‘Open the doors’: Tour Manteca’s Great Wolf Lodge water park resort before June debut
Like a slumbering giant, the Great Wolf Lodge water park resort in Manteca is just waiting for its moment to spring to life.
The massive hotel, indoor water park and family entertainment complex just off Highway 120 is still about a month out from its grand opening after enduring almost a full year of pandemic delays. On Tuesday, local media, including The Bee, got a first look inside the completed development, which is expected to become a regional tourism draw across Northern California and beyond.
“I for one am very excited to get the doors open and get some noise into this building,” said Great Wolf Manteca General Manager Alana Ostrowski. “It’s been far too quiet for far too long in here.”
The resort’s six-story hotel, 95,000-square-foot indoor water park and 45,000-square-foot family entertainment center have been completed, but sitting vacant, since last summer when construction finished.
The last time local media toured the still-under-construction building at the start of March 2020, Great Wolf Resort (the parent company of the North American indoor water park resort chain) management was so confident in its progress it announced the Manteca site would open a full month earlier than planned, in July 2020. But then the pandemic worsened and all plans were put on hold for a year.
Last week, Great Wolf hosted a hiring fair to fill the some 500 jobs needed to staff the complex, from guest services to housekeeping, waitstaff to lifeguards. Ostrowski said the hiring went smoothly, and new employees are currently training to prepare for the lodge’s June 29 public opening.
Many dining, entertainment options at Manteca site
The first thing guests will notice at Manteca’s Great Wolf Lodge is it rustic lobby, with 30-foot high beamed ceilings and a large stone fireplace. The hotel’s decor includes lots of leather and wood accents, and ubiquitous wolf imagery.
Off the lobby is the front desk, gift shop and the hotel’s largest eatery, the full-service Barnwood restaurant. The complex has eight restaurants total, ranging from sit-down meals to a taco bus, pizza parlor and cafeteria-style offerings.
While the resort’s late June opening is scheduled after California’s announced reopening date mid-month, Great Wolf continues to highlight its safety protocols under its Paw Pledge which includes enhanced sanitation, social distancing and other precautions.
Great Wolf closed all of its 18 existing water park resorts for several months at the start of the pandemic. Now, only three of its resorts have yet to reopen — its Southern California site in Anaheim, its Massachusetts location and its one Canadian resort.
Jason Lasecki, Great Wolf Resort’s director of corporate communications, said at each reopened resort, reservations have boomed and he expects the same to be true in Manteca. The company has not finalized its capacity limits plan for the site’s reopening yet, as it waits for more guidance from the state on what, if any, restrictions will be in place after the state’s planned June 15 reopening.
“Everywhere we have opened, demand has been really strong,” Lasecki said.
Water park entry included with Great Wolf reservations
At full capacity, the resort’s main attraction — its indoor water park with its pools heated to 84-degrees year-round and 16 waterslides — can accommodate 2,000 people.
The water park sits on the east end of the complex, with the family entertainment center bridging the gap between the hotel and water attractions. The family entertainment center offers a wooden obstacle course which swing over top of a nine-hole mini golf course. Visitors will also find a bowling alley, gem mining and the resort’s second most popular attraction, its in-house interactive scavenger-hunt game.
The resort will have a limited soft opening starting June 15, which Lasecki said will be used to help further train the new staff. Then the site will open to the general public June 29. The Manteca site is offering a 30% discount on room reservations booked by May 28 for stays through Dec. 16 using the promotional code “GRAND.”
Water park access for each day of one’s reservations in the hotel is included for all registered guests, so a one-night stay would include two days of water park entry. The resort currently does not have a day-pass program set up for non-hotel guests, but has rolled out similar programs at other resorts after grand opening demand has died down.
Ostrowski said the resort’s 500 rooms come in all sizes and can accommodate families large and small. Many rooms can adjoin, and special kids room are available with tree-fort inspired bunk beds.
Room rates start at $199 for a family suite (with two queen beds and a full-size sofa sleeper), $239 for the Wolf Den (with children’s themed bunk beds) and $349 for a Grizzly Suite (king-sized master bedroom, two queen beds in a second room and a sleeper sofa). But expect prices to vary depending on availability and demand.
“It’s time. Let’s open the doors. There are a lot of really, really excited people in this part of California who are ready,” Ostrowski said. “I can’t wait for this to open and bring a little joy to people.”
This story was originally published May 26, 2021 at 4:46 AM.
