Grizzly Jack's Grand Bear Resort offers skin-drenching fun all year long right in the beautiful setting of Starved Rock. Located just 90 minutes from Chicago, our 60 wooded acres offer all of nature's wonders plus a 24,000 sq. ft. indoor waterpark - Grand Bear Falls and our amazing 36,000 sq. ft. indoor amusement park - Enchanted Forest!! Admission is free for overnight guests to both parks and is based on hours of operation.
Categories
Indoor Kids Activities:
Amusements, Water Parks - Indoor
Outdoor Kids Activities:
Amusements
Kids Sports:
Mini Golf
Mini Vacations:
Day Trips From Chicago, Water Park Hotel, Spring Break / School Holiday
this is a great lodge like the dells use it for the hiking at starved rock not as a destination no food nearby and amusement park not that great but very nice to come back to after you spend day at starved rock hiking and like a mini vacation close to home
We brought our son to Grizzly Jacks and shared a room with my brother, sister-in-law and their 3 boys. We had a great time. We brought our own food and cooked dinner in our room which had a full kitchen. The rooms were very clean and cozy. The water park area was also well kept. The kids ranged in age from 1 year old to 8 years old and there was something for each of them. We had a great time and would definitely go again.
Nice place to stay at around the fall time. They have awesome fudge and crafts that the kids can do on the weekend. I liked the gift shop too. The food is just o.k. We went to a restaurant in town and enjoyed that much better. The hot tub wasn't clean so that grossed us out. Which is ashame because I really look forward to that. The water slide has different light shows to enjoy that you can pick each time you go down.
Its a guessing game. We never new what time things were open or closed. The restuatant is not opened during the week and opens at 4pm on Friday. The Amusement park is only opened Friday night and all day Sat. & Sun. During the week the waterslides, wave pool and lazy river are not turned on until 4pm. In fact there little snack shop wasn't open either today (Friday). Make sure you pack some food!!! The rooms have refrigerators and microwaves. As we were driving through Utica, the town looked as if it had a bar and grill. We drove to nearby Ottawa and Oglesby for dinner a few nights (both about 15 mins away). I would recommend it only for kids under 48". Older kids would find it disappointing. Oh... and the water is well water (brown). I had to run our room sink for 5mins. to get the brown water out. Kind of grossed me out.
Best to go in nice weather, so you can take advantage of the mini golf and the state park. The rooms are ok- very standard. It is nice to have so many activities in one place. The kids loved it, and of course there is an ice cream stand right next to the windows over the waterpark. They thought that was so cool.
We had a great time at Grand Bear. The rooms were clean and comfortable and the waterpark was alot of fun. It wasn't as clean as others. There were ants in several places. There also was not that much to do for the little ones. I found the staff to be a bit young and 'attitudinal' It was great being across the street from Starved Rock State Park-if you can drag your kids out of the building :)
My family had gone to Grizzly Jack's Grand Bear Resort back in Feb. because they had a great deal for mid week. Prior to booking our stay, I had researched it and was leary about going. But, I had e-mailed them my concers what I've read and was assured not to believe everything you read.
Because of the great deal, we ended up staying there on a Thursday night. There were no real restaurants on the premises, but I had already known that prior to going. The waterpark area was smaller than you would expect (if compairing it to the Dells), but it was just fine for a 4.5 year old and 2.5 year old. They have 3 different sections, but we basically stayed in the kiddie part. My husband and I did go on the 2 adult water slides and both thought the inner tube slide was much better than the body slide. They also have a wave pool that changes every 15 minutes. It's great for older kids and is pretty strong (no tubes allowed while the wave is in progress).
If they had another promotion (under $89.00 per night), we would go again especially mid winter.
The hotel staff was very nice, infact, one pool staff attendant had asked my kids what their names were. Once he was told, he had made it a point to call them by their names and ask how their day was going. My kids really liked that.
