We arrived at 4 PM (the earliest we were told we could check in) to find a very busy lobby. After I waited 25 minutes, I finally got to the counter. I was first informed that our hotel room was not in the hotel where the water park was, but rather in the hotel down the street a block, not connected to the water park. We were told there was a shuttle that ran between the two hotels so there was only a minor inconvenience. The counter person then handed me our park passes, but they were one short. Even though the reservation person had asked the number of people staying in the room, they never informed me that only a certain amount of park passes came with each room, so I ended up shilling over an additional $17 for another park pass (this on top of a very expensive hotel room, and I was not happy.
We drove over to our hotel and was immediately concerned about the safety of the car. My theory was that my five year old minivan wasn't going to be the first choice of your standard thief so I risked it. We went up to our room, and although it wasn't the worst room I'd ever rented, it wasn't very nice and the level of dust showed this room had probably not been rented in awhile. We quickly decided to change into our swimsuits under our clothes for the 25 degree trip over to the water park and burn out the kids for the evening. My wife called to the front lobby to find out the size of the lockers and was told 18 X 6 (?) and indeed if we brought our own locks, we could safely secure our stuff.
The water park was swarming with out of control 8 to 13 year olds, most with no parental supervision at all. We went to the locker rooms and immediately discovered the lockers were much larger than described to us, and could not be locked regardless of whether we brought our own locks or not. Since I had some valuables, and I was pissed off for being lied too, I left my family and went upstairs to complain. While I waited to speak to the manager, I overheard another guest complaining about the state of their room (blood all over the bathroom and seriously soiled sheets [!]) and how they were leaving. I got to the counter and explained to the manager that I was very upset about the fact that A) even though they knew the number of members to my party, they never once mentioned there was a limited amount of park passes per room, and B) that we were lied to twice about the ability to secure our stuff in the water park. He apologized, remitted the price for the additional wristband, and secured my valuables behind the counter.
The water park was nothing special. The little kids play area was a big hit with our kids, but the one open pool they had was a tribute to Lord of the Flies, with dodge balls replacing the big rock. We seriously could not even think of putting our kids in there. The meandering river was also a nightmare. Unruly pre teens pushing everyone and everything out of the way to chase each other around while their half drunk parents blindly stared out into space with no concern for their kids behavior (and probably questioning most of their life choices up to that moment). The water slide was fun, and very fast and the line moved fairly quickly. After an hour and a half, we had decided we'd had enough (even the kids were saying can we go now, which coming from kids in a water park is saying something). We retrieved our clothes, changed, got our secure items from the front desk and called the shuttle bus to take us back to our hotel. By the way, the shuttle guy was the only legit employee the entire place had.
We went out to dinner, but the kids were exhausted so we went back to our hotel. The level of volume in the hallways was akin to the howler monkey exhibit at he zoo. The same unruly 8-13 year olds were left alone in their rooms while their parents were getting sloshed someplace. Occasionally you'd hear one parent trying to reign in their children, but those were few and far between. Being we got the last room in the hotel, we were in the very middle of the hall and so regardless of what side of the hotel the kids were in, we heard them. The hotel had one security person coming through but he was too overwhelmed with the amount of out of control kids, and the kids had figured out his pattern and knew when to be quiet and back in their rooms. This went on until around 1 AM. Three times someone tried to get into our room (whether this was by mistake or by intent I won't know for sure) and when at 12:30AM one of the young kids went on a swearing rampage, I almost went into the hall and took care of things myself. I didn't because I knew that the deranged little bastard out in the hall would become an innocent sweet child the minute I grabbed them by the nape of the neck of physically threw him back into his room.
We woke, got changed and cleaned up, and left as fast as possible. Indeed one car in the parking lot had been busted into (newer car) and police were taking the report of one seriously angry dude. I parked outside of the lobby and went in to discover a line of people complaining about various things. One had the phone charges for another room charged to his bosses credit card, something they apparently could not reverse until Tuesday (?), another like myself had had a very unrelaxing evening of unsupervised children running amok in the hotel, and one woman was complaining about the injury that sent her father to the hospital and how the hotel was at fault. Hearing all of these complaints was a cowering 18 year old who had just come on shift and was immediately overtaken by upset customers.
In the car, as we headed for breakfast, my kids said how much fun they had. That smoothed some of the pain, but all in all, the Edgewater Water Park and Hotel in Duluth was the worst hotel I've ever been in.
