Waldenwoods Resort & Conference Center — Hotel in Hartland Township

Drove over 9 hours to attend a wedding here and wasn't sure what to expect based on the limited information provided on their website and in reviews. We reserved Villa 2, a pet-friendly cottage in reasonable proximity to the water, beach area, and camp store. ||||Pro's : ||Location - Beautiful clean lakeside location. ||Amenities - The amenities provided during our stay included watersports (kayaks, sailboats, a floating inflatable obstacle course, a floating inflatable balance ball, a floating inflatable volleyball court), a swimming pool, beach area, and playground. Our cottage included linens (bedsheets, pillows and pillow cases, and bedding), towels, a starter pack of travel-size shampoo, conditioner, and body wash, a starter roll of toilet paper and paper towel. The kitchen also included hand towels, oven mitts, salt/pepper, oil & vinegar, garbage bags, dish soap, dishwasher detergent, pots, pans, plates, silverware, cups, mugs, glasses, toaster, coffee maker, coffee filters, and ice cube trays. There's also a camp store that service hand scooped ice cream, coffee, snacks, and various little necessities.||Safety - My family (including my two children 8 and 14) felt safe no matter where we were on the resort.||Service - Every employee we came into contact with was accomodating, professional, and friendly.||Cottage - Villa 2 had everything we could have wanted and more. It has a separate bedroom with a queen bed, large bathroom with shower & bath and plenty of towels and washcloths. The living area had one full size leather couch and one leather love seat, a flat screen tv, Roku, and DVDs. The kitchen was well outfitted for the size. There's a small dining area and a back and front porch with a small gas grill. ||Parking - We were able to park right by our cottage's front door. ||Event - Everything at the wedding was absolutely perfect! Food was fantastic, the building where the wedding took place was gorgeous with panoramic views of the lake, the building is a little older so the upstairs where the bathrooms are was a bit warm (it was in the upper 80's when we were there) but the bathrooms were a decent size with several stalls so no line to use them. ||Management - management was fantastic in responding to any issues and worked hard to quickly resolve them. ||||Con's: ||Lack of communication - We never received a confirmation email or any information regarding what to do at check-in or how to gain access to our cottage. We also didn't know what was provided in the cottage or what we needed to bring. Upon arrival, it took some time and some calls from the front entrance booth until we were able to locate the key and gain entrance to our cottage. I would advise the resort to provide these details on their website. ||-A lot of strange rules regarding children using the watersports. Children must first pass a swim test at the pool (completely separate location) and have a parent sign a waiver before being able to use the floating inflatable obstacle course on the lake. Even once your child passes the test, an adult still needs to accompany and stay with their child (with both parent and child wearing flotation devices) to the obstacle course. I appreciate the concern for safety, but none of this information is posted or presented at check-in or in the cottage where it would make the process more convenient for both the employees and the resort guests. This process could be executed more efficiently by having a lifeguard out on a kayak near the obstacle course to monitor those using the course and for swim tests to be conducted in the lake or at the pool, depending on where the guest plans to spend the majority of their time. Instead, the lifeguard stays in the little stand on the beach and uses a megaphone to provide instructions to those out on the course.||-Contacting anyone by phone is very difficult. My husband and I often had to call multiple times for information and were often prompted to leave a message.||- According to family that stayed there, the Sunshine Lodge does not have air conditioning. ||||Overall we had a wonderful visit and wouldn't hesitate to stay...

Run away!!! The most expensive campground you will ever have the misfortune to hitch yourself with. The costs are ~$7k for a 7 year membership "with free 5 year extensions" PLUS $40/month in maintenance 12 months every year, PLUS if you are sold on their network of campgrounds (Resorts of Distinction or RoD) that is another $150/year or $11,260.00 (first year of RoD is free) for the total of the first 7 years. If you can only get out once a year, then you are looking at best $116/night to camp in your own camper (14 nights, 7 years). You cannot stay over 14 days at a time, there are really really nice State campgrounds near by that cost $30 or so.

With a membership only YOU can "camp as much as you want," just not continually. 1-6 days on a site you have to off for a least 1 day of all sites before you can come back, OR 7-14 days you must be gone for 7 days, I have read about seasonal, but you pay for power and an extra very high fee on top of your membership. Holidays (Memorial, Labor, Independence days, also the 2 weekends around Halloween), for about 2 weeks before or after you must have a reservation, and there will be a wait list. If you want to camp with friends, they WILL need to also buy a seperate membership, so you just stuck your friends with a membership, but they told us that the friends get half price.

You can sell it, but don't think this is an investment with value like a timeshare, this is worse than that. The new owner of your membership, does not get the "free 5 year extensions". I don't know if they will be force to pay for them, or if their secondhand membership just ends, the rules were not clear on this. You cannot sell the membership for more than Waldenwoods sells them, which is fine because you are selling second hand a membership that is less than 7 years of duration on it, the new member cannot have had an official Waldenwoods tour within 2 years of purchasing your membership, and has to be approved by Waldenwoods first. I don't know what happens if you sell your membership after the original 7 years, since it stated that the extensions are not passed on. Also, if the new member gets to at least purchase the 5 year extensions, if they want to continue. I.E. There is really no resale value.

Also, the RoD membership can only keep while you have an active membership to a member campground (and you cannot become a member of the main campground just to be a member of RoD).

They have a very big sales pressure with deep discount for immediate sign up and only give you the legal minimum of 3 days to decide if you want to ignore the shady salesperson that told you everything that was directly different than the membership rule book, including implying that the RoD membership was PART of the whole purchase, they only pay for the first year.

After you pay for the membership, the $40/month maintenance fee is a pretty OK deal as long as you camp there about one and a half to two weeks a year, and never want to camp as a group (I would pay $40-50/night not feel too ripped off), that is if you REALLY like going to the same campground over and over and over and over again, every year. Or if you keep the RoD membership (only really useful thing from the membership), then you are still paying a lot a year ~$600/year ($480 for maintenance fees and $150 for RoD membership) all said and done, as long you like the locations that the campgrounds are near, which there are some nice areas that they are located.

If you can swallow the costs mentioned, there is not any per night fees, or rental costs (except for cabins). They do have a camp store with things like firewood, at reasonable prices, I mean they already skinned you with me membership. Also, any boats and the water gym thing has no additional fees, it is all included, you are a second class citizen to any wedding that happen, though. They do make a very large disclaimer that you can have your very expensive membership revoked if you violate the lake restrictions while a wedding is scheduled, which is only most...

DO NOT GET MARRIED HERE!!!!!! This place is a joke!!! Save your money and run!!!

These guys nickeled and dimed me for everything and anything they possibly could! Everything is outdated nothing is included. The rooms smell like a nursing home. They don’t even have matching sheets and bedding.

Save yourself the headache and get married someplace else or rent an Airbnb. At first I was excited because it’s a historical place. I was married there in 2023. I could write a whole essay on how horrible my experience was.

When you get there, there’s always people sitting at the desk, but no one ever helps you with anything.

I had to set up and take down the exact same day as my wedding. I couldn’t even start setting up until 8/9 AM which means that I had to rush to get everything done. I should’ve been able to set up the day before or at least at 6 am so I could enjoy getting ready and didn’t have to rush! This completely ruined and stressed me out on my wedding!! Zero relaxation time because at the end of my wedding, I was having to clean everything up too!

If you do not personally buy a wedding planner, nobody will help you at this facility. I was told that I would have a wedding coordinator to help coordinate the day, dances, different events, cake cutting etc. that was not the case. I had to be in charge of everything / keeping track of time which was nuts!

I had to pay for a room to get ready in even though I bought out the entire building because we had both the ceremony and reception there. One would logically assume that the “whole building” would include a room where the bride and groom can get ready in! The room for the bride to get ready in was an extra $500! The room for the men to get ready and is a complete joke ridiculously small! And they charge $90 to use it!!

If I could do it over again, I would never ever get married here!! I would’ve put the money into my house and gone to the courthouse!

I wasn’t allowed to keep any of the food that my husband paid thousands for! I watched the staff eat our food and take it home.

I was told that I would have flowers provided in the baskets in the balcony on my wedding day. They were completely empty on the days of my wedding and there was nothing to be done about it!

For a $10,000 plus wedding you would expect a certain level of class. These people put on a façade as having it but they do not. To think, on a low budget a bare minimum wedding there is $10,000; if they’re having three weddings in one weekend that’s $30,000 that they are not putting back into the place! The floors are cracked. The tables are junkie/plastic. The chairs are old and green. They charge you to use the basic white covers it does not come with the basic package, which is absolutely ridiculous!

Way too overpriced for one day of your life! do not ever get married here!!...