Insert spooky howling sounds here. Ah-ooooooooo!
First of all the place is absolutely humungous, an entire world unto itself with a parking lot full of more minivans than you have ever seen in your life, unless you work out at ACAC that is. Basically you park your minivan (apparently) and then enter the realm of the Lodge with your bags and don't emerge until you are leaving, bags in hand again. We lucked out because the weather was so dark and downright dreary this entire weekend (in case you didn't notice) that we didn't miss a bit of sunshine despite being inside so long. It;s true -- the e=weather was just that miserable. And thankfully we didn't get kicked off the premises for pulling up in a (gasp!) Subaru Outback without the requisite sliding side door.
Once we got checked in, we put on our suits in our cute mountain lodgy room and headed straight for the water park. It was AWESOME -- I had been afraid that it wouldn't live up to all of the hype, but it did and then some. There is so much going on in there it makes your head spin. There are so many rides to go on that it takes a while to even find them all, and we probably missed a few, like the surfing one. Seriously! They had simulated big waves and people were actually surfing Hawaii 50 style.
Among many other attractions and distractions, there was a beach with shallow entry and smaller fake waves that seemed so real it was uncanny. And there was a canal will a current to it. The toddler/preschooler area was surprisingly really good -- Sam had a grand ole time on the various slides, working his way up to the "rugged" one before too long. Inside it was a balmy 84 degrees, which was great. Although you get drenched from the get-go, you never actually get cold enough to even think about wanting a towel. Daddy Mac and I switched off taking the "hard core" rides, in particular the "Howlin' Tornado" which was quite aptly named. Holy moley! And backwards was even crazier.
After a couple of hours in and out of the water, we were all smoked, headed back to the room, and innocently went in search of dinner. We ordering a pizza at the main restaurant, decorated tastefully in the mountain lodge style like the rest of the hotel. However, there we experienced the hands-down worst pizza I have ever had in my life -- BY FAR. (In case you think I was overly critical, that was Daddy Mac's take as well.) Here's a not-so-juicy tidbit for you - the tomato sauce on it was straight tomato paste, honest to God, and there was not one bit of spice on the entire pizza. Anything should have tasted divine to us because we were so ravenous. That's how bad it was.
We got over it after spending some time in the fabulous arcade and getting some "magic ice cream," namely to get the taste of tomato paste out of our mouth. Then we went and got a "real" magic wand at the Magi-Quest shop. Armed with this hi-tech wonder, we set off on a Harry Potter-esque adventure although we really couldn't quite figure out the directions. Maybe when get solder, he can teach it to us. We got the picture to light up and talk when we waved it, so that was good enough for this visit!
Nighttime -- now it gets ugly. (I will strike any profanity before posting this.) Two words can explain it all -- cheerleading conference. That translated into lots of late night shouting and acrobatics resulting in no sleep for the weary. The noise travels in that place like I've never heard before. We also discovered at about midnight that a family with four young boys was directly above us. They too had lots of acrobatics and general noise going on. When we called the front desk about five times, they were extremely helpful but that didn't change a whole lot. Thankfully the Saminator slept through all the ruckus. we and almost gave up and headed home. Moral of the story: If you ever go to the Great Wolf Lodge, request a room on the TOP floor, maybe even on a corner. And leave your cheers and acrobatics at home!
LibbY
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