wolf Lodge, Connecticut

Everyone was great and accommodating. The overall facility was spotless considering the heavy traffic in the hallways, public restrooms, and lobby. Our whole family had fun, the staff are very friendly and helpful especially the front desk, retail shops, and both hosts at the main restaurant (8 pm, Sunday) The bartender was very nice on Monday morning we were at the Waterpark. We will stay again.

Never again! High end resort cost, basic hotel-level room (but w/ cute decorations) Sad, could have been so much better. Read the reviews of others, and believe them! While this wasn't a 1-star terrible experience, it certainly was NOT worth the huge costs involved. 1. Plan to spend more than the cost of your suite... WAY more. This place is designed to "nickel and dime" your credit card into a whimpering fetal position. For the considerable cost of our 2-night stay for 5 people, you would expect to be valet parked. Not so. Parking is $25/day for uncovered tarmac space (beware! They'll charge you for 3 days of parking for a 2 night stay!) Expect to pay the cost of a MUCH nicer resort, without the feel or comfort of even an average resort. 2. If you're not sleeping on one of the main beds, don't expect to sleep much. There are much nicer sleeper sofas available... Great Wolf decided to skimp instead and gave you interesting decorations (painted bugs on the lights - yeah, I know... - and "kid camp" wallpaper) in the Kid Cabin "Wiley's Clubhouse sleeping area" to look at while you're still awake in the wee hours, desperately trying to get comfortable on the bunk-style bed shelves. For the cost, these easily could, and should, have been much more comfortable. There's no reason you should need a day to recover after a trip to this "resort" - but that's exactly what we all needed. 3. No clothing drawers in the suite. No safe in the suite. No microwave to be found. No sound deadening between rooms of possible suite areas. C'mon Great Wolf, there is so much space under the sleeping shelves in the kid's room, there should at least be drawers built in for the kids' clothes in there. But no clothing drawers in the main area for adults? Just pathetic and embarrassing. We were legitimately shocked. 4. For the extreme cost of the food, GWL should do far better in this area, and with much less of a wait time. Think fever dream of an overcrowded theme park and add a dash of screaming kids in your nightmare - and then wake up with an empty, depressed wallet, and you're just about there. It's less costly, and a much nicer experience, to dine in the casino instead when you can. Having said that, the pizza was pretty decent. 5. The logistics of just about everything was a disaster. It felt so crowded, and so understaffed, I wanted to jump in and help on more than 1 occasion. Some of the staff were very professional and polite, others just appeared to be barely able to wait to get off shift to go cry uncontrollably while scrolling job listings for better employment. *BONUS - Don't even get me started on the large police presence during our stay, apparently due to some maniac threatening people with a knife. No, not kidding, but wish I was. The armed police on our floor actually told members of the family not to get out of the elevator on our floor.... But to go to the next floor up, or back to the lobby, and hang out for 10-15 minutes. 90 minutes later, police and security were still on our floor with no resolution yet. All this was happening while we were cutting cake for a child's birthday in our group, so should I bump up the rating 1 dot for entertainment? (No, I agree, definitely not.) There's SO much more that could be said, but others have covered some of other concerns in their reviews. Read them. Believe them. Plan accordingly. Work extra and be prepared to spend more than you could possibly want to spend. And then expect less from this place than you would like at the cost.

Not great I have been to several GWL's, and this was not a great experience. Our room was ready before 4 pm, but the front desk chose to argue with us over everything. Our reservation was for 10 people, but our room sleeps 14, and we had some additional family join us. When I asked for enough wristbands to accommodate the entire party, I was charged $50 per wristband for the additional 4. I guess the room rates are per person? The hotel layout, in theory, is great. Unfortunately, the hotel is too small for the layout to work. The front desk, small food/supplies store, and lobby activities all share the same space. This means that if there are any activities going on in the lobby area (every hour), then you can't move through or hear anything going on in the shop or at the desk. The activities in the lobby are loud enough to be heard clearly on the second and third floors, and in most of the adventure area. They have a similar problem in the activities area. The line for the buffet extends across the entire room, blocking access to anything else in the area. The one checkpoint for all the activities shares space with the main walkway, so if they have more than 1 person getting tokens or passes, the walkway is fully blocked. We had staff roulette while we were there. Some were extremely professional despite being obviously overworked (shout out to the cabana and buffet servers, and to the single person trying to manage all the adventure park offers by herself). It was so bad that my nephew jumped in and played tech support for the bowling alley for a few hours because they had no one on staff to fix the lanes when they broke down. Other staff were openly rude, like the guy at first aid who refused to look at my child, who was openly bleeding at the water park, until I went back a second time and insisted. Or the housekeeping staff, who had time to hang out in groups in the hallway playing on their phones, but couldn't bring us sheets for the pull-out bed. Then there was our room. Our room layout looked nothing like the layout that is available online. We did have the correct number of sleeping options, but the layout itself is completely different. The door on the bathroom didn't close correctly. It had an obvious tilt in the door jam and there are bumpers on the door jam that keep the door from closing. (see images) There was an issue with the motion sensor not working on the bathroom light, and the toilet seat hinge was broken. The most disturbing thing is the confusing way that GWL charges things on my credit card. There are two charges that match nothing on my invoice. There were charges for rooms on days that I wasn't there - which were refunded the next day. None of the charges match anything on my invoice. Overall, the kids had fun at the water park, while the adults spent the weekend trying to get basic amenities like sheets and first aid.

Overpriced, understaffed, and poorly maintained—Disney prices for motel-level service. Disappointing stay. Customer service was inconsistent, staff appeared poorly trained, and severe understaffing led to slow service, especially in the water park and restaurants. Cleanliness and maintenance were not up to par for such a new property—our room already felt worn with broken bulbs and marked walls. Housekeeping was not transparent; rooms aren’t serviced unless requested, and even then, our request went ignored. Prices are Disney-level, but the service and quality fall far below. Better service and cleanliness can be found at budget hotels.