Clay's Resort Jellystone Park in North Lawrence, OH — Hotel in Lawrence Township

First of all, we enjoyed the swimming lake, pool, kayaking & putt-putt, similar to when we visited last year. The cabin was clean when we arrived :) We had a lot of fun, for sure! However, this year there were several things that were different or became an issue. Our cabin was terribly hot, the AC unit didn't cool down our cabin hardly at all. We had it set to 62 degrees and it only cooled a very small section of the cabin. We had to buy a portable cooling fan after the first night because none of us slept. And the cabin still wasn't all that cool, but better. Our smoke dectector went off several times during our stay, any time we tried use the oven or stove—despite our efforts to avoid this (fans running, open the door, stood on the couch and fanned a towel by the dectector to circulate cooler air). Our cabin didn't have a remote to the TV. We called the front office on our 2nd day at the resort and asked them to give us one. We were told someone would be out shortly to come look for it or give us one. NO ONE CAME TO OUR CABIN. We couldn't watch TV at all. The main concession stands at the swimming lake were out of A LOT of food... no icees (broken machine), no vanilla ice cream, no pizza, etc... very disappointed that none of these options were available for us. Last year, everything was in stock and we had no issues with this. Our first night at the resort, we were enjoying our time at the jumping pillow. Around 8:30p, there was a group of adults & kids that jumped the fence and they weren't pleasant at all. They were upset about something and several of the adults were cursing terribly bad. Two security guards showed up to discuss matters, and then things escalated enough that 2 police officers had to come to the scene. All of this took place between 8:30-9:00/9:10p by the playground/jumping pillow; with several young kids running around. It was terrible to have to witness this scene and have the "F" word thrown out many times. Obviously we left, but the fact that it happened was unfortunate. We learned the hard way that the golf cart keys are the same for all the golf carts. Our 2nd to last day at the resort, a person accidentally took our cart. We drove our cart (cart 34) up to the swimming lake across from the putt-putt area. Parked it there @ 12p. Around 3p, my son wanted to go back to the cabin for a bit. But when we walked back to the cart, it was gone. Ironically, there was a cart with the number 43 on it parked next to where our cart used to be. We figured it was a mistake/oversight. We called the front office for help. They sent someone out to "investigate" the situation (which we already told them what we thought happened). It took the staff member almost 20 min. to make it to us, then he 'went looking for our cart.' In the meantime, we took one of our cars and drove around the resort trying to find cart 34. We came upon it, knocked on the cabin door and told the gentleman he had grabbed cart 34 rather than 43. He was apologetic and returned our cart back to the swimming lake. However, when we called the front office to let them know we found our cart, the staff member who was "supposedly helping us look for the cart," was sitting at the front desk!!! He wasn't even looking for the cart. We had to find our own cart. It ate up about 1 hour of our time... and disrupted our afternoon. Very disappointed by how it was handled. No sense of urgency or care from the staff members. I understand the need for safety breaks. However, it seems quite unfair that during the breaks, all the lifeguards use the inflatables/wibits and do flips off of them, but the guests aren't allowed to do that? It really felt like 'safety breaks' were 'play time breaks' for the lifeguards— yet they can do flips off the equipment, but paying customers/guests can't. Felt odd. I'm sure it's a liability/safety issue with multiple kids/people in the water during swim time, but it was obvious the lifeguards enjoyed showing-off while everyone was sitting on the lawn waiting for the...

Our family of 3 stayed Friday to Monday morning. We were part of a 4-cabin family vacation with a total of 16 people. The only people available to answer questions were teenagers who seem to answer with the easiest answer they could think of. All 4 of our families signed up for the 4:00pm Sat laser tag. We all arrived for the laser tag session just to sit there for the 30 minutes without assistance from Clay’s. They cancelled the session but did not notify us. Clay’s does not have enough life vests for the amount of people they allow into the park. Having a 5-year-old does not lend itself to allowing us to stand in line for literally 40 minutes to get a life vest (everyone is required to wear one). My husband went to get he and I life vests so we could take our little one swimming. (We brought her life vest with us). Once my husband made it to the front of the line (having to wait for others to be done swimming) he was told he could not get a vest for me as I needed to be ‘fitted’ for my vest. So, I then walked over and began what became my 45-minute wait for a life vest.We spent close to $7,000 as a full family to visit for 3 days. We all signed up for the Saturday night candy bingo. Scheduled from 7pm – 7:50pm. The game started at 7:10 and was over by 7:30. As SOON as the last bingo was called the caller told us they were closing, and we had to leave right then. She walked over and dimmed the room lights to almost out. When checking out on Monday morning, I asked the girl at the desk for a printout of all of my cabin charges to be sure I wasn’t billed for something I hadn’t placed on my tab. She told me that wasn’t possible. When I asked for a corporate number, she called someone named Jenn, and Jenn agreed to email me the list. There is ZERO security when charging something to a cabin. At every instance except 1 when I gave my cabin number the cashier actually gave me my name, instead of asking for my name to make sure it matched their records. Anyone could have overheard and then started charging to other’s cabins. Lastly, the prices at the General Store can only be described as predatory. How is a gallon of milk $8.79? How are a dozen eggs $4.50? How is a bag of charcoal (not the match light kind) that I paid $8.99 at GE the day before $17.99? Clays should be ashamed of themselves with the prices they are charging their clients. This alone with enough to make us not come back. Of the 4 family’s that stayed in the 4 cabins we rented NONE of us plan on going back on our annual camping weekend, and all of us discussed how we will tell people to avoid this resort. While the cabin was a nice cabin to rent and it was very clean, the services ended there. The entire time we were there we only ever came into contact with ONE adult. This place is run by teenagers who think it is proper to give an ‘I don’t know’ answer, to give attitude when someone is trying to confirm charges, who can’t be bothered to notify people of event cancellations that were prepaid, who change a 50 minute bingo game to 20 minutes. We also found out the WiFi was down and we had to use the public internet, which did not work well at all. Between the 4 cabins we paid just under $7,000 and will not visit this resort again. I wanted to take a moment to comment on the resort's reply to my review.

Yes, there were storms on the day of laser tag, we all purchased the tickets AFTER the rain stopped. I would have checked the app for this info but the WiFi was NOT WORKING, I also had to search out the refund, it wasn't automatically refunded. Someone could have come to the tag site to notify us instead of us waiting for 30 minutes for no one to show up.

According to the vest fitting girls they didn't have any special training to do so. I do not buy your 'safety is essential' excuse.

I had to insist on speaking with someone at check out, as the desk girl told me she couldn't look up that info.

I also noticed the GLARING omission of any comment on the...

Edit: Downgrading to 1 star because we lost the remaining 21 dollars we had of the camp credit when we checked out. We were told that the camp credit had been applied to our bill, but as of now we haven't seen that credit applied anywhere. They wouldn't even give us the option to use it after we checked out. Super frustrating!

If you're coming here thinking this is like other Jellystone campgrounds, throw that thought out. We just finished our 4th of July trip. Short of it is they're completely disorganized, understaffed, under equipped, and primarily high school/college kids.

Check-in was at 4pm, but we were told we could check-in early for a fee. Went to registration 3 separate times with the staff saying the room wasn't ready and to keep checking in. You can't get ahold of them on the phone though, so you have to drive there and wait 15+minutes each time to talk to someone in person. Ended up not being able to get to our cabin until 445pm and they left cleaning supplies in the room.

Half the events/activities are either cancelled entirely or start late. Especially the free ones or ones where one of the bears was supposed to be.

Tried to do laser tag but half the equipment was unusable because they left it somewhere where the rain was able to damage it. Then ended up not being able to play at all because it required Wi-Fi and they had apparently decided to mess with that according to staff during a holiday weekend and it was no longer reaching the area well enough to play. Went to get a refund after and they couldn't process it because the touchscreen computer wasn't working and they didn't have a mouse. Same story the next morning. I literally had to let them borrow my computer mouse to process my refund because who knows when the mouse they had ordered was actually coming.

There was supposed to be a hey hey ride at 1130am that got cancelled after 1045am because of maintenance issues. Yes, things happen, but the app is sending out notifications saying stuff is still happening and it was on their physical board in the rec center until at least 1045am. You literally wouldn't know unless you actually went in at the right time to the rec center, which is an unreasonable expectation considering how big this park is.

Speaking of the app, it's literally useless here. Their schedule is on a physical board in the rec center. So the app will tell you something but there's no guarantee that's actually happening unless it's also on the physical rec center board.

On Saturday, they were supposed to have a street party that started at 5. Rec center was closed and a bunch of the younger staff are still setting things up. Nowhere close to ready. In fact, half of them were sitting down on the hey hey ride we were supposed to be riding earlier doing nothing. Senior staff was nowhere to be found but you can bet there were tons of security there.

To be fair, we did complain, and we were given some credits. But that process required us wasting time to go from our cabin to the rec center, be told to go to the corporate office, present our case, and be told to go back to the rec center to talk things through further. They did give each of our kids stuffed bears, bear mail, and an extra 100 dollar camp credit on our 1400 dollar cabin reservation as well as a free shirt for the borrowed mouse. That said, we ran into multiple issues trying to collect on these as the staff struggled wasn't really trained on how to apply camp credits and the note detailing that we should be getting stuffed bears and bear mail got misplaced. Still, it's the only reason I'm not giving this a 1 star review.

If you're coming for the waterpark, that is nice. Don't come here thinking this is going to be managed at all or like any Jellystones. Definitely not worth the insane price you'll be paying and the time you'll waste trying to get something back after your disappointment. You're better off just paying for...