Grand Bear Resort at Starved Rock

It was bad nothing open in the whole hotel. No stores or waterpark and not told in website ahead of time

Booked online with the expectation that there were restaurants on site. We’d been traveling 10 hours. Everything was shut down. Got to our room and had to move due to ants. Then a trip back to town for food. Was worried that because the sofa in room 219 was visibly damaged, that would not be passed on to us. Still I think this would be a great vacation stop for a family.

Do not under any circumstances stay here. We were staying in family cabin 24-1for the weekend celebrating my Girl Scout end of year. I had 12 girls and several parents participating in the weekend so we required a large space to accommodate everybody. We selected a cabin so we could have planned meals and keep the group together and were deeply disappointed with our experience in cabin 24-1. About midnight on Friday one of the bedrooms was discovered to have bedbugs because one of the moms started developing welts and itchiness.. It made for a horrible night requiring us to displace five of the people from the cabin to another location and vacating everyone else in the morning. The way the issue was handled by the staff was embarrassing. First they told us we were making it up then after sharing pictures and video we got acknowledgment but nobody did a proactive thing to make the situation right. We tried to make the best of it but ended up leaving yesterday, a day short of our plan. The management handled this in the worst way possible. All I expected was somebody to offer to make this right and every step of the way I needed to ask over and over for that. The team repeatedly told me that Grand Bear doesn’t own the villas so cannot agree with or make a decision about a refund. It was disgusting, disappointing, and most importantly, I was so sad that the staff was unwilling to make it right for our girls. In the end, they only agreed to a full refund if we vacated the second villa which only sleeps nine and not sufficient for our entire group, immediately. They wouldn’t even agree to comp Pizza lunch on the pool deck. Finally one of the moms later found a complaint review from April 2024 about this exact cabin which made the situation even more infuriating. Because. They. Knew. AVOID. AVOID. AVOID.

Noisy not enough amenities

Nothing at the water park works the whole water park got shut down as soon as my family and I checked in. Everything is closed on Mondays, so it’s not point in going there on a Monday it’s a waist of money! The breakfast is to high and only has a couple items on the breakfast buffet.

We booked Grand bear resort to celebrate our little girl birthday. We booked for 2 nights which includes water park passes throughout our stay. I was skeptical about the negative reviews. But honestly we didn’t face anything like that. Very friendly staffs and addressed any requests promptly. Clean bathrooms in the lodge. Comfy rooms. Decent water park and arcade for YOUNGER kids. Overall we enjoyed our stay and felt worth the money we spent.

I heard mixed reviews of the property so I proceeded w/ caution. Upon check in I was informed that the big water slides were down as "something happened over the weekend". I was also told the restaurant will not be open despite my reservation saying free breakfast was included. There were not many people there, there MIGHT have been handful of guests overnight. We are in their off season so I understand. The waterpark was fun, we were the only guests there for the last hour and had it to ourselves. The arcade is a legit arcade where you can get tickets and all. The only drawback is that you need to buy a prepaid card that you swipe to play the games. The cheapest option to get a card is $25. The crane game prizes are stuffed far down and are next to impossible to get. The room was dated, needed some TLC. There is no cable TV. All they had is a very slow Vizio streaming interface on a small TV. The wifi is very slow and trying to pull anything up on the TV, along with the slow interface, was painful. Plan on bringing you own streaming stick. The room was passable but for picky travelers, they may not like it. I wish this place invested some money into upgrades. It has all the potential to be a family central Illinois destination

Melissa who checked us in and ran shifts at front desk was incredibly rude and was not willing to help with any requests we asked her. When we arrived after hiking all day and went to our room there was no working air conditioning and could not get couch to setup correctly. My husband went down to Melissa where she said very shortly that he would have to wait on maintenance then turned her back on him. I then went up there asking when maintenance would be there because I wanted a shower. She said there were calls ahead of us (which we found out there were not) and we had to WAIT! I then asked if we could switch rooms with everything else going on and she told me "there was a process" with a snarky attitude. I said can we switch rooms i would like a shower and she flat out said no! We then said we wanted to leave and were requesting a refund where she stated "no" again! She was rude and would do nothing to make us feel like we were valued there. Nick, maintenance, came in and was fantastic and Jamie at front desk was also understanding to our concerns. I have never been treated so ignorantly when I AM PAYING for a service and I expect to be treated like a guest. I almost walked out and completely forfeited our super expensive stay there for no amenities because it was "off season" Website needs to explain the use of the water a lot clearer or we would not have stayed there. The pool/whirlpool and our Waterpark was what we wanted after long days of hiking. Melissa has horrible customer service skills and definitely needs to be trained on how to talk to GUESTS!

The staff here were super friendly and the facilities would potentially be ideal for a family weekend. However, cleanliness was a let down; the room was dim and dusty and the pool area was pretty dirty with food trash, beer cans and even used bandaids discarded around the facility.