Grizzly Jacks Grand Bear Resort

We used to love coming to Grand Bear every year, but unfortunately, the current management is again running this once magical place into the ground. Our very large family has been coming here for 10 years and every year it gets worse…
Your policy regarding not letting guests have the keys until 4p.m. is ridiculous. For families coming for a weekend of fun, you (management) are making the job for your front desk staff unbearable. The wait to get to the front desk is even worse. After a one hour wait, my mother refused to leave the line because she wanted to speak to a manager. The manager «could not» speak to my mother so the front desk let her have the keys that she demanded after she had stood in the ridiculous line.
Your POOL!!! Ugh, how many times do I have to complain about your pool!!! It’s disgusting and so dirty!!! How has the Health Department not shut this place down? Shame on you for putting families in jeopardy with the extremely high chlorine gas that permeates the air! There is silt, sand, and trash all over the bottom. Two years ago, I scooped up the disgusting calcified floor that had accumulated in the corners of the hot tub and the lazy river and brought it to your front desk staff and asked to speak to a manager. Of course, they did not have a manager on duty on a busy Saturday afternoon with over 80 people in the pool area. So I took a picture of it and left it with the front desk to look at for the rest of the day. CLOSE THE POOL FOR ONE WEEK, CLEAN EVERY NOOK AND CRANY AND POWER WASH THE BOTTOM AND SIDES!!! I can’t even think about the last time you ever cleaned the Hot Tub. It has been that gross and disgusting for years now.
Still the Pool– Your water temperature is also ridiculous — if you are trying to save money on chemical gas for the chlorine tank by sacrificing hypothermia on your guests, you’re doing an awesome job. Your pool was a whopping 78 degrees on Friday. Are you kidding me? There is a difference between «refreshing» and down right freezing for little kids. After 30 minutes, the kids lips were blue and so were their little toes.
STILL the pool– Uh, do you have more than two lifeguards??? Pretty sure that a pool your size has to have at least four to operate on a daily basis. I only saw two. One at the bottom of the slide and one for the wave pool area. No one to watch the lazy river where I had to rescue a child who had gotten away from their mother at the playground and fallen in. No one would have seen that child if an adult had not been able to get to him quickly. No lifeguard by the kiddie slide to monitor the older kids who are sliding down and knocking toddlers out of their way.
YEP– the POOL!!! Pour some concrete and open the doors to the patio area that we used to enjoy!!! It would not be that difficult to make that area nice again. The first year we came, there were lounge chairs, a big inflatable slide for the kids, and sand for them to play in. What happened?
Cabins– Do you clean them and make sure that they are in proper working condition before you rent them out to families? Three sofa beds out of three sofa beds were broken. You state that the cabins hold 18 people. Only 12 of our family had places to sleep that we not broken. If you are going to advertise your cabins as sleeping 18, someone should make sure that all beds are in working condition. (Shout out to the awesome maintenance guys who did a fantastic job on fixing the 19,000 problems we had with our cabins.)
Train/​Shuttle Bus — WTH??? Half of the fun of Grand Bear was riding the train to and from the cabins??? Now there is no train AND no shuttle bus??? You are disappointing kids who have looked forward to that since they were little. It’s a serious problem that you have no way to transport your guests who pay for the luxury of the cabins to and from the resort areas.
I expect that you will once again ignore our poor reviews but I do hope that some families will read this before deciding to spend any mount of money on your business until you get management who actually cares about the customers.

At check-​in they only had one person working the desk took about 20 minutes to get checked in. Did get a room upgrade free of charge witch was nice. During the week one of the gift shops isn’t even open. The enchanted forest indoor amusement park is only open from 4 – 10 pm. The one guy working put the safety harness on my daughter so she could go on the two story rope obstacle course and he worked with it a while and finally o well it will be ok. So my daughter only was on the thing for five minutes because she didn’t feel safe. The staff here is not very friendly. The water park is ok and the snack bar that was supposed to open at 11 am was closed. Not sure if I would come back. Pretty sure next time I would head to Fun City.

Indoor water park was just right for the I entire family. Could use more for older kids or adults. If you get the Enchanted Forest cards and your check in time is 4:00. Swim for a little, then go to the amusement park. They’re only open 4:00– 10:00 during the week. We missed out on the whole amusement part. The arcade area was pretty nice, but, was weird that you couldn’t use cash. You had to take the enchanted forest cards, scan them through a machine and load money on to the card. The kids and I had problems trying to figure this out on our own. Need to make sure someone is actually in there to help you. Our room was the best. Very nice and clean. Over all, we had a great time. Oh, ps. skip the small desert area. Way over priced and not very good.

Filthy, terrible rooms terrible water park. EVEN MORE Terrible staff and customer service! DO NOT GO HERE

We purchased a water park pass. The «water park» was small and disgusting. This was a total waste of money at $ 20 per person. I would never recommend this dump. Ever. I feel the need to elaborate. The changing rooms are filthy. Standing water everywhere and everything smells terribly moldy. I didn’t want to take my shoes off. I had to ask my husband for the car keys so I opened the men’s changing room door and the stench of urine was absolutely unbearable! It actually burned my nose. When my husband and son came out of the locker area, their clothing was permeated with the smell of urine. The water park itself was a joke. A filthy wave pool that never made any waves, a «family slide» that is tiny and looks NOTHING like how it is advertised, a very small lazy river (also filthy). There is so much chlorine in the water that my skin was burning. Everything in this water park seems to be coated in a layer of scum and mildew. Everything was in disrepair. I honestly don’t know how this place hasn’t been shut down by public health.

I visited starved rock last week with my mother and son. We had had made the reservation for a two night stay at Grizzly Jack’s a week prior. The day before our reservation I was contacted by an employee at Grizzly Jack’s to inform me the water park and the «enchanted forest» were closed. We said fine but when we arrived, actually everything was closed except the room. No food, the arcade for kids couldn’t be used BC staff said they were locked out of where the game cards were. Somehow they still found it appropriate to charge us a «resort fee». We questioned this but no employee there seemed to have any answers. Housekeeping must have been closed as well because during our two night stay no one came to clean or bring clean towels. We accidentally left a bag of laundry when leaving and called the same day to report that. Now a week later no one will return calls about our missing clothing or answer our questions about the resort fee. Overall they accepted our money but never seemed to notice we were there. Next time well stay at State Park Lodge where they actually provide hospitality.

We won’t come here again. The hotel portion is dated, mattresses are uncomfortable, etc.
The locker rooms in the waterpark were smelly and dirty. My daughter loved the yellow slide and wave pool feature, but there is precious little else to do with a toddler here since everything is single rider.
Disappointed all the way around.

The place is a joke! Managment is pathetic, and the pool water is freezing and dirty. My young child’s lips turned blue within 2 minutes of getting in! They have scripted lies about the water being within state temperature limits so they can refuse to give any sort of refund. The chlorine smell is overwhelming because the water chemistry is so bad. Instead of writing a long review describing our experience, I’m just going to say– don’t go here! Total waste of time and money!!! PS-​when we couldn’t get service at the pizza place we had to go into town to eat where we learned this place is going bankrupt. Explains a lot why they don’t bother maintaining the business, the pool, or take proper care of guest concerns. Spend your hard earned money elsewhere

There are some nice things about this place. It feels safe, it’s quiet, nice scenery .
However, the villa we stayed in was pretty outdated. Old tube tvs — ours was v-​chip protected and couldn’t watch anything over G rating. The remote had no batteries. We notified the desk. No one came to fix it. Worst is really that the air conditioner only worked the first night, and not that well. After that it just blew air around. When I looked in the air handler closet I noticed the smoke detector had no batteries.
The blankets are pretty old and gross. Our s had a hole in it. The bed sheet was just draped over the bed — not fitted or tucked.
Nothing was too dirty, but dusty and spiders.
Whirlpool in our room didn’t work and later we realized the breaker was thrown downstairs. Not sure if it will work now, but missed the chance .
In general there are just a lot of things that need maintenance or weren’t done very well when they were built or maintained.

We gave this place a chance despite all the negative reviews. All I can say is we should have listened. Do your own research, but this place is really a waste of money & time.

Booked 3 nights and 4 days here over spring break months before going. I booked for 6 children and 3 adults. Their website calendar was checked for dates available. When checking in on a Saturday, which took 45 minutes due to lack of staff, we were told that our 3 night 4 day stay can only be 1 – 2 nights because they were shutting down the resort that Monday. They gave no explanation and acted surprised we weren’t notified in advance. According to the girl, we should have been notified that morning. Well, we weren’t. We should’ve been notified weeks prior to this stay. After driving 2 ½ hours to get there with all these excited kids, I felt obligated (to the kids) to stay at this point. There was no apology. They did not offer a discount. They did provide us with extra cards to use for the amusement park. Which was a joke in itself. Mind you, no arcade games included.

The housing was very nice. That’s why I give 1 star. The only issue is for the amount of money spent you’d think there would’ve been updated TVs with at least one DVD player. The indoor water park was as expected. Disappointed in the food/​bar part that was there. One person running it with lines going out the door.
Checked out their amusement park. I feel these attractions were for older children. Our age range of children were from 1 – 8 years old. Those «extra» passes for these attractions were a joke. Couldn’t even use them. Besides the lines and wait time to do anything were outrageous. The one thing my 4 year old wasn’t scared to do had the longest line. By the time we got to the front, he had become too impatient, started to cry and we had to leave the line because he didn’t want to do it anymore. Complete lack of staff.
I feel like I was completely taken advantage. If notified sooner of this time being cut I would’ve made other plans. I feel like I was preyed on. My children were used to keep our reservation. We bought all this food for 4 days to stay at this Villa. What a waste of time and our money. I will never go here again or recommend any friends or family to go here. Maybe if they would’ve handled things differently.

I had an amazing time until I almost drowned. We were in the pool and the waves where going. It was great fun till I lost my footing and couldn’t catch up with the water or get out without getting stuck. My mom kept pushing me up and it just wasn’t working. Finally she got me to the ladder and I pulled myself up and then my I pulled her up after she was under for serveral moments to get me up. Then the lifeguard who did nothing just told me to get off while the waves were going. I was not happy. We left shortly after.

My review is — under-​staffed, lazy staff, dirty and overpriced won’t be going back
All the games were $ 1 — $ 5 there was long waits for everything.

Just left after spending one night here. Clean rooms, friendly staff. only thing was pool water was wayyyyy to cold! Other than that it was great… indoor amusement park was amazing! My girls had an amazing time zip lining and playing laser tag (highly recommend) we will be back!

I won’t be going back. I feel like I wasted my money and time off. The villa was nice but per directions we had to scrub it before we left. The water park is a joke. It was so gross and the life guards are rude. Seemed every few hours someone would puke in the pool. Barely any inter tubes for the lazy river. It was gross and dirty. The indoor amusement park was not what I thought it would be. Rude staff at that! Big teenagers kept hurting my toddlers in the bounce house. I do not recommend and will not be going back.

My wife, my two young daughters, and myself joined my sister in law and her family here for the weekend due to a promotion (210 for the weekend plus $ 15 in amusement park credit per person per day). All I can say is this… you get what you pay for. The general vibe I got was the place was nice, but in need of maintenance and refurbishment that has been deferred a little too long.
The whole place is decorated in the rustic hunting lodge style, which basically means lots, and lots, and lots of log themed furniture and wall coverings.
First off — the whole place seems dated. Our rooms were nice and clean, but the décor and furnishings were dated. The bathroom toilet and tub shower were clean, but old. (not a bad thing), but the TV was an older CRT, however the remote didn’t work have the time. (My sister in laws room had an LCD, but the same issues with the remote). Programming on the TV was local broadcast, not appropriate for young children. Fortunately I had some animated movies loaded onto my tablet, along with the PBS kids app. I strongly suggest that other families do the same in this smartphone era. Also, the rooms do not have any coffeemakers, (I’m not one that really cares about free coffee in room, and would have gladly brought my own, but when even cheap hotels offer in room coffee, it is sort of expected.) The biggest complaint I had about the rooms though are the beds. Old mattresses which were extremely uncomfortable to sleep on. I tried the pullout bed, but it was even worse. I ended up sleeping on the couch (after folding the sofa bed back into it). Combine that with the lack of enforcement about quiet hours (to be mentioned later)
The Waterpark is small, but decent. Small kiddie pool (max depth of about 8−12″) with a slide, wide slide in the wave pool that’s good for younger children, Short lazy river, one tube and one body slide, large hot tub, and a frankly pathetic climing structure in the middle of the lazy river. Word of warning about the climing structure — Do NOT let your children play on it unsupervised. There is no bell announcing when the big water bucket is going to dump, just a barely noticeable hiss from the pneumatics indicating that it is tipping. Also the slides on the structure are standard playground slides, not water slides, which when combined with the structure being very wet, and wet children, makes them very fast, and unsafe. All that is at the bottom is about 1 – 2 inches of foam padding. Everything was decent, but again, the place just seemed a little run down and in need of maintenance. Unlike other postings, I felt that there was adequate lifeguard supervision — at all times I was in the waterpark, I saw no less than 4 lifeguards at key points. They also were running safety drills and trainings periodically through the day.
The «Amusement park» however, left a lot to be desired. My wife was here years ago, and said they used to have a lot more rides. Now it is more games, and a couple of rides. Attractions include a zip line, giant carnival slide (three tracks), three inflatable bounce houses, laser tag, a bungee bouncer, and a ropes course. There was also a tall structure marked as «leap of faith» (but this was not in use anytime I was there), and a lot of arcade games. What bothered us was that the amusement park credit was only usable on the rides, not the games, and that only certain attractions were being charged for — specifically laser tag, zip lines, ropes course, and the bungee bouncer — the same attractions that required employee supervision. The slide and the inflatables were unmanned, but the other guests at the park were polite and there weren’t any issues. My wife and I could have not received the promotional credit and our children would have still been able to do everything they wanted to do. I gave two of our cards to my brother in law, and gave the rest away. It would have been far better to reduce the credit, but make it usable on everything.
The one restaurant on site — Jacks place — is mainly a pizza joint (and a decent one too — good pie and decent price), but it was slow. over an hour for a medium pizza. They do offer a dinner buffet (the main lodge offers a small breakfast buffet. Both are well priced. I can’t speak to quality as we did not partake.
Another issue we had was the lack of enforcement of quiet hours — we had to call both nights at least 2 – 3 times after quiet hours started due to kids running and screaming in the hallway, and the parents not doing anything about it. It took multiple calls before they sent someone up to enforce it.
All in all, as other posters have mentioned, Grizzly jacks is an ok place to spent a weekend, and the price was right. but both my wife and I have stayed at other waterpark resorts and felt, while they were more expensive, we received better value for our money at other resorts.

I went to Grizzly Jacks for a fraternity formal. We stayed in a villa which was quite spacious and could house up to six people. There is a master bedroom, a bedroom with 2 beds, and a pullout couch downstairs. The kitchen was quite large and had utensils such as pans, silverware, and plates/​cups. We brought frozen pizzas to put in the oven, but I would also bring real food because there is not much around to eat. Grizzly Jacks is in the middle of nowhere. I would highly recommend bringing extra paper towels. They are also strict about linens staying in the villa, so you must keep tract of how many towels you initially have upon check in. It was relatively clean when we checked in.
The waterpark was average. The hot tub was pretty small and the seats were hard to sit on because they had a popcorn like surface. The lazy river is short, but it does the job. The wave pool does not go the whole time, so you have to plan when you would like to get in.
The reception hall that we were in was pretty big and accommodated about 100 people. The buffet was short, but they doubled up on the sides so twice the amount of people were there.
Overall, Grizzly Jacks is an okay place to go if you want to get away for a weekend. However, there are better places to spend one’s money.

Completely filthy resort! As I walked into our $ 450 a night villa, a roach was crawling near the light switch! Spiders and bugs all over the place. The toilets were all stained with urine. We called the front desk and asked for them to clean. When we came back we saw that the bathrooms were still not
Clean.
The waterpark is supbar and very small. The local swimming pool is more fun than this place. Lifeguards didnt seem to watch the kids. There was only one that seemed to care, the rest were chatting away with one another across the room.

Our experience at Grizzly Jack’s was very disappointing. I do not recommend it, especially if you have very small children.
First – we stayed in a 3-​room villa, which was fine. It was relatively clean, but a bit bare-​bones. There are cockroaches but I guess that’s to be expected in a relatively rural area. It’s fine for a couple of nights, I guess. I’m only giving the place 1 star because of the accommodation.
The water park, on the other hand, is terrible. If I could I would give it zero stars. The locker room is tiny and gross, with a lot of standing water. There were wads of hair and wet TP all over the place. It’s pretty clear that nobody cleans during the day. There is only one puny bench to put your stuff down to change. They charge like $ 7 to use a tiny locker. The towels are puny and they run out quickly.
Inside, it’s a total zoo. The lifeguards are few and far between and don’t appear to be paying much attention. Bigger kids are running wild and pushing. The toddler-​appropriate area is one tiny pool that’s maybe 6 feet in diameter and a foot deep.
The worst part, though, is the hazardous flooring in the pools. It is extremely sharp and spiky with portions crumbly and loose. There were a ton of people walking around with skinned knees. Me, my son, and my friend all had bloody knees after our first slide down the kiddie slide! That’s just dangerous and unhygienic. They had tiny pads at the base of each slide so they obviously know this is a problem.
This place is truly awful, dangerous, and a waste of money. I will never come back here again.

This place sucks, I’m being honest here. The water park is small and lame, the arcade is like 10 games and not cheap. Indoor amusement park is a lot of unused space and not fun. There is no restaurant at the resort, and no bar in the hotel (who doesn’t have a bar in the hotel). The shower in the room is falling apart, no coffee maker, the TV was a 26 inch tube which is no big deal but seriously, come on…
They close the pool at noon every day for something not sure what but I don’t think it’s for cleaning. The room had no book of local restaurants.
This place is dirty, poorly run and has tons of wasted potential.
Basically it’s gross, I wouldn’t recommend it.