Jellystone Park & Three Bears Lodge
Warrens WI
In August of 2007, our family of five with children ages 6, 3 1/2 , and 14 months, spent a weekend at Yogi's Jellystone Park in Warrens Wisconsin. It was our first time there. This is not your typical Jellystone Park establishment. It is huge and includes several waterparks, lots of activities, many accommodation choices, a full size hotel with indoor waterpark, and a conference center. When we learned about this place, we had to check it out. First of all there are quite a few lodging choices to pick from. The newest part of Jellystone is the Three Bears Lodge and Conference Center. This is a big hotel that also contains an indoor waterpark. The waterpark is included only for registered guests staying in the hotel. You can buy day passes for the indoor waterpark during certain hours and depending on capacity, if you are a camper. We found, however, that it was not a problem to get indoor waterpark passes anytime. The Indoor Waterpark is called Timber Falls and it has a wave pool, lazy river, activity pool, indoor and outdoor hot tubs, Yogi Bear picnic splash area with 4 waterslides, 4 mega waterslides, an arcade, activity room, and a snack bar. There are also newer villas that can accommodate up to 10-12 people. These are very nice log buildings that have bedrooms, lofts, living rooms, full kitchens, heat and air conditioning. The villas are very nice and some of them are free standing buildings and some are connected units. There are also Park Model Cabins which are basically permanent campsites that consist of a permanent trailer type building. They usually consist of a couple smaller bedrooms, a small living space, kitchen and bathroom. Most seem to have a deck built up to it and may have a fire ring and picnic table outside. Most of the villas and park model cabins are owned by private individuals and rented out by Jellystone Park when not in use by the owners. It is kind of like a timeshare deal. With this program, especially with all the villas, this is how the Jellystone Park was able to build itself up and build the Three Bears Lodge and conference center that is on the property. There are also Deluxe Camping Cabins that are smaller rustic cabins. They include a bedroom or two, a small kitchen, and table and chairs. There is not a bathroom but does include heat and air conditioning. There is a fire pit and picnic table outside. There are also Camping Cabins, which are the basic type that most people think of. It's a wooden building about 12x12 which consists of just sleeping areas inside. That is it. There is a picnic table and fire pit outside. At this Jellystone Park there is also many camping sites. Almost all the camping sites consist of people in all different types of RVs and campers. There are just rows after rows of people camping. There are a handful of tent campsites. Guess what? This is where we stayed. We have only tent camped and we don't own a camper. We could have gone for a villa or the hotel, but we hadn't done much camping that year or the previous year and the kids were excited to go. Be prepared to spend more. This is not your basic, cheap camping trip. We were there over a weekend for two nights and spent over $300. The place is big so there is a free express trolley that you can hop on to get to where you are going or you can just go for a ride like my kids did. Most people rent golf carts throughout their stay in order to get around. It is too crowded and inconvenient to drive your car around, so having the golf cart is very handy (and fun too.) Most people decorate their golf carts so that they can easily spot their own cart in the sea of parked golf carts. We did not know this when we went. People got really creative. Jellystone Park in Warrens Wisconsin contains lots of activities and amenities. There are several waterparks. There is Ranger Smith's Water Town, which has a wave pool, lazy river, two hot ponds, activity pool, Yogi Bears Picnic Splash play area, a Boardwalk Cafe for a quick bite to eat or snacks, and an entertainment area. There is also a swim n play beach with lots of sand and a playground and swings in the water. In another area close by is an older waterslide called Big Blue. It is a slide built into the side of a hill and you sit on rubber mats to go down it. There are also 3 pools, miniature golf, paddle boats, fishing pond, game room, and outdoor theatre where they show Yogi Bear cartoons at night. Over by the hotel there is also another outdoor waterpark area that all guests may use. It is called the Lilly Pad Area and it has body slides, activity pool, kiddie pool with a frog slide and mushroom, swan paddle boats, and a snack shop. Also in this area is a skatepark. Jellystone park offers many activities for everyone which are guided by an activities staff. Throughout the year there are themed weekends. The weekend we were there it was "Halloween In Summer Weekend." There was a campsite decorating contest, costume contest, costume golf cart parade, and trick-or-treating. We decorated our campsite with Halloween decorations and a big inflatable yard decoration that was a pumpkin. All three of our kids won a prize for their costumes. They each won a beanie baby that they got to select. The kids also got to trick-or-treat around to all the campsites. If you brought candy to hand out, you were able to sign up and they printed out maps with the participating sites giving out candy. There were lots of sites decorated with all sorts of Halloween stuff. I drove our two oldest kids in the golf cart all around so that they could trick-or-treat. Unfortunately, it was raining, so it wasn't as completely enjoyable as it could have been. There are also all sorts of activities going on throughout the day, besides the weekend theme. We played candy bar bingo, went to a dance party with the Yogi Bear characters, and there was also a sand castle building contest going on the day we got there. If you are camping or staying in a villa or cabin style accommodation, of course you can cook and prepare your own meals. There is also some dining options on the property. In the Three Bears Lodge hotel there is a restaurant that also includes a salad bar. The hotel also offers a coffee and sweet shop and a snack bar that has quick food by the indoor waterpark. Outside by the Timber Falls waterpark there is a Boardwalk Cafe, a snack shop, and a picnic area with a pavilion. Directly outside the front gate of Jellystone Park there is also a gas station and convenience store. In the surrounding town there are also restaurants and fast food places, along with a Wal-mart, movie theatre, and golf courses. Jellystone Park also sells ice and firewood and has daily garbage pick-up outside your camping accommodation, which is handy. On the weekend we were at Jellystone Park in Warrens Wisconsin, we did not have the best of luck. On our first night sleeping in our tent, the zipper on the door busted. This caused a draft throughout the night, which my husband received the brunt of. The next morning we woke up to a light rain, which didn't stop for the entire day. It was also really cold for the beginning of August. My husband woke up not feeling well and he got worse and worse as the day went on. We didn't get to swim because of the weather and had to suffer through the cold and rain during the few activities we could get to do. Like I said before, the kids and I were wet and cold as we trick-or-treated through the campground. By about 4pm my husband was miserable and he stated he had to get out of the cold and wet and absolutely couldn't go through a night sleeping in the broken tent. From a fetal position in the passenger side of the car he said for me to get us an accommodation somewhere indoors. I got phone numbers off our navigation in our mini van and called around to some surrounding motels. There were no vacancies anywhere. My husband then said drive over to the Three Bears Lodge hotel inside Jellystone. I ran in and waited in a busy line. I explained our situation and the girl behind the desk said they had no vacant hotel rooms. She said they did have a Park Model Cabin available. It was like $700 for the night. I went back out to tell my husband. He said "Take It." I now knew for sure he was miserable. When I went back in to reserve it, the lady did take some money off the rate, since we had already paid for another camping accommodation. She also threw in free indoor waterpark passes for 24 hours. That was nice. I then drove to go find the park model cabin and drop off my husband and 3 kids. The park model cabin was a permanent trailer home with an attached deck. It had a bigger bedroom with a double bed, two smaller rooms with bunk style beds, a gathering area with a sofa, chair, kitchen table, and small kitchen and a bathroom. My husband went into the bigger bedroom and collapsed in sickness. I left the kids there as I went back to the campsite in the cold and rain and loaded all of our bags, personal belongings, and food, into the car. I left the tent, camping equipment, and golf cart there until the next day. Back at the park model cabin, I unload everything and made what seemed like a zillion trips to bring all our stuff inside. My husband was puking but still alive. It was evening, and in an attempt to have a little fun and escape from watching Daddy be sick, I took the 3 kids to the indoor waterpark for an hour or two. This was a big job for me to do by myself, but I managed well. After that we went back and went to bed. The next morning my husband was thankfully feeling better and was able to get up, help make breakfast, and help load everything back into the car and then clear out our campsite. It was still raining, cold and horrible, so we went back to the indoor waterpark to spend a few hours there before going home. The indoor waterpark was not the best or fanciest waterpark we had ever been to, but the kids enjoyed it. They especially liked the Yogi Bear picnic splash area. It contained the perfect size waterslides for my 3 year old son, which kept him content. We had a good day at the indoor waterpark and then it was time to drive home. Jellystone does have a program that if you have over a 1/2 inch of rain on a day of your trip, that they will send you a coupon for money off your next visit. A short time after we got back home, we did receive our coupon. Overall, we liked the Jellystone Park in Warrens Wisconsin. We would like to go back again to try it when the weather was nicer. I have heard that there is going to be a name switch and that the whole place is going to be called The Three Bears. I am not quite sure if that means they are getting rid of the entire Jellystone Park name and Yogi Bear theme or not. We had received a piece of mail about it, but I didn't quite understand. The website currently is http://www.jellystonewarrens.com/
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