Great Fun at Great Wolf Lodge

Last week, we took a little mid-week vacation and spent three days at Great Wolf Lodge over the Veterans Day holiday.  We left on Monday and spent two nights at the resort/waterpark.  Mostly, we had a howling good time, with only a few occasions that made me want to scream.

The Room

The room we stayed in was nicely equipped with a mini-fridge, microwave, and fireplace.  The highlight for the kids was the bunk bed nook that was like a little hideaway for them.

This was both good and bad.  Good because it gave them a little separation from us, but bad because it meant all 3 kids were on top of each other and woke each other up.  Wendy & Sam are used to sharing a room, but Adam … not so much.

So our first night was somewhat hellacious with Wendy coughing and crying about something til ~1am.  At that point, Adam took over and he woke up and cried and wouldn’t go back to sleep.  Somewhere around 2:30 or 3am, Mike got out the Ergo and took to roaming the halls with our overtired baby.  He reported hearing other crying rooms on his trek, which made me feel a little better about our own disturbance of the peace.  Eventually, Adam settled in for the night in the middle of our bed, but not before waking Sam.  Fun times.  In the midst of this, all I could think was, “Why am I paying for this privilege?  I could be asleep in my own bed with two doors between me and any crying child.”

Fortunately, the second day fared much better.  And the days were a blast!

The Waterpark

The water park has a ton of rides and things to do.  Starting with “Fort Mackenzie” which is a big climbing structure smack dab in the middle.  At the top of it are slides you can ride down, but along the way, there are places to squirt or dump water on others, as well as get sprayed yourself.  Not to mention a giant bucket that dumps water every five minutes or so.

This is the view of the back side, where the slides connect:

And here’s where the kids shot out.

They also enjoyed the “kiddie pool” which was only 1.5′ deep or so and had a couple of fun smaller slides.

Adam liked this section because it had the zero depth entry and a little structure that he could hold onto while playing in the water (I didn’t get any pics b/c I had to stay close to avoid potential drownings).  But he also liked to just chill and watch his big brother and big sister play.

Another fun feature was the various slides that involved riding rafts or tubes.  We rode these over and over and over.  It was sometimes a challenge to figure out how to get Wendy & Sam a turn, while one of us stayed with Adam.  But Wendy was big enough to ride some of the things by herself and Sam was able to ride most things with an adult.

This was my attempt to get a picture of the enormity of the “blue slide”.  The top was several stories high and it was fast!

Here is where the fast slides popped you out.  It was hard to get pictures in here b/c it was too dim for no flash and the flash pictures didn’t turn out well.

The blue & yellow slides were ridden on clear plastic inner tubes (either single or double).  The big green slide (closest opening in the pic) was ridden on a big blue raft that 3 or 4 could ride together.

Those slides were fun and we rode them a lot, but there were some other fun features at the park.

Wendy enjoyed climbing across the “lily pads”.  Sam wasn’t tall enough, but he got to swim with Daddy.

They also had a wave pool, which both kids enjoyed.

One of the most challenging rides was tucked back in the back corner.  It was called the “Flow Rider” and was a simulated wave that you could boogie board on!

I encouraged Mike to give it a try – it looked hard!  His first ride ended in a wipeout, but he still had fun.

He got a few more turns in and got more proficient, but of course I didn’t remember to take any more pictures.  After a while, I got my courage up and decided *I* wanted to try.  I wasn’t nearly as adventurous as Mike, but I still had a fun time riding.

After a couple of tries, I realized there were a few kids as young as Wendy riding it, so I asked her if she wanted to try.  She was game, so she got in line with me.   I was nervous about her wiping out and getting scared, but as long as she stayed by the side, it was like sledding down a hill and she loved it!

I was so proud of her!  She did wipe out one time at the end and I think it did scare her a little, but I know she was glad she gave it a try.

After all our hard “work”, it was nice to relax in the hot tub.

Adam did his relaxing in his stroller.

The Food

Our first night, we ate at the resort restaurant.  It had typical resort-style prices, but overall, I was very pleased with the quality of food available on the buffet.  The next night we hit a local favorite, Pierces Pitt Bar-B-Que.

The Epilogue

So, other than the one night of misery, we had a great time. I daresay we might even return, although it won’t be until Adam is good about sharing a room!

The funniest part about this whole story is that we didn’t give the kids much notice that we were going away.  I planned for it, but didn’t remember to talk it up.  So, when we first told them we were going, Wendy was terribly disappointed that it meant missing preschool.  At the end of our stay, I asked her, “Wasn’t this better than going to school?”

She replied, “I had a lot of fun, but next time, can we please go to school instead?”

Sheesh, I hope she can maintain her enthusiasm over the next 13 years!

Tags: trips