Grand Bear Resort at Starved Rock — Restaurant in North Utica

Overall, highly disappointed. Only reason I gave this place 2 stars was for the holiday decorations & cleanliness of the rooms. Was planning on visiting the waterpark as a daily guest during winter break but last minute, it was posted on the website that they were only allowing overnight guests to use the waterpark. No problem. Decided to book a room and do an overnight stay instead. Called the hotel reservation line and specifically asked them if the waterpark was available for use on day of check-in and they told me absolutely no problem. Check-in 1 out of 5: Fast forward, we go to check-in around 11am, fully aware that we wouldn’t get a room until 4pm or later and the front desk associate said “Well you’re all checked in. That’s about all I can do for you right now.” I asked for our waterpark wrist bands and she said we couldn’t access the waterpark until 4pm unless I paid an extra $50 for the VIP access. I explained to her the conversation with the reservation line and the fact that it doesn’t state that on any of the various reservation confirmations that I received… she could’ve really cared less and just said there was nothing she could do. So I paid the $50 because I wasn’t going to sit there with nothing to do for my kids for 5 hours. Restaurants 1 out of 5: this was the part that probably irked me the most… Left the waterpark, showered, and decided to go to Jack’s place for dinner. Posted hours of operation was 8a-9p. Arrived at the reception at 7:20p and was told by one of two waitresses that they’d be around to seat us in a few minutes. 7:33p rolls around and she finally comes up to seat us. We tell her 6 and she says “oh sorry we actually take our last seating at 7:30p”. I told her 1) we’ve been standing here since 7:20p and 2) the posted hours for the restaurant are until 9pm. Again, a second worker we encountered that could’ve cared less and was told she could place a take out order for us until 8pm. So because we had no other options, we placed a take out order. Decided to head down to the tree-top cafe to sit down and wait for our food. My daughter wanted ice cream and French fries. I told her to wait until after dinner because again posted hours were 9a-9p where I was told by the worker “if you want ice cream, get it now because we close at 8 and we don’t make fried foods starting 20 minutes before close”. We got our ice cream and the guy working there promptly shut off the lights at 8pm but cleaned up, count his money, and sat there for almost an hour until 9pm. He must have turned away 15 families coming down for ice cream who all stated “but you’re supposed to be open until 9”. Pretty much the waterpark and arcade were the only two things that stayed open to their posted hours of 9pm. Even when we stopped by the bar Higbys, whose posted hours were until 11pm, I asked what time they were open until. The bartenders responded with “hmmm well I don’t know I guess. Just whenever I feel like closing up but we stopped selling food at 8pm. Probably in about 30 minutes or so.” At this point it was 8:45p with at least 10 people sitting at the bar. Hotel Room 3 out of 5: We had a family suite balcony room off of the main floor. Room was spacious enough for 4 adults and two children. Very clean with soft beds.

IMO the owners of this hotel need a lesson on conducting business. First, you don’t close all the outside the waterpark amenities before or at the same time as the waterpark. Families are going to want to leave the waterpark and go to dinner, get ice cream, or play in the arcade AFTER the waterpark. You’re losing out on some serious revenue doing this. Second, in any restaurants business known to mankind, your posted hours are your posted hours. If you’re posted to be open until 9pm, then you seat until 9pm. You don’t have workers close up at 8pm and then have them sit around until 9p collecting money for doing nothing. If you don’t have enough workers, then change posted hours of business to 8pm as the last seating and give the workers an hour to clean up after...

The resort itself is in a good location. And the pool area, putt putt, etc. are nice amenities. The two star review is for the following: Negative experiences with staff including causing our daughter to cry and providing zero aid in reuniting her with us.

The person working the front desk when we arrived (10am Saturday Oct 14) was dismissive and seemed like he couldn't care less that we were there. We asked if our room was ready and if there was a way for us to check-in early. He said our room was ready but we could not check-in without paying an $89 fee for a early check-in, 30 minute early pool access, and a late check-out. I explained that we didn't need early pool access or a late check-out but that an early check-in would allow us to get settled and take advantage of the pool. He said we could have our wristbands and use the pool before we checked into our villa. I clarified that although no one had been in our room the night before, it was clean, and available, we could NOT have the key early without paying a fee but could utilize every other aspect of the resort? He said yes. I told him we weren't interested in late check-out or early water park access, and he continued to be dismissive and shrug his shoulders. If our room wasn't ready, or had been occupied the night before, we would have completed understood.

Later in the day we came back (after 2pm) and the woman at the desk was lovely, helpful, and accommodating. And quickly gave us our room key without question.

Later that evening we were in the pool area. When we entered the girl working at the towel station didn't great us, share any rules, or speak to us in anyway. While at the pool, our 11-year-old asked if she could go up to the main level to do a craft while we finished swimming. We said yes and planned to meet her up there. Then she came to the window that overlooked the pool and was trying to wave us down. We didn't see her right away, or notice her. Once we did, we motioned for her to come in to us. But she kept trying to get our attention to come out. We went out of the pool area to find her sobbing, and hyperventilating because the towel desk woman (working at 4pm on October 15) had refused to let her enter without a parent. When our daughter asked what she was supposed to do, the pool attendant shrugged and didn't offer to help our daughter get in touch with us to reconnect. We had NO idea they wouldn't have let her back in and the young woman working the towel desk seemed complete disinterested in helping our daughter reunite with us which lead to our daughter panicking and sobbing on the main floor because she wouldn't be let through. The towel desk worker saw her crying, and seemed unphased as she chatted with a friend.

My husband spoke kindly to the pool attendant about it and she was flippant with him and didn't seem to care. We then spoke to the front desk, and they were much more apologetic and said they would speak to the pool supervisor. It is beyond me why any person with common sense wouldn't have suggested they help a child reconnect with their parents. Our daughter is old enough to go off on her own, but she certainly wasn't prepared to be met with such disinterest from staff to help her when she learned the rule that she couldn't enter the pool without a parent.

The cost ($421 total for one night in a villa) felt high for what we received considering the age of the facilities, which showed.

Our experience with these situations really colored our time at Grand Bear and made us hesitant to come back.

However, I can say that the man who handled our reservations was amazing, and the man who was working the arcade during our stay was kind and accommodating. The women who worked in Jack's were also very hospitable.

But a few bad eggs and poor service can impact someone's feelings on an experience and the individuals I referenced above certainly...

Overall, it's not great. Maybe I'm a bit biased, having grown up near Kalahari in Ohio and visited there a few times, but Grand Bear has a lot of room for improvements, considering they're trying to copy a similar setup as Great Wolf and Kalahari. We spent over $500 for 2 nights with the "VIP" package and 1 dinner at Jack's.

The room - $69 for the "VIP" package wasn't bad, considering you can check in 3 hours early, get into the pool early, and check out 3 hours later. The room seemed clean, but we did find some bugs (more on that later), and things were kind of beat up and not well cared for. The TV was nice, it's a smart TV and you have access to log into most of your favorite apps... as long as it works. The internet is worse than any hotel I've ever been in, and for some reason, cell service seems to mostly disappear as well.

Jack's - Our meal at Jack's was not worth the money. My wife got the Apple Cider Mimosa, and there was no carbonation to it at all, and I had to really "look" for the champagne flavor. I ordered a fall version of a cocktail, and it was so bland I can't remember the name or what it was supposed to be a fall twist of. The best plate was the brisket sandwich my wife ordered. It was the only thing worth the money. I ordered the wing appetizer as my meal and was given 3 large chicken strips... they also only allow 1 sauce (I choose bbq), and it was soaked in bbq sauce, probably Walmart brand. The fries for my meal and the tots for 1 of the kid's meals were bland like they started off frozen.

The water park - Again, I might be partly biased because of Kalahari, but this place is TINY, very dirty, and not maintained. There's a large yellow "family" slide, but only kids are allowed to use it. There's only 1 small play area for toddlers. It is heated slightly more than the general pool area, which is nice. The general pool area doubles as a wave pool, but there's only 1 small yellow light that indicates when it's starting. There's a cave area that connects the main/ general to a second pool area that merges with the lazy river. There's a small whirlpool section in the lazy river area, which inner tubes aren't allowed in. The river circles around a small play area for kids, but it's quite rusty and, again, not maintained. The 2 slides don't have water on them, so if the kids aren't already really wet, they'll stick to the slides. The small bucket dump sprays everywhere as you fill it and dumps backward. Several areas of the protective coating are coming up. There are only 2 large slides, 1 body slide, and the other is a tube slide. They're not bad but could use a little bit of lighting inside when it's nighttime. Also, the big bucket dump is disabled for some reason. There is a nice little snack bar in the park with decent prices, but they apparently only staff it during peak hours on Saturday (from what I saw). Also several broken windows.

Outdoor area - We were there in the fall, so I don't know if it's in use, but it looks about the same as the inside, not maintained. There's a beach volleyball area and some random tables, chairs, and lights, but none of it really made sense to me. I think it would be better to get rid of the "beach" area and expand the water park.

Bugs - I don't know how or why, but there are lots and lots of bugs everywhere, the pool, the towels, the room, everywhere. I think they're boxelder bugs, but I'm...