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16 reviews for Wilderness Hotel & Golf Resort
Oh wisconsin dells. You never fail to dissapoint me.
I've been to the dells 3 times, and the first two times and a tight budget staying at cheaper places. But now, dum dum dum, the boy and I have great jobs and could afford to slurge! Whoopie.
Stayed here mid september (off-season) for 3 nights and it was great. Except for the fact that, yes you have a lot of walking to do. Another issue was that one of the water parks attached to my hotel was only open friday-sunday. Well, thanks for telling me that before I booked.
They now have a canopy line within the hotel and looks fun until we called down to book an appointment and found out it was $40 a person. No thanks, we headed down the street to extreme world and bungie jumped for less.
The hotel room was amazing. 2 bedroom condo suite in Glacier Canyon. Two bathrooms, balcony looking out into a vacant outdoor water park, tvs everywhere, fireplace, kitchen. It was great. The price was around $540, not cheap but thankfully was split between 4 people.
Just a warning....
Wilderness has this ride called the hurricane. 4 people tube ride that dumps you into a big funnel type thing (they have one at Six Flags Chicago) So myself and my party of 3 get in the tube and away we go. Quite dark and steep drops. Then we are dropped into the funnel and we are going back and forth, back and forth holding on for our lives about to tip over. I'm screaming my lungs out, fearing for my life. Finally the ride ends and we ask the person working there "has anyone ever fallin out of this ride or gotten hurt?" the person said no. Next thing we see, is an empty tube coming down and a few seconds later, two young girls and a dad floating down. One of the girls is screaming saying she cant breathe. AWESOME! So we are walking around and decide to ask anything worker there the same question and she says "yeah at least once a week" hm.. I was forced back on this ride against my will but this time they weighed us. (i guess there is a weight limit and we were sure as hell over it) I believe the weight limit was 600 lbs or so and we were probably 100 lbs over that, no wonder we almost died the first time. So we had to split into 2 groups and it was much better the second time. It didnt go as fast or high and i didnt feel like iwas going to die. wooo!
Stayed three days at the Wilderness and it definitely beats out the Kalahari Resort! We went to two of the outdoor parks and two indoor water parks, and they were all fun.
The indoor wave pool has a ceiling that lets in UV rays for year round tanning. For chillaxing and general cool vibe, we liked the outdoor Glacier Canyon "Lost World" waterpark area. They were playing great music, which you could hear clearly, had a great Lazy River, one short but fun slide with mats, and plenty of areas for kids to enjoy. 18 holes of mini golf at Lost World, among upturned Mastodon tusks and dinosaurs was way better than the black light 9-hole Abyss mini-golf. Although the Abyss had real moray eels, fish and sharks among the fake painted ones.
There are plenty of shuttles to shuttle you from one waterpark to the next, but skip it. Just learn where things are. We laughably drove to Glacier Canyon and then noticed it was a 3 minute walk from our hotel room! Shame on you Chicago reviewers for saying it was too spread out- it can't be much more than your walk to the EL. There are also golf carts that will pick you up and shuttle you around so you don't have to burn off those Wisconsin Cheese Curd calories if you really can't bear to walk!
We did the Northern Lights Arcade one night and were a little confused as how to get started. You get a credit card and add money and swipe everything now, no quarters. The kids loved the air gun shooting gallery and racked up the "tickets". There are no more tickets shooting out of the skee ball machine, etc. it's all remembered by your swipey credit card! The kids did so well they both got good prizes after already enjoying the games.
The room was modest and we were on the third floor. Best to not stay on the second floor with all the foot traffic going between the parks. Our bathroom was tiny and does the fan always have to be on (and super loud) everytime the light is turned on? We were fine with our room but will try to book something nicer in Glacier Canyon area of the hotel next year. They are also building 4 zip lines in that area so you can zip through the tops of pine trees! Can't wait!
We did not eat at any of the resort restaurants save for a deli near the wave pool one afternoon- it's best to avoid unless you want to really spend $4.50 for a hot dog that's almost inedible. They at least had a good chicken salad sandwich, but it's best to avoid being stuck here for a meal. They do serve Starbucks coffee in a few places! Bring your own food and drink and stock your dorm fridge, and get your meals elsewhere.
Wilderness= Better than the Kalahari! Yep, really!
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My wife and I stayed here for 4 nights and 3 days. Excellent service! The rooms are great, and a lot cheaper than some of the other resorts in the area. They have several waterparks right on property.
Shuttle bus, and Pizza place right within the area.
I will be stay here again!
We stayed at the Glacier Canyon Lodge in a two bedroom unit. It was fairly nice, with a functional kitchen, a nice little sitting area with fireplace (possibly fake) and TV and the two bedrooms. There was two of us and a little one, and there was plenty of room. Furnishings were nice, if not exactly my style.
I've never been to a water park resort before, so I don't have anything to compare it to. The outdoor pools/play areas were actually pretty nice, and 2 of the 3 indoor areas were good for our little one. The third (Klondike Kavern- complete with witty incorrect spelling) was breathtakingly horrible.
Here's my gripes- stay on the top floor if at all possible. The second floor has a tremendous amount of foot traffic because of the skyways that connect the different areas of the resort. The ceilings are superthin and you can hear everything (I mean everything) that the people upstairs are doing. So go for the top floor.
Would it kill the management to put in some sidewalks? Everywhere you walk, and you're going to do some walking, is through a parking lot or access road. Cars + crazy, hyped-up kids=disaster waiting to happen.
Thirdly, probably 75% of the families there (including mine) had a toddler, but there is not much for toddlers there. I see a huge opportunity to make even more money here. Most of the water features and 99% of the only dry playground are made for older kids. And that's fine, but would it kill them to put a swingset in somewhere? Or have something open up before 9, because not too many toddlers sleep in past 7.
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The wilderness is a mystery inside a mystery. On the outside it seems great. They do have a great variety of rides set up in a manner where each mini park has a few kid stuff and a few older kid stuff. Getting to each mini park is where the "fun" begins. Some things need to be reached by going up and down stairs, winding through floors of the hotel, etc., quite annoying....
The standard rooms are incredibly small and mostly for utility purposes. Two beds right next to one another with a couch next to that. Almost a motel feel rather than a resort.
Another issue is the towels. Would it kill them to shell out a few more bucks on some towels that are larger than dish rags and more absorbent. These things are double strength paper towels at best. Bring your own and watch it like a hawk.
The only other main issue is that most of the employees seemed to be shipped in for the summer from some swedish country and speak very little English. It took me 15 minutes to find out whether or not my 4 year old could ride on my lap or not.
That said, it is definitely one of the nicer places the Dells has to offer. It boasts indoor waterparks, which was great since we ended up there on 70 something degree days.
We stayed here mainly to play at the waterparks, and this place certainly has their share. The hotel is OK, pretty standard rooms but unfortunately they route all of the foot traffic through the resorts (ie past the rooms) so it sounds like a herd of elephants in the hallways until around 11PM when the pools finally kick the last stragglers out.
The water parks are OK. Not great, OK. There are 4 indoor and 6 outdoor parks, but with a few minor exceptions, if you've done one, you've done them all. There were a few neat rides, but most were pretty ho-hum.
The kids had fun, so that was good. We found out later about Kalahari, a resort up the highway a bit that is SO much better. Next time, we'll try that.
The restaurants here are overpriced and mid-quality too. Big shock there.
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The Wilderness is one of the new generation of mega-waterpark-resort facilities popping up throughout the Dells.
We visited in the off season, during the week of spring break, and it was busy but not insane. The resort is huge, and is essentially several long three story motels connected end-to-end via skywalks, so you can get pretty much anywhere, but it can be a lot of walking. Getting a room on the third floor is recommended; the second floor will tend to see an amazing amount of foot traffic, and I would imagine you hear the stampede on the first floor as well. The room was unremarkable, with a television with moderate selection of DirecTV channels, free WiFi that bogged down in the evenings, a combined bathroom fan/light that was extremely noisy, and a tendency for the room to get really warm even with the heater off. Fridge and microwave, reasonably spacious, clean rooms. There's a registration desk at each end of the hotel facility, use the one farther in if the near one seems busy. We were promised a crib at check-in, but this never appeared.
We were satisfied with, but not too horribly impressed by, the buffet restaurant serving breakfast at the south end.
Wilderness claims four indoor waterparks (and of course the outdoor ones were closed), but this is a bit of advertising sleight-of-hand. There are only three at Wilderness Resort, one more is at Wilderness on the Lake, which is a different location. Of the three, one is a large wave pool and small play area for children, with large raft water slides behind. An indoor overpass to the Klondike Kavern makes this a good area for adults and kids, and the Klondike Kavern sports several tube and body slides, a lazy river, and a large water play fort, plus an indoor/outdoor hot tub and waterball pool. All of the body slides are slide-outs, where you don't get dumped into a pool, but rather slide to a stop and then get out. Good for kids, but don't expect that kersploosh-fhwump at the end. All the slides except the very smallest are completely staffed.
The Wild West waterpark was a little different, it had a small wave pool, waterplay fort, and some slides. We didn't care for it as much as Klondike Kavern, but it was mostly just different, not bad.
There's also a dry soft play area, the Timberland Play Park, that is a combined three story ball shooter area completely surrounded by tubes and crawl areas, slides, and all sorts of fun stuff. Any toddler's or small child's dream playland. A soft play area for infants and toddlers is also included, though bigger kids tend to not recognize the boundaries and storm through it at high speed, so be prepared to fend them off. A staff member is generally policing the area and enforcing the socks rule, a definite plus.
In any play area (water guns, ball shooter guns, valves and gags in the water play forts, etc) expect that a large number of items will be nonfunctional, which is kind of a shame. At least here, a large number of them were also operational, but it is a bit annoying to see pictures of all these things working on the website. The lazy river and waterslides in Klondike Kavern were closed for several hours, no explanation, but did eventually open.
The most annoying thing? Some of the other patrons. Kids old enough to know to be watching out for little kids, charging around like water buffaloes, getting scolded by guards for running, plowing by toddlers and infants. Elementary school aged kids trying to swing on the infant swings and swinging from the valve ropes. Teenagers going down the toddler slide. A father with his kid, trying to get his kid to swim in the lazy river (signs indicate you have to have a tube) - and he decided to get confrontational with the (extremely professional) lifeguard, who calmly and insistently prevailed and forced them to exit, but the kid became so agitated over the event, he threw up (fortunately after exiting the lazy river, unfortunately right next to us). Chaos and mayhem.
The big tube rides typically involved long waits, and were fairly short rides, but good fun.
We had an error on our bill. We had tendered two Dells chamber of commerce gift certificates and a Wilderness gift card as payment towards our room, and there was also a credit card advance payment deposit. One of the certificates did not appear on our bill. We did eventually work through that by finding the desk clerk that had registered us, but I am skeptical we would have resolved this otherwise.
The best deal for a place like this is the one-night stay. You get to use the waterparks on the day you arrive (you can check in even if your room isn't guaranteed ready until 4PM) and the day you leave, effectively getting you two days of waterpark for one night of hotel. You can probably get burned out after two days of waterpark.
Overall, it is a nice facility, room for improvement, but not a bad place to go. It isn't the Dells motel of the '70's, that's for sure!
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Every winter I make my annual snowboarding/ski trip to Cascade Mountain and I've stayed at a few hotels in the Wisconsin Dells area. My favorite is by far the Wilderness Resort. The Kalahari seems like it would be really nice but I think it's way overpriced. The Great Wolf Lodge is alright too but there is only one good water ride in their indoor waterpark. Wilderness has 3 or maybe even 4 indoor waterparks now. I think their indoor waterparks beats Kalahari and Great Wolf. The price at Wilderness is fair too. I've stayed in their Double Suite for $99/night. I recently stayed in their 3 bedroom premium condo in the Glacier Canyon Lodge and really loved it. It's very modernized, granite countertop, flat screen tv, gamecube for the kids, and just very spacious in general. You can sleep so many ppl because the rooms come with sofa sleepers and the living room has a murphy bed. It's a great place to rest after a long day of snowboarding or skiing.
P.S. The pillows here are so comfortable!
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MK & I stayed here whilst up for a wedding (10/3-10/5/08) and we had a lot of fun. We did it so we can figure out if we wanted to come back with Aidan sometime next year.
Water attractions were fun (especially if you're a kid) and the resort is a huge massive place with a variety of types of rooms and accomodations. I will say that the food on site isn't that great and it's awfully expensive but I guess they feel they have you trapped and you're not going to head "off campus" in your wet swim gear with the kids to grab lunch.
We were here off-season of course so the rooms were very inexpensive and well worth it. I can see that Aidan will have a blast the next time we go. They are very accomodating and friendly throughout the resort and the check-in process is about as simple as it can get.
It sure isn't your Father's Wisconsin Dells! Although the hokey motels are still around, this is a whole new step for the city and was time and money well-spent.
I thought the place was just alright.
The room was a standard room; identical to the one i stayed in at Kalahari and great wolf last year. The bathroom is super small. The ceiling/walls are paper thin and we heard everything going on around us.
I didn't like how spread out the water parks were. There was alot of walking involved. Unfortunately, the weather wasn't the greatest during our stay so we were limited to the indoor water parks. there is alot to do for kids though.
i did like the wave pool and that the hot tubs were indoor/outdoor. another plus is that they have a shuttle bus that goes up and down the resort to drop you off at various parks so you dont have to walk all the time.
Aaahhh the Wilderness
I made a call to Wilderness Resort, they have plenty of rooms available and we were able to get a 2 bedroom villa to share with my cousin and her family. This place was huge!! Clean and we are entitled to use their water park for free as we are their resort guests.
I love this place, we will definitely come back here again!
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My Wisconsin friends and I rented a 4-bedroom condo for the weekend and had a blast! There are 2 waterparks, each with body slides, tube slides and a feature ride (the Hurricane and the Cannonbowl). Wilderness does not sell passes to the waterparks, so only resort guests are allowed to use them.
Additionally, there is an arcade, laser tag, pottery making, wagon rides and a slew of other activities. A shuttle will take you anywhere you need to go on the resort grounds.
The condo was fully equipped with kitchen utensils, a dishwasher, icemaker, DVD and video, extra towels and pillows. I would recommend bringing extra blankets, however, no one was cold as we had temperature control.
It can be pricey compared to other cabin/condo rentals in the Dells, but having the waterparks right there offers a lot of fun.
The downside (or upside, depending): a lot of families vacation here, so expect small, medium and large children.
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Yes, the Dells are a tourist trap.
Yes, the Dells are a drive.
Yes, the Wilderness Resort is a boat load of fun.
Laser tag, Pottery painting, Indoor / Outdoor hot tubs, Indoor Waterpark, Indoor Tanning Waterpark, Indoor Little Tikes Waterpark, Indoor Arcade with torpedo launching tower of fun, bowling, and more?
Restaurants on premises are not the best.
They do have Sundari, one of the top rated wellness spas in the country.
I have stayed in the Condo, The Cabins and in the Main Hotel.
Go for the Condo right near the little kids waterpark. Best place for the money, two full bedrooms with a jacuzzi room overlooking the lake, nice and quiet since most opt to stay near the main parks, and THE DRIVE YOU EVERYWHERE. Pick up service within the premise to any of the parks and to the CASINOS!!
I have been here over a dozen times, I do seem to develop lung infections from prolonged exposure to the pool areas, heavily chloronated for your protection I am sure.
Lazy River, Wave Pool, Slides, Theme Areas and more all indoors. I have never been during the summer to check the outside parks though they look just as good. Breakfast buffet in the main building is reasonable and filling if you eat lots of cheese, meat and eggs - I opted for a salad.
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Wilderness resort is the place to stay in the dells - they have so much to chose from - I like how spread out they are so you can have a nice quiet family vacation together and then when you're feeling like really having fun you can get wild at the waterparks!
Then at the end of the day go back to your cabin or villa- grill with the family and sit on the screened in porch.
It has everything you want..
We are excited to go here! We have reservations for January! About 8-10 of us are checking out the Waterpark and Cascade Mountain Skiing for a weekend. We got a large 4 bedroom townhouse condo. Its gonna be great. Glad to see great reviews, great amenities, and a short drive from Chicago is great!!
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As a self-identified NINK (no income, no kids) I was invited to spend a weekend at the Wilderness Resort with most expenses paid, and I can safely say it is a nice place with lots to do and very well kept facilities. By no means, should one expect that their weekend at the Wilderness Resort will be a quiet vacation away from it all. There are kids and families everywhere. There are children who enjoy running in the halls of the hotel from 7am until their bedtime. I was able to check out both the cabins and the villas, and they both come equipped with a lot of amenities. The cabins allow you to have slightly more privacy if you're staying with a big group compared to the villas. Both situations give you a full kitchen so you can make some of your own meals. The villas have a hot tub along with a 3 season room.
Nonetheless the only thing I can say that was truly disgusting was the breakfast buffet at 11 a.m. on a Saturday morning. (order al a carte unless you're hungry... it's cheaper, warmer, and much more edible.) So if you have a waterpark craving in the middle of January or you want to meet up with a large group of people from all over the state/country, check out the Wilderness.
