Great Wolf is offering fairly significant discounts even on popular weekend and holiday bookings through the end of the year at their new Manteca resort thanks to the huge hit vacation travel has taken during the COVID-19 pandemic

Great Wolf has pushed back the opening of their 500-room Manteca indoor water park resort until Aug. 1. The pandemic prompted the Great Wolf to jettison plans for a July 1 opening. While construction was allowed to proceed under stay at home orders issued by Gov. Gavin Newsom and is on pace to end ahead of schedule, the decision reflects the reality that the biggest share of the resort’s primary Northern California market - six counties in the Bay Area - have extended restrictions that basically forbids travel out of county for non-essential purposes.

Meanwhile Great Wolf is working to fill a number of jobs online as well as booking guests.

The website for Manteca is offering room bookings from Aug. 1 through Dec. 31, 2020.

A check of two dozen dates - midweek, weekend, and holiday - for basic to theme rooms - shows only a handful of dates that at least one category of room or suite has been sold out.

Discounts for the popular theme suite that includes’ the kids’ cabin for two adults and two pre-teen children are offered every available date reflecting a savings of between $20 and $230 based on varying prices that reflect the historic booking fluctuations between midweek, weekend, holiday and seasonable demand.  The suite’s full price can run as high as $649 on popular weekends and holidays with it dipping to as low as $489 before discounts are taken into account.

The flex pricing means there is a chance as the dates near that prices could be increased.

Great Wolf personnel in March said their new day pass program that offers a limited number of water park access tickets without a room attached when rooms are not booked at a targeted level will not initially be offered at Manteca.

It is highly unusual to see discounts for every day - except opening day - available more than seven months out. That, however, reflects the unchartered waters that the travel and recreational entertainment world is now in given the complete under certainty of not only how long it may be until the targeted market of the Manteca resort is 100 percent out of stay at home orders that could restrict or prohibit a waterpark from operating and how the comfort level of guests are about venturing out. Also there are dates where the standard room is not being discounted.

The Great Wolf main site provides a Centers for Disease Control advisory that using a well-maintained water park is safe in terms of the COVID-19 virus.

Other Great Wolf locations are accepting bookings after June 15 as all existing resorts have been temporarily closed.

To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com