Jellystone Park™ Tyler — Hotel in Lindale

This was a great place to camp. A few years back this was a destination to plan year round for, Now not so much. We rented the Diamond series RV site with full hookups, deck, firepit, outdoor lighting, concrete patio with grill, the whole shoot n shabang! We spent 3 nights with a bonus 4th night, night one lights didn't work. Our bad we checked in after dark. We were greeted by a friendly poisonous scorpion. Yes, Texas you do have poisonous scorpions if you have a bee allergy then yes you need an EpiPen. We let them know about the lights and scorpion they sprayed which meant we couldn't leave our rig for half an hour minimum. No problem better safe than sorry. Be aware not all Diamond series RV sites come with shade which when booking online they only show one pic showing all sites with shade. Grandkids came out rented a pricey golf cart was able to do laundry on site little pricey but everyone loves clean clothes! New machines that work great but do to spotty Wi-Fi our transactions went thru then were "refunded". Checked the statement no refunds. Day 2 the water to our site was shut off due to needed repairs no problem, except no one told us until after we were ready to shower. Just imagine 90 degrees with 86% humidity Our rig had no water, the shower and bathroom had no water but the showers a quarter mile away had water. We rented the golf cart but had turned it in prior to knowing we were out of water. Once upon a time you could wander into the main office grab snacks, gifts or whatever. Now it's in a new building that is only open in the peak season ok no big we came in mid Sept. still hot but hey, they let us in to look around in the new giftshop, but we decided $60 for a sweatshirt was a bit much especially when we just purchased a hoody at another Jellystone for $15. We toured around the new cabins going in which look out of place as they resemble condos instead of cabins. When we checked out we let the staff know we would like to speak to the manager or someone about the washer refund and knocking a few bucks off for the lack of water for the day they said sure no problem. The manager will be in tomorrow I will have him call you! Is this the best number to reach you at? We said yes of course! That was on Sept 28, 2023 it is now Oct. 19th, 2023 so I called again today before writing this review. They said, hey our manager is in a meeting I can take your number and have him call you back I said no thank you, I've already been waiting a month for a call back. So here I am! There was a time that this was a magical place. The staff took the time to know your name and tell you about all of the adventures your kids and grandkids could have! They had all of the bears for you to pose next to, over priced gift shop open, the maze in the middle of the woods open to explore, fishing, and ducks. The adult pool area with jacuzzi! The kids pool, splashpad and water park phenomenal! Basketball, mini golf, the huge jump pad, arts and crafts too many things to mention! Oh and all of the different playgrounds for the kids to exhaust themselves on. Now the only playground onsite is clear across the entire campground where the new condos are. With out a golf cart you've gotta drive. We only have the RV. No more adventures in the forest with a stick watching out for imaginary bears, snakes and trolls, hoping you don't get lost or separated from your group in the maze to get to the fishing pond or a playground. Clean showers just so they could roll in dirt and get dirty again. I remember the plans of putting canoes and boats on the pond I guess that's still yet to come We drove over 2000 miles to bring our grandkids back to this magical place and chose to leave before our 4th free night as we were pretty discouraged by all that we had encountered. In closing all I am asking is for a partial refund of the $84 a day we paid for no water and a refund for the additional charges we incurred for laundry when your machines malfunctioned.10/20/2023 Hey guys! We got a response from the owner, He gave us the refund that...

The worst experience at a Jellystone I have ever had. I have been to all of the Jellystone parks in Texas with my family and so far this one has missed the mark to say the least on providing a great experience. I am giving 2 stars because the park itself is one of the nicest and cleanest Jellystone campgrounds I have been to, unfortunately that is about where the positives end. Anyone who frequents Jellystone knows that during the Halloween season there are special events and activities related to Halloween. This is the primary reason we travel every year for the last 3 years to enjoy a Jellystone park during the halloween season. Well, the Jellystone in Tyler was not prepared for the season to say the least. For the magic pumpkin growing, after paying $10 per person who wanted to grow a pumpkin, guests waited for almost 3 hours to take the hay ride the area to grow the magic pumpkins and then the pumpkins the kids got were the tiny pie pumpkins and the staff left the seeds exactly where they were which took away from the "magic"....the last 2 years we have done this at other parks not only was there more attention to detail in maintaining the "magic" but also the kids received full sized pumpkins and it was only $6 per person. Next issue was when we went to do the t-shirt tie dying...again we knew there would be Halloween themed t-shirts to tie dye...when we got there to purchase the shirts we were informed that they were out of ALL youth sizes, and we were early to the event which means they were just simply not prepared for the weekend. Why would you not have all of the youth sizes since this is geared towards kids?! THEN, the next day we went to do the coloring page craft, which was again supposed to be a Halloween themed coloring page and we get there and they announce "we are out of the Halloween coloring pages, but we have plain white paper for the kids to color on..." like what the heck is going on here!! ZERO preparation for the busy Halloween season and zero care for the experience the guests were having... Now for the Cherry on top of the cake....I go in on Saturday 10/12 to rent a Cabana for 10/13 so we could pick our cabana and ensure that we were close to the water playground so we could see our 3 littles easily, the youngest of which is 3 years old. I spoke with a lady at the front desk, she provided me with a map showing the layout of the Cabanas, showed me which ones were available and asked me to tell her which one I wanted. I picked the one that was available and provided the best view of the water playground...next day I show up to the water playground area to get everything set up and I see people occupying the cabana I rented the day before. I go to the front desk and let them know what was going on only to be told, "oh we dont allow people to pick the Cabanas, that is all assigned by the system and we cant change what the system tells us to do"...I explained that the lady the day before pulled out the map, showed me which cabanas were already taken and allowed me to pick one of the open ones, but no one cared what I had to say and did not show any remorse for what had happened and just kept blaming it on the system. How did she know which ones were already rented if they aren't assigned until the morning of the rental? What was she seeing in her system? It was complete BS and I felt like I was just being lied to left and right. I have rented cabanas at other Jellystones, I have always been allowed to pick and have always gotten the one I picked... After all of this and letting things slide all weekend I finally decide I want to speak with the higher up management, so I call, phone rings and rings and rings, until I finally get the option to leave a voicemail. I leave a voicemail asking for the highest up manager to please come visit me at my site or at the water playground so we can discuss and if that doesn't work let me know and we can meet up Monday...radio silence and still have not heard anything from anyone with Jellystone Tyler to address these unacceptable...

This was our second time here and the first time exceeded our expectations, by far. This time around we were beyond disappointed. We returned for a birthday with the anticipation of making great memories as the first time. Well, we planned to arrive a little later than the office closed. I had to contact the “in park emergency line” to figure out if we needed to head back home. (They said they called although my phone carrier records show otherwise) anyways… we show up get our package and head to our cabin. Well we don’t have a key for our cabin. It’s cold outside and again I have to call the “emergency line” for something that is not an emergency to access our cabin that we paid for. The lady that unlocks our cabin was great, and basically said if you need to leave your belongings she would be there till 10pm and to leave our cabin unlocked since well…we didn’t have a key until the office opened the next morning. Well we went to check in the next morning and Dakota just brushes it off, “sorry that was my bad I forgot the key” and continues checking is in and gets us a golf cart. Our cabin didn’t have heat and the window shades would not close. It wasn’t until we left early Saturday (after pushing and pushing to make the best of the birthday weekend due to the issues that continued to arise) we found a remote for the unit in our cabin to control the temperature. We checked out at 6:30-7 the day before check out and cleaned/dropped off everything in the drop box. As soon as the office opened the next morning I called to receive a partial refund for the negative experience and my child got sick from the miserably cold weather (both in our cabin and outside). I spoke to the manager Chad (who may need to be retrained on customer service). Basically answering the phone saying, “what you are saying is untrue” and after expressing my concerns “well the key situation is irrelevant at this point” and “I don’t control the weather.” He continued to try to say our family was out fishing the whole weekend which is interesting because I didn’t fish or even go near their lake 1 time. My older son went fishing by himself for about an hour. I asked for the situation to be resolved and he said “do what you need to do and I will also call corporate and provide them with the receipts of our conversation” as he was the person who answered the emergency line. First off, the key isn’t irrelevant- if I would have just left since we didn’t have a key I would have received a refund, despite him arguing that I would not have because it’s their “policy.” I don’t care what the policy is, you always do your best to resolve an issue, keep business and make the guest happy. I was not being ridiculous by this request. I continued to ask how it could be resolved and he said it’s our policy. I said, could we potentially be rebooked for a different weekend then due to the overall poor experiences and he said NO! He was definitely not trying to work with me to resolve it. He was trying to defend Dakota and maintain the “it’s our policy.” Well I guess if Jellystones new policy is to ride the policy so hard to where the guest is still unhappy, issues are left unresolved, and losing business. The park itself had completed a ton of new upgrades which were nice until you’re being nickel and dime for everything. Again, the last time we paid for our cabin, food, and a few rounds of laser tag. Now they charge for bingo cards, putt putt golf, and all the “planned” Jellystone activities. It would be great if the money I spent on an extra night went towards retraining to improve some customer service...