First of all, I've been reading the other reviews and laugh at how pathetic the responses are from management. I don't give a crap how comparable you think your prices are to other places...it doesn't make your hotel a good value.
My husband surprised me with a night there for me and our kids. I'd been there before to visit guests, but never actually stayed the night. First of all, the waterpark is nice and a lot of fun. There was a bunch of sand in the kiddie pool???? There's not even sand in the waterpark. Plus, I don't need a 20 year old blowing their whistle at me when I try to take my toddler down the kiddie slide. I'm perfectly capable of taking care of my child and she wasn't quite ready to do it herself. One of the other lifeguards told our teenager that she couldn't leave the waterpark until she dried off, but she had been sitting on a towel at the table with me for 20 minutes and wasn't even wet except for some of her hair, all while dripping wet kids had been running all over the hotel. C'mon, really?
Probably my biggest complaint about the waterpark is the cost of a locker. $10!!!!!!! For a standard, can-barely-fit-my-stuff-in-it locker. And that's EACH. We were really ticked off about that since we had already been checked out and didn't have access to a room. That's a total and complete ripoff. I'm sorry, but lockers should be included in the exorbitant price of the room, which, by the way, was twice as much as the rate listed on the website.
Our other teenager spent a lot of time in the arcade and enjoyed it. The MagiQuest game looked fun, but wasn't worth spending $60 for a toddler. Maybe for a grade-schooler. The pajama story time was cute for our toddler and the snow machine was a really cool touch. (no pun intended) The pizza at the restaurant was pretty good. The highlight of our meal was our waitress. She was AMAZING!! I wish I could remember her name so I could give her some kuddos on here. We did not take advantage of other services at the hotel. The prices for the spa are really high. Even higher than at Chateau Avalon, a luxury bed and breakfast down the street. Our room keys stopped working a 1/2 hour or more before we even checked out, but the gentleman at the front desk was very nice about it and fixed the problem. Beware, we were told that because we were using a debit card instead of a credit card, even though we had it processed as a credit transaction, that we would not be allowed to have anything charged to the room. As someone who has worked in the banking industry, I can tell you that this is incorrect and either they have a really stupid policy or the lady at the desk didn't understand what she was talking about.
Now for my big complaint about the hotel. The quiet times, or what they call "hibernation times" are from 11pm to 7am. I completely understand that this is a kid-friendly hotel, and I'm all for letting kids run amok in the appropriate areas, but the wings of the guest rooms, which are separate from the main entertainment areas, are NOT appropriate areas for kids to be running and screaming at all hours of the night. It took me over 2 hours to get my toddler to sleep because of all the kids running, laughing, screaming and yelling down the hall at each other. Our room was 1/2 way down the wing, plenty far away from the main areas, and on the 4th floor. I don't know if the people in the room either below us or on either side of us were just going crazy or kids running around somewhere else, but the bed was literally shaking from all the banging around. This was after 10:30 at night. Management should have a strict courtesy policy to keep the clamor and noise away from the guest rooms. Of course, parents should be teaching their kids to have more respect for the people around them as well.
If I had a choice, I would stay at one of the other several hotels in the area and probably just pay for admission to the waterpark. You'll save yourself a lot of money and probably get a quieter, better night's sleep. Basically, good concept, fair execution.
This review is the subjective opinion of a TripAdvisor member and not of TripAdvisor LLC