Great Wolf Lodge

Let me start by saying that I am not usually a fan of the water.  I don't swim a whole lot, we don't have a pool and really, when we go to Disney I don't do the water parks.  But something about the Great Wolf Lodge appealed to me.  So with my vacation time and Michael being out of school I decided to give it a shot.

It's a 2 1/2 hour drive to the Lodge and it was completely doable for me.  So I booked a package on-line (a little expensive but I figured, why not?) that included one night in a family suite, unlimited access to the water park and dinner.  

For four people.

Now at the point that I booked it, it was only going to be me and Michael so we extended the invitation to some friends and so we had our foursome.  Yeah!  

I was pleasantly surprised by the whole experience.  We arrived a little after noon and our room was ready.  Our friends arrived about 30 minutes after we did and so we settled in to our room and went for lunch in the full service restaurant in the Lodge.  The food was excellent and the prices were more than fair.  We then hit the water park.  

WHAT FUN!!!

If you've never been to a Great Wolf Lodge, I highly recommend it.  There is something for everyone and let me tell you, by the time we left, I had come to enjoy ALL of the slides.  There are three pools (kiddie, wave and activity) and then there are four slides - each offers some serious fun and thrills.  

My main gripe with the whole thing?  The stairs.  My legs are KILLING me right now because today alone I must have climbed over 1,000 steps!  OUCH!  To get up to the two biggest slides took 100-110 steps (It's like four stories +).  Do that a couple of times and you are feeling the burn!  The whole thing is great but it's not very handicap friendly or friendly for the elderly.  I saw many older people there with the grandkids who were excited to do the slides but the stairs were a deal breaker.

The temp in the park is kept at 82 degrees and the water temp is at 84.  PERFECT for the whole experience.  

After three hours of water fun we went back up to the room and changed and got ready for dinner - which was included in our package.  It was an all-you-can-eat buffet at the restaurant on site and what a selection!  There was everything from chicken and waffles (which I still don't understand) to salmon and risotta.  Huge selection, something for everyone and your beverages were included as was dessert.  

The park closes early (8:00 pm) and so the boys hit the arcade and really, by 10 we were all asleep!  All that water fun is exhausting!  We were up and out of our room by 9:30 a.m., put most of our luggage in the cars and were back waiting for the park doors to open at 10 a.m.  We played until 1:30, hit the locker rooms to shower and change and we were on the road by 2:30.  

Oh, one more gripe:  No hair dryers in the locker room?  Really?

So here I sit at 8:30 at night and I am beat.  My legs are killing me and I feel like I could sleep for a week.  It was all so much fun and other than being a little pricier than I had hoped, it was still well worth it and we will definitely be going again!

On a side note, I was secretly hoping to run into some other moms who were hanging out and just watching the kids play while reading a book so that I could strike up a conversation about MY books, but that never happened.  I was a little bummed.  So my quest to find ways to market and promote my books continue!