My family, 2 adults and 2 children age 9 and 14 months, went to the Great Wolf Lodge for the first time July 7th, 2010. I booked the room last minute through the great wolf lodge website. I paid $327 for one night. Check-in is not until 4pm, but the waterpark is open to new guests at 1pm.
We arrived at the hotel around 2pm and checked in. We were told that our room was not yet available, but we were given wrist bands to enter the water park on the 1st floor. Upon arrival I was impressed. The outside of the hotel was nice and well kept. The entire inside of the hotel was very kid friendly. Everything looked great!
We entered the waterpark and spent most of the afternoon. The waterpark was great. Everyone had a great time. After 4pm we were able to check into our room. We immediately went to take a shower and noticed that the water was not draining properly through the drain. Water was backing up into the bathtub and by the time you were done with your shower there was about 2 inches of water in the tub. Grose.
The sink was the same way when we went to brush our teeth. By the time you finished brushing your teeth the entire sink was full of water.
The rest of the room was neat and clean. For the amount of money paid I was not impressed.
We only stayed one night and then returned home. Two days later, my son 9 yrs, started complaining about his ear. I took him to the doctor and he had what the doctor called "swimmers ear" and was given some anti-biotic drops. Then my daughter, 14 months, started having diarrhea that lasted a few days causing her to break out in a diaper rash. I took her to the doctor and the doctor said most likely my daughter had swallowed contaminated water from the pools in the waterpark and was given medicine.

We just returned from a free weekend at the Great Wolf compliments of my wife's employer and we would never consider returning to this place even if it were free again! To begin with, how about doing a little maintenance? Light bulbs were burned out, areas looked like they hadn't been dusted in years. The indoor waterpark for children had at least one rusted water feature that I was concerned our son would cut himself on and need at tetanus shot. There is no way that they haven't noticed the rusty feature yet they choose to ignore it and put every child at risk. Here's a tip -- if you have an indoor waterpark, you may want to consider tile floors instead of old carpeting. That might alleviate the musty smell throughout the hotel. Other lowlights: the door to our room would barely open due to some issue with the hardware; the air conditioner barely kept us cool enough to sleep at night; there was so much moisture in our room that clothes, once wet, would not dry. Lastly, the food, which was arguably the worst I've ever had in a hotel restaurant. It literally seemed as though they were making no effort at all. I mean how hard is it to make a hamburger?

Our young son summed it up best the last full day we were there. Returning from the waterpark to our room, as we were unlocking the door he repeatedly yelled "No, no!" After returning from dinner later that night he screamed the same thing again. My wife and I could only smile as this is how we felt about our stay there as well.

I can't imagine that someone would pay to stay at this dump.

My family, which included my husband and I and our 2 children (six and four) arrived at the GWL around 11:30 am. We went ahead and checked in and to our surprise, our room was ready for us. We hurriedly got ourselves settled in to our room (2 queen beds with a patio...nothing fancy like a suite or Kid Cabin) and got dressed into our swim suits so that we could enjoy the water park right away. We spent the next 3 hours in the park until our son got a bit whiny and then we knew it was time to take a break and get a late lunch early dinner. They had a menu in the room to the GWL restaurant with combo meals and decided to charge one of them to our room. The food (including a large pizza, chicken strips, french fries, salad, cookies and a 2 liter bottle of soda) was great and fed all 4 of us easily. Afterward we went back to the water park for a couple more hours and then we left to go to a T-Bones game. We didn't get back until after 11 pm. By the time we got back we were exhausted and hit the hay. We didn't want to get up in the morning and so we got a late start getting up and were rushing around to get checked out of our room by 11 am. It was about 10:30 when my husband and I talked about it and decided we should stay another night. The kids were especially excited about that. We spent the second day at the water park again, shopping at the legends, eating at the T Rex cafe and playing in the arcade at the hotel.

About the GWL in general...I used a 20% off promotion code but even with that plus taxes and the absurd resort fee was still over $200 a night. And we only got a standard room. I loved the room atmosphere and it was spacious enough for all four of us. The beds however I thought were very hard and uncomfortable as well as the pillows. The coffee mugs that were hanging up were dirty and had left over coffee in two of them. That's basically the only complaint I had about the room itself. The arcade was a lot fun when we needed a break from the water. The prizes required too many tickets for the small items, in my opinion. A ring pop, for example, was 80 tickets! We ate twice at the restaurant and they had decent food for okay prices. We didn't go there for breakfast. The lines were too long for the buffet so we got something outside the hotel. The sweet shop in the lobby had cute little tasty treats and I bought 2 no bake cookies in the shape of paw prints. A bit overpriced, I thought, but they were very good. The hotel had the MagiQuest and mini golf, which we did not take advantage of. I thought the price we were paying for the room and water park was extreme enough and didn't want to shell out any more bucks for something that should be included in the rate, in my opinion. The kids loved the Clock Tower show and meeting Violet after the pajama party/story time.
My immediate reaction of the water park was, "this is it??" I was expecting more I guess, but we all still enjoyed it regardless. I injured myself coming out of the Triple Twist slide backwards and slammed my shoulder into the middle partition down below. My husband and son got pretty banged up on the Alberta Falls slide. Around a tight turn toward the end, they both fell out and hit their head against the tube pretty hard. The life guard down below was very attentive and called for a medic right away. My husband just walked away with a headache but my son had a nasty black eye as a result. They gave him some ice and a cute little Wiley the Wolf stuffed toy with his arm in a sling and a band aid above his eye. Apparently this happens a lot if they have toys like that on stock. Still, though, they were very nice and attentive and the toy made my son feel better. Luckily that happened on our last day there, otherwise I don't think we would've enjoyed ourselves as much because we would've been too timid to go down the slides. We left to go home shortly after the incident. By then, we've all had enough anyway.
Overall we had an awesome time there. I just wish they included more complimentary amenities for the rate. We'll probably visit again and come back maybe once a year. Can't afford to go any more than that.

The pros: great waterpark and service
The cons: WAY overpriced (even if you get the waterpark), rooms outdated and need some TLC. Hall carpets dingy and the whole place needs an overhaul. Did I mention OVERPRICED! Go to a different waterpark and stay at a different motel/hotel. This place isn't getting better - but the prices are outrageous.