Great Wolf Lodge
The Logsdon family just returned from the most fantastic trip to Great Wolf Lodge in Grapevine, TX. We watched movies & ate donuts on our drive down on Friday morning. We arrived around 11:30a and even though they say check in isn’t until 4p, our room was ready & waiting for us. We used their handy carts to tote all our stuff up to our Family Suite (all rooms are suites that include a micro & refrig so you can take your own food, if wanted). Everyone that works there was awesome & completely attentive to making the whole experience kid/family friendly the whole time we were there. The lobby is fantastic & really catches the imagination right away. The floor to (VERY tall) ceiling windows let you look out over the indoor water park, there is a tree house, an animated show cabin area, a huge fireplace, a large gift shop, check in & a restaurant all right there waiting for you. You travel down the long hall to the bank of 8 elevators waiting to take you to your room. Our room was on the 5th floor about 3/4 down. At first I was a little upset about this but soon learned this was a good thing because we had more space between us & the ever busy elevator lobby areas. We swam twice each day for about 2 hours each time. You could wear your swim suit all day if you wanted & just cover up when you decide to go do something else in the hotel. At check in everyone is given a wrist band that they must wear for the duration of their stay. For the kids, this serves as their waterpark pass. For the adults, it is your room key, a room credit card, waterpark pass, etc… Super convenient. Again family friendly because you don’t have to worry about carrying money around with you or your room key or losing anything because its attached to you. When you want/need a break from swimming there are tons of other things to do. Cub Club provides arts & crafts, games, etc… for the younger kids. Gr_8 Space provides entertainment for the 12-17 yr old crowd. There is a Mommy spa where you can get a mani, pedi, massage, facial, etc… There is a “scoops” spa for the little girls to get their nails done or facials. There is an arcade, a build-a-bear kiosk and the most fun of all a MagiQuest game that is a multiple level treasure hunt game that takes you all over the hotel (this is why the lobby on each floor is so busy). Zye & Tace LOVED this. I think there are 15 levels and we were only able to complete 11 of them in the 3.5 days we were there. So, it is definitely worth the $. They have all sorts of options that you can add on to your stay. We choose the “Paw Pass” which allowed the kids to do lots of differerent special things around the hotel for “free.” The waterpark is set up in different sections to make it easy for all ages to have a fabulous time. The small child area is no deeper than 2′ at any point. It includes 2 small slides & lots of toys & fountains. Tace, at 3, loved this area. Zye liked it too, he is almost 7. Then there is the big water fort which has 2 larger slides and TONS of water coming & going. This is where the HUGE 1000 gallon bucket of water dumps every few minutes in the splash zone. This is geared more for the 6-10 year old probably. There is a not-so-lazy river and a wave pool that are great for all ages. Then there is a big slide section that has at least 4 very large, very fast slides. We only went down 1 of them because Zye didn’t really care for them. There is an obsticle course type area for the older kids as well. Tons of lifeguards are on duty all over & are actually VERY attentive. There are cabana type tents that you can rent that come complete with TV’s & refrigerators if you have someone in your group that is anti-water or wants to watch the big game while “supervising” the kids. I have a ton of pics on our website for your viewing pleasure. You can see much of what I’m talking about in these pics. Just click on the pics above & they will take you to the “index.” You can scroll through the index to see all the pics. We are already planning our next trip to GWL - it was AWESOME!