What Happened: The Full Story

Our family traveled a long way to get to Great Wolf Lodge, by bus and by train, coming in from around the country to spend real time together. It's the kind of trip families save for and look forward to for months, not something that happens lightly. By the time we arrived, restaurants around the resort were already closing in for the night, so from the start, we were racing the clock to get everyone fed.

At the first restaurant, as dinner time closed in, we watched staff prepare to throw out large amounts of fresh, unspoiled food simply because the restaurant was closing while we were still working through dietary restrictions to figure out what we could eat. No one on staff seemed happy about it. It looked like people doing their jobs inside a system that didn't give them another option. We were actually in the middle of trying to pay for that food when the restaurant closed around us, and got caught in an awkward, sticky moment right as the food was being pulled to be thrown out. A staff member near the buffet clearly felt that same pain we did, and tried to find a way to get it to us anyway rather than see it go to waste. Even in that tense back-and-forth over the payment, the people we dealt with were impressive, and it stood out how well they handled a hard moment. We want to be clear that no one who helped us that night should face any blame for it. That instinct, to get good food to people instead of the trash, is exactly what this proposal is trying to make official.

That same night, my sister and her children ran into a version of the same problem, twice, at two different restaurants closing at two different times. After a long day of travel, neither restaurant had quite enough gluten-free and vegan options for her kids, and at both restaurants, that search for something they could eat was happening right as the doors were closing. At the second restaurant, one staff member was genuinely helpful, walking her through her kids' dietary restrictions with real patience. But a different worker there was rude. He asked if she was connected to the family that had the issue earlier that day, and when she said yes, he accused her of lying about being in room four one three three, insisting she wasn't there. But she was standing right in front of him, in person, having that very conversation, so the accusation didn't even make sense. It felt less like a genuine mix-up and more like she was being singled out and attacked, on top of everything that had already happened that day, and he threatened eviction from the resort right in front of her children, using that word in a way that scared and upset them.

At both restaurants that night, the word eviction came up, and at both, a child ended up in tears. In one case it came with a softer hand; in the other, it didn't, and that tone was genuinely out of line. Either way, none of it should have happened in front of the kids. We're not sharing this to get anyone in trouble across the board, and especially not the staff who were genuinely trying to help us, including the staff at the first restaurant who saw we were stuck trying to pay and let us take the food anyway. Plenty of the staff we met were kind and doing their best inside a system that put them in a hard spot. But we did run into some other staff along the way who were genuinely problematic, whether that was around food policy or how conflict gets handled at the register. But two things stood out as worth fixing: the food that's being wasted at closing time, and the way guests get treated when something is already a little off, especially in front of children. Both are solvable, and we believe Great Wolf Lodge is well positioned to lead on both.