The Wild Abyss at The Wilderness – Wisconsin Dells, WI

Reviewed by Mr. Tee

Played January 18, 2020

After many trips through the Wisconsin Dells, we had played many of the outdoor courses but none of the indoor courses of this notorious upper midwest tourist trap. I did a bit of research and found three locations that appeared to have active indoor courses. The most intriguing was The Wild Abyss, located inside the massive resort complex at the Wilderness Resort. The website boasted “intense graphics” and elements that could be observed with 3D glasses. I didn’t know what this meant but was fully intrigued.

We picked a dead of winter weekend to take a road trip to putt our way through all of the Dell’s indoor courses. Wild Fun Zone was first on our docket for a Saturday morning as we were eager to check it out after showing up when it was closed on a previous road trip. Our luck! It was under construction. You can find a photo at the end of the post. After that fail, we moved onto the Wild Abyss to get in our mini golf fix. Our bad luck continued. Upon arrival at the Wilderness Resort, we were informed that only 5 of the 9 holes were functional.

Updated December 2021

New review of the updated course by Mr. Tee

Update September 2020 – It appears that this course at the Wilderness along with the course we mentioned later in this review, Wild Fun Zone, were remodeled by Creative Works. See the Creative Works September 2020 update for a photo of each course. Looking forward to playing each of these in the future.

Rating

Sandtrap – While we only got to play a little over half of the course, it is safe to say that it needs a lot of work. As you can see below, the management is aware of this and appear to be fixing up the course for the future. Nevertheless, this course was a major letdown. I also couldn’t suss out how the 3D glasses would be implemented on the course. Either way, we didn’t receive an option to use them. I don’t believe that it would have added much to the experience of this generic and flat blacklight course. The use of real fish tanks to go with the traditional underwater theme was something we had not seen previously but felt more like going to a mall pet store than an aquarium. The dimensional obstacles, shoot-thru elements, and semi-immersive environments were fine but hardly out of the ordinary. The two of us are always willing to give any course more than one shot but I can’t recommend going to Wild Abyss until they do significant work to spruce this place up.

Not the first thing you want to see when you enter a course

Very basic hole with bricks that appear out of place

Holes 4-7, under construction and will have to be played in the future

Not sure how much better the course would have been with 3-D glasses

Asking this dude what’s going on with this place

Pink Putter not impressed by the stingray or the course

Our attempt to take in 2nd round at a nearby course, Wild Fun Zone, landed us at another course that was under construction. Note to readers, always call ahead before you play courses to make sure they are open!

Wild Abyss Website

Pros

Live fish aquariums to match the underwater theme
A few themed obstacles

Cons

The course is under repair and only 5 holes functional
3-D glasses weren’t available but not sure how they would be utilized
Holes that were open could use some TLC

Nerdy Notes

Normally 9 holes but only 5 holes were open at time of playing. Normally, Par 20
$3 for round of 5 / holes
Rubber covered putters are a bit beat up and sticky
Located in the Wild West region of Wilderness Hotel complex
Multiple waterparks, restaurants and amenities throughout the massive space of the Wilderness