Birthday weekend at the GWL

We're baaaacccckkkkk!

We had a great weekend visiting friends and going to the Great Wolf Lodge. Caedmon was so upset that we had to leave. He kept telling us "tomorrow we're going to go back to Jonathan & Brittney's, spend the night and then come back to the Great Wolf Lodge. I wish we could live here."

Friday night we spent the night with an old friend and his wife, who are Caedmon's Godparents as well. It was great letting the kids get to know them better, catching up with them and just hanging out since we only see them a few times a year. They are expecting their first baby, a boy, in the beginning of May. Saturday morning they made the best breakfast for us, complete with barnyard waffles...I kid you not! They were a huge hit with the C&S.

Saturday afternoon we arrived at 1pm to check into the GWL. Now, you can check in and use the water park beginning at 1pm on your arrival day, but your room might not be ready until 4...or almost 5 in our case. This was a bit of an annoyance because we had to keep up with our swim bag, buy snacks, and pretty much remain in the water park until our room was ready. You can rent a locker but it's a $20 deposit and you then you get $10 back. Anywho, we finally checked into our rooms and the kids were back and forth between the two rooms; we stayed in the KidKabin and KidCamp Suites. The bunk beds were perfect for the 12 and under crowd, well heck even my older sister ended up one of the beds. Each bunk bed room comes with it's own kid size TV in addition to a larger TV in the main part of the suite. We did decide that a minimum of two nights would be much better than just staying one night. It would have been nice to have the option to go back to our room throughout the day Sunday, take a rest, eat in the room, and come and go from the water park as we desired.

Saturday night we ordered dinner from Five Guys and brought it back to the hotel room. There is a restaurant on site; however, it's $20 for an adult to eat at the buffet and $3 for a fountain drink...so we went the cheap route. There is an ice cream/sweets store with fairly reasonably priced items: 3 large cookies for $3.99, a large single scoop of ice cream for $1.95, etc. There also is a Dunkin Donuts on site too and surprisingly they don't gauge the prices! Also on site is a spa, but beware...the prices are outrageous. It's $50 for a manicure OR pedicure FOR GIRLS ages 4-12. A 50 minute massage is $95.

In terms of souvenirs...my two wanted to make a stuffed animal (similar to build a bear). These were reasonably priced at $20/animal. Savannah made a horse and Caedmon made a red dragon. They also have a Crocs store on site. You can make your own Crocs. You pick the color of the Croc ($21.99) and then you can pick the colors of the straps ($1.50/strap), the color of the buttons (to attach the Crocs and the straps) and they have a large variety of really cool jibbitz ($2.99 to $4.99). If your kids are like mine, my kids will get our money's worth out of a pair of Crocs, so I don't mind spending $25 on a pair because they'll wear them for two years.

Waterpark: The minimum requirement to ride rides is 42" tall. Caedmon is just over 41.5" tall, but they let him slide. There aren't even words to describe how much fun that boy had. He went down every slide he could, multiple times. He and Matt had a blast together.

Unfortunately if you aren't 42" tall there isn't a whole lot for you to do. There is a kiddie poll area with fun little water toys (kid size fake jet skis, slides, various sprinklers, etc) but you can't ride down the slides with your kids or the life guards will blow the whistle at you. You can't ride two people on a jet ski or the life guard will blow the whistle at you. I do believe those life guards may get paid by the whistle blow (haha). Kids under 42" tall can also play in the tree house.

The water park portion is great; however, I do feel the hotel portion leaves a little to be desired. They seem to have so many rules and regulations about what they will and will not allow, what they can and can not do that it's unaccommodating.  The problem seems to be that the hotel doesn't even try and for the cost of those suites...a little hospitality on their end would go a long way with their guests.

So there is my little review. We will definitely go back, but we'll wait until Savannah is 42" tall. We'll definitely stay for two nights. We'll have Dunkin Donuts for breakfast; we'll probably bring stuff to make our own lunches in our room and we'll get take out for dinner. We'll invites friends to join us!

I don't have pictures from inside the waterpark. I used my mother in law's camera and I sure didn't want to break, lose, ruin hers and end up replacing hers as well as ours.

Before check in we spent some time at the park with Jonathan & Brittney.

 The boys got silly stringed. Caedmon had never even seen silly string before; he found it hysterical!