Thumper Pond Reviews

Jean Ahlfs was absolutely amazing. She was 110% dependable and definately helped with my budget. She negotiated prices so well and was willing to do anything to make your wedding planning stress free.

Thumper Pond is the most beautiful spot to have an outdoor ceremony and indoor reception. In 2015 they created a new ceremony spot and it is absolutely STUNNING! My pictures have been breath-taking because the pond with the fountain is in the background :) Then move indoors to huge glass windows and wood work all around. I'm telling you pictures are amazing at Thumper and you hardly need to decorate because it is naturally beautiful. Also the staff at Thumper Pond are absolutely AMAZING! Jackie and Brad are were great to work with and they made accommodations to all my needs. The only comments I received related to our grooms dinner in their clubhouse (catering by the bar below). I would recommend going elsewhere as the food was mediocre...

Our day with Thumper Pond was perfect! It is a stunning location to have a wedding in a beautiful part of Minnesota. In the time building up to it, we had worked with two different individuals. Of those two, we preferred working with Lori because she was very personable, approachable, and easy to talk to. She always responded to us in a timely manner and was able to respond to us about any questions or concerns we may have had. One of those regarded the incident of no A/C just a couple weekends prior to our date. We made sure to speak with staff to ensure that this issue would be resolved, and we had no problems with the heat or A/C. I thought the food was great! You aren't able to have someone else cater in for the meal (but you could for late night snacks), but that's okay because I loved the food we chose. We did have some complaints from a couple of guests that their food was cold or not hot. My husband's lasagna and my fish were perfect. We were allowed to do our own decorations but, Thumper Pond didn't provide chair covers which we learned was quite an added expense. There were some limitations to the decorating, but we were able to get in the night before, we were allowed to decorate the pergola for the ceremony, and I'm incredibly happy with decorations we had! We did get a discounted room rates for the room block for guests, but there was a $30ish resort fee tacked on to the discounted room rate as people checked out that NO ONE was informed of. That fee on top of our rate made it feel a bit on the spendy side for our guests to stay. However, they do have a water park and golf course that do deserve some credit to the price. Overall, I feel like there are maybe a few things they could work on, but we had such a beautiful day. It all went off without a hitch. My husband, myself and my mom (she was basically half wedding planner to me) were all incredibly happy with our service here.

I recently helped plan my brother's wedding at Thumper Pond. Everything was beautiful and went off nicely until we got to the ballroom at 6pm to find no air conditioning whatsoever. The temp was near 90 degrees that day and we were given no warning that there was an issue with the cooling system. When we reached out to the front desk and eventually management we were finally told there was a problem (after dinner had already started!). We requested fans to help circulate the air and cool the room, but were told that they did not have ANY fans within the hotel. I knew this was not true because one of our guests had a huge fan in her room when she checked in and had to change rooms because of it. I had to tell management where to find the fan and then place it on the dance floor myself. Luckily, the man working the front desk had also brought in a fan from home (presumably because he KNEW there was an a/c problem) and he let me use that fan as well. By the time we got the fans in place it was nearly 10pm and many of the guests had left already, the rest were out on the patio because even at 85 degrees it was cooler outside!


Management didn't seem to care that we had a problem and we had to push them to find a solution. My brother and sister-in-law were devastated that their wedding dance was nearly ruined because of the heat and she was in tears the next day. Even if they didn't have fans on site, they should have sent someone out to get some. There were elderly and young people at high risk for heat exhaustion that could have been seriously injured because Thumper Pond didn't take the appropriate actions.

Beyond the a/c issue, many guests, myself included, tried to eat at the restaurant on site, Willy Ts. The service was mediocre at best. It took nearly 45 min for people to get their food every time they ate and the staff was nonresponsive.

If you are thinking of reserving Thumper Pond for event I strongly advise against it.