Great Wolf Resorts Headquarters - Chicago, IL

Ysenia G.

Worse experience I’ve ever had!!!! After receiving emails and text messages of my reservation confirmed and fully paid, i decide to go online before and purchase PUP pass. Well that changed my whole reservation. It sent me an email the day of the reservation of what was due so I decided to call. Turns out they told me there was never a reservation, when I clearly forwarded them the emails and text messages. I was offered a discount but I would still have to pay additional $350. I had already paid FULLY and they gave my room to someone else. It was their fault. They have zero accountability for their mistakes. Will never go there!!!! Now I understand why they have the reviews they have. I feel sorry for those in management. They should feel ashamed of themselves and try to make things better. Show some accountability!!!! I provided all the proofs and the only room available was over $500 it was easy as changing myself to that room for your mistake. Great Wolf you deserve the one star you get.

Tammy H.

Fake jobs! I had an interview today 2/12/25 @ 11:15 am and received regular reminds of my scheduled interview today. I arrived at 11 am, I was asked to wait. Ten minutes later a lady came out and said. We do not have any openings available. I wondered, why I was scheduled for an interview if the positions were filled and the only answer I received was So Sorry! Someone is sending out emails right now. The position is still actively listed on Indeed! I lost money today because I took off work for this opportunity. This is unacceptable behavior. Your company should be ashamed of yourselves for treating people in this manor.

Anton C.

Horrible horrible horrible horrible!!! We received a gift to stay at GWL from my brother in law. He filled out a pre-authorization form and paid for the stay. Received emails from them for weeks leading up to the stay. We get there and our reservation was denied because the system that GWL uses and the person overseeing it graded the credit card as fraud after accepting the pre-authorization. They lied and said they attempted to contact my brother in law via email, which he had zero email correspondence from them other than the reservation coming up. Apparently his credit card was charged and GWL said they were going to refund it as of the evening of the reservation. Very very very shady and terrible. Staff was somewhat friendly, but their supervisors could not answer any questions...the two options were to pay for the reservation (again) or cancel it. I'm never going back there. Drove all the way there to get denied. Terrible place.

Christian G.

Do not trust this company. I visited the Great Wolf Lodge in Grapevine Tx, on July of 2024. They asked for my information including an email address, ever since then I have been getting emails with other guests information and bills. I have contacted the location as well as the corporate office directly and nobody seems to be able to fix the problem. I have provided screen shots of all the email receipts I have been getting. If you believe your personal information is safe, just take a look at how they carelessly send out others personal information to a complete stranger. If you happen to have visited the Grapevine location in the last 6 months and wish to file a complaint or lawsuit, you can reply and I can see if your one of the many who's privacy has been breached.

Shelby L.

This was our first experience with GWL. We drove from Little Rock, AR to the Grapevine location for 2 nights/3 days. We spent well over $600 in between rooms, food, and attractions. We were very excited to take our five-year old son. At first, there were the normal hotel issues; our wristbands didn't open the door at first, we had trouble with the air conditioner, there was a lot of hair in the bottom of the bathtub, and someone's eyelash extension in the bed. Whatever, I can get past that. What I can not get past is that on our last evening at the lodge, we decided to go to the water park for a THIRD TIME. We were enjoying the lazy river when my son decided to he wanted to go back to the wave pool. We walk around the bend from the lazy river to the wave pool entrance, and I immediately saw WHAT LOOKED LIKE a dead infant floating in the pool. I am a mother, I have been in childcare for over 10 years, a director for almost 6, I am CPR certified. So I TOOK OFF RUNNING to try to get to what I thought was a drowning child. Once I got within 6-8 feet of the pool, i realized it was a DUMMY. My child was terrified, I was panicking, even my husband was scared to death at first. Apparently, this is "ongoing lifeguard/safety training". Great. Cool. There is NO REASON to have that realistic of a dummy FLOATING IN A POOL FULL OF CHILDREN after their parents have spent hundreds of dollars to be there. I talked to multiple supervisors/managers, who basically told me that it is what it is. I was told that there is a sign within the water park, explaining the dummy. I NEVER SAW IT. I CAN NOT TELL YOU WHERE THE SIGN WAS POSTED. So, instead of having the guy opening the doors for you to enter the water park, he should warn you about the simulated, dead infant floating around the pool. Also, does that not desensitize these kids that are lifeguards to real life situations? After the 37th time of seeing this dummy float around, are they going be any more proactive when there is an actual drowned toddler in the water? The whole experience was violently inappropriate. I scoured the website, looking for any information on this topic, to wind up empty handed. We just got back home, my child has seen FOUR DIFFERENT FAMILY MEMBERS/FRIENDS AND THE FIRST THING HE TELLS THEM IS ABOUT THE "DEAD BABY FLOATING IN THE POOL"! If that isn't a sign of being traumatized, then I don't know what is. That ruined the entire experience for me and my family and we will NOT be back to Great Wolf Lodge.

Eric H.

Friendly staff but that's about it for this place. Horrible room experience for a newly opened location. Horrible crisis management for the local management team and the headquarter public relation team. Small water park with long waits but still charge you a premium for the stay. Here are some details about my experience.

Upon checking in around 3:30 PM on 9/26/24, I was promptly assigned a room. However, shortly after entering, I discovered that the bathroom door was not functioning properly and could not be closed. I reported this issue to the front desk and opted to take my child to the water park while my wife waited for a technician to resolve the problem.

After approximately 1.5 hours of enjoying the water park, I called my wife, who informed me that she was locked inside the bathroom. The technician had arrived, but despite their efforts, the door could not be fixed. My wife requested to switch to another room, but the front desk staff were unhelpful and insisted that we downgrade to a different configuration, which she understandably declined.

With no other options, the technician was instructed to return to our room. However, my wife, wanting to join us in the water park, told them to come back later. After they left, she attempted to use the bathroom again, only to find that the door now could not be opened at all from either side. At that point, she had been trapped for about 30-40 minutes.

I rushed to the front desk for assistance, but the response was frustratingly slow. Eventually, two staff members arrived, only to find that none of the keys, including the master key, worked on our room's door due to it being locked from the inside. It took another 30 minutes for them to use a tool to gain access to the room.

Once inside, they attempted to open the bathroom door but were unsuccessful. After two hours of my wife being trapped, I expressed my frustration and indicated that if a solution was not found promptly, I would have to call the fire department. It was only then that they decided to use an electric saw to cut the door open and free her.

This traumatic experience left my wife shaken and my family deeply disappointed. While the lodge manager offered a $100 discount and a room change after the incident, this does not adequately address the trauma we experienced. It raises concerns as to why we were not offered a room change initially, especially since there were available rooms. The hotel shouldn't let a customer stay in a damaged room.

No guest should ever have to experience such an ordeal in a family-oriented resort, especially one that has only recently opened. This incident not only disrupted our family outing but also left my wife and child feeling unsettled and reluctant to enjoy the resort’s amenities.

And 3 days after I write an email to formally complaint about this incident, there is nothing from your management team to further discus this issue yet.

L M.

I've had a very negative experience in my recent stay in August, including stolen property by the Great Wolf Lodge (Pocono, PA), housekeeping staff. I've been trying to get assistance from guest relations since then. I've emailed guest relations ([email protected]) back and forth for over a month. I see from other reviews that they respond to guests complaints and tell them to email guest relations, which from my experience is completely pointless). I keep being told that a manager from the lodge will be contacting me to discuss my issues. The incident occurred in August, and it is now October and to date, I haven't received a single phone call. Prior to emailing guest relations, I tried numerous times to reach someone at the lodge. 90% of the time, no one answers the phone at the front desk. Even central reservations couldn't reach the front desk on my behalf after 43 minutes of trying. (I have a recorded call log for that call). I am absolutely appalled that GWL would operate in such an unprofessional way. They clearly have zero concern for their guests/customers. I will be filing a complaint with the FTC, and BBB. The Great Wolf Lodge charged me over $500 extra, and in addition to that, I have a $200 item that was stolen by their housekeeping staff. As a retired law enforcement officer, and entrepreneur, I am absolutely disgusted on how negligent the Great Wolf Lodge is. I've been a loyal client for over 15 years, and they don't care enough to render a serious matter. Shame on you Great Wolf Lodge!!!

THE S.

I would like a full refund and will be making a formal complaint for spending over $1000 at your establishment to have your staff obviously have no training at their job in hospitality when they assigned me a room with a twin sized bed -when I was told it was going to be a Queen sized bed. They sent 3 security guards instead of coming up and looking at the bed and accommodating their mess up. Instead they tried to intimidate me by sending 3 grown men security guards at my door. When I said, "oh that's cute that they sent 2 Vanilla Faces and a black man to handle a 105 pound Asian.”….When you are paying that kind of money at an establishment such as yours your whole entire staff should be bend over backwards obnoxious and profusely trained with hospitality. Instead I had the biggest white security guard tell me that he had to call the cops on me to remove me since that was the most racist word he's heard. ("Vanilla Face") A word more than likely nobody has every heard of except for people in my circle as I am the one who made that word up as a child being adopted from an orphanage in Seoul, Korea to a Caucasian family and being the only Asian in my community of Shippenville, PA and growing up as the only minority in my school- So I called my friends Vanilla Faces from that day on and they thought the word as absolutely hilarious! And now I got kicked out as a 39 year old woman who’s a single Mother on disability using a word I have my whole entire life and everyone in my life knowing that- just to be told by the police in 2025 that it is most definitely a very racist term and accused me that I’m racist in front of my 10 year old son when his father is Caucasian and we were married for 11 years. Even though they told me they have never heard of the word that is was incredibly offensive to the Caucasian community 🤯 So 2 days before Martin Luther King Jr. day you have the whitest of all white guys weighing in at probably 230 call me (105lb slender Asian woman) and 2 Caucasian male Police Officers accusing me of being a racist! Something I have never been called in my whole entire life!!!!! Absolutely absurd! If I do not receive a FULL refund, I will be taking this to litigation! Also the bartender who should have not of had any access inside my room left a note with his number inside my room on the vanity and I did not authorize anybody to enter my room with me or without me in it!!! A huge invasion of privacy and I’m almost certain illegal (which I kept the letter) and the cops had nothing to to do with wanting to help me with that- who would have known if he just felt like he could walk into my room (and did when I was not there) what he would have done if I was in there! So many things ya'll did wrong and you called the cops knowing all of you were wrong and that's incredibly worrisome for rationale for this world. If cops are now saying that “Vanilla Face” is racist (A word I made up as a child to be silly) we have a lot to worry about in the competence of our police force. Situation dictates and as a 105 lb Asian who was right and absolutely unconfrantational is extremely worrisome in the kind of training law enforcement is receiving, where they can abuse their power and use excessive force and be ok with it, but they can’t use their brain cells to discern a situation instead they perpetuate it…..Sad