Seattle Mom Blogs

We were lucky enough to have a nice breakfast with the COO for Great Wolf Lodge, Kim Schaefer and some other fabulous ladies who work with her. Shed like to give one of you the chance to experience the Grand Mound, WA location of Great Wolf Lodge and has offered a free nights stay in a family suite with a Splashin Fun amenity package to one of our readers, a $500 value. If you live in the area and would like to be entered to win, please leave a comment on this post! We will choose a winner at random at 10pm PST on Thursday, May 15th. Good luck!

Have you seen all the advertising for the Great Wolf Lodge lately? They sure talk that place up and make it look cool. Well, four Seattle mom bloggers were invited to come try it out and we headed down there last weekend with our families to get the real scoop and wed like to present our findings.

Kathryn Thompson: The Great Wolf Lodge is located in Grand Mound, Washington, a town so small its not even listed in the database on my GPS. I drove through HORRIBLE traffic, a drive that was supposed to be 2 hours but turned into 4, and out into the middle of nowhere and then suddenly arrived at this GIGANTIC resort. Everything there is huge and every detail has been taken care of to make for a really enjoyable family getaway.

Our room was adorable and meticulously clean complete with a fireplace, balcony and a separate sleeping area for the kids with bunk beds and their own TV. Everything was clean and beautiful and all around us people were having a blast. The staff members were helpful and enthusiastic. Even the cleaning staff made eye contact as we walked by, smiled and wished us a good day. I hope they stay that enthusiastic and the resort stays that clean as the summer wears on.

Magoo, who sounds really cute saying “Wudder-Pork”, fell in love with the trash cans. He ran around petting them tenderly.

The water park was super fun with activities for every age. My kids had the most ridiculous permagrins on their faces and were pulling us in ten different directions at once because there was just TOO MUCH fun to be had.

People are out in the halls, in the arcade, at the teen club and filling the common areas until quiet time at 11pm, many of them in their pajamas. It has a really friendly atmosphere and is just somewhere you want to hang out in and never go to bed. Although if you’re like me, you never want to go to bed no matter where you are. The food is delicious and uber-fun for kids, although theyd probably die of sugar overload if you stayed there for any extended period of time. Pop tarts, Rice Krispie squares, blue Jell-O, pudding and PB&J in the kid-sized breakfast buffet nearly made their little heads explode.

We didnt even get a chance to try out the adult or childrens spa options or the craft and activity classes they have available. There really are 2000 ways to have fun and spend money and they make it very easy with RFID bracelets that serve as water park passes, room keys and are also tied to your credit card to swipe and pay for any incidentals or activities you care to purchase.

For crazy silly family fun, this is really a great option. They keep the temperature warm inside the park so I look forward to running away to the Great Wolf Lodge when the weathers nasty next winter.

Hola Isabel: I had seen the commercials for Great Wolf and had checked out the website like crazy. And yet, I had no idea what to expect. That’s not true, I think I thought it would be just a hotel with a water park attached to it. I was SO NOT PREPARED for what it really was. I had no idea it was more of a “resort” then just a “hotel”. I was amazed, when Babboo and I first walked in, at the sheer size of the place.
That lobby area is huge and being able to look through the windows into the water area only got me more excited. Of course it was all overwhelming to Babboo who kept saying “scared”. Poor kid, he clearly doesn’t get out enough!

I totally admit to being overwhelmed during the check-in process. After having just spent way too many hours in the car, and again, not really knowing what to expect-I didn’t know what or where to start. The cute teenage boy who helped us check-in told us to forgo taking our bags to the room and to go directly to the dinner. Whatever…we needed to go to the room to freshen up, and change Babboo’s diaper.

And I’m glad we did. Seeing our awesome KidsKamp Suite just got us more excited for what was in store for us. Baboo and The King played in the bunk beds and I checked out the tray of goodies left for us on the counter. (YUMMY!) The King commented more than once about how nice the room was. Of course it was brand new…but still, nice.

The Opening Ceremony dinner was a lot of fun. All the bright colors, fun foods on the table, and balloons helped add to the excitement that we were already feeling. Nothing says “you’re going to have a fun time here” like cotton candy center pieces! Babboo and The King dug into all the food options, while I lamented on what I could eat that would go along with my current Weight Watchers diet. Um yeah, nothing. I’m not even sure the sand buckets of fruit on the table were that healthy (I think they were covered in sugar). I LOVED the grapefruit and I loved that the fruit was in a sand bucket. So clever. I opted for salmon (which, by the way, was heaven) and tried to ignore all the yummy looking breads and mini corn dogs that my husband and toddler were chowing down on.

We high-tailed it out of there before dessert was presented. I knew I couldn’t pass it up, so it was better to just leave. We ran up to our room and got our swimming suits on.

Babboo was anxious to swim. We have a pool at our apartment and he and I usually spends the summer weekends down in the water. But, I think the grandness of the water park at Great Wolf was, again, just too much for the poor kid. Whatever, it wasn’t too much for The King and I. After carrying Babboo around the kids section and hearing “scared, scared’ over and over, grabbing some towels, and securing a few chairs, we decided to just take turns holding him while we went down the rides along.

I’m not sure what happened between the time I was 25 and now, but I got scared of the slides. I suck, I know. After The King pretty much forced me, I went down one of the tube slides. Of course, I loved it!! After that, we handed Babboo off to DYM and her husband so The King and I were able to go down the Howlin’ Tornado together. I admit I was scared!! But I figured if the little 8 year old girl in line in front of us could go down…then I could go down. I’ve given birth, darn it. I should be able to go down some silly little water slide.

(HAAAA! I am a wimp.)

As the life guard loaded The King and I into our tube, I asked her for some assurance that we would not, in fact, die on the ride. She just laughed and said she’d never actually been down the slide, but that she’d heard it was fun.

What?! She’s never actually been down the slide!?

This made me more nervous. But I didn’t have time to think about it as we began our descent d-o-w-n!

I cursed. I laughed. I got wet.

I loved it.

It was so much fun that I was shaking with adrenaline by the time we were at the bottom.

Too bad poor little Babboo was practically falling asleep in DYMs arms.

We packed up our gear and headed back to our awesome room. We then realized that Babboo would need a portable crib, so we called the front desk and had them bring one up. When the employee came up to set up the crib, we started asking him questions about Great Wolf. Again, we were told that he hadn’t actually been able to take part in any of the water park yet. My heart broke for him. He did assure us that he could, on his day off, come in and play. Phew.

He also informed us that you had to be staying in the hotel to use the facilities. We weren’t aware of this, but we liked knowing that the resort wasn’t just letting anyone come in. This meant it wasn’t going to get too busy. We liked knowing this for future trips.

We weren’t able to stay and play on Saturday (The King is building us our new house, so he must work!), but we did enjoy the breakfast buffet (and meeting up with the rest of the bloggers). Again, the food at the buffet was awesome. My eyes went ga-ga over the pop tart bar. Gummy bears and chocolate? For breakfast?! My heart is in love. Alas, I ate fruit and plain oatmeal and cursed my decision to be doing Weight Watchers right now.

We got back home and back to reality. As soon as we got home, Babboo began drinking water out of the cool Great Wolf water bottle we got at the dinner, and put on the Great Wold Lodge t-shirt we got in the gift shop (thanks to the $5 coupons we were given in our “Welcome” backpacks that were left in our room). I didn’t even cut off my admission bracelet until this morning. I didn’t want to forget the fun time we had.

Yesterday my coworker booked a room for her and her family this summer at Great Wolf. And I’m trying to get my aunt to go, and take us with her, this summer also. I can’t stop talking about it!

What will I do differently next time? Maybe not take my kid (gasp!), better yet, take someone to help us watch him so we can all ride the rides. We’ll probably also bring more of our own food and treats. I demand healthy food. (Of course The King and my Sweet Babboo don’t.) And next time, well, we’ll definitely stay longer!

Thanks to Great Wolf for inviting us to try out their new resort.”

Jenny Blackburn: Is it just me, or has this been the longest, rainiest, cloudiest, most depressingest winter ever? I am ready to come unglued. I dread the weekends. I long for sun. I desperately yearn for something to do that isn’t sitting around the house moping (no, I did NOT say mopping).

Well, at least there’s hope for the last point. As we pulled into The Great Wolf Lodge (which is GINORMOUS, by the way), Jay pointed out that this place just makes sense as a Seattle family destination. Mainly because… it’s inside. It doesn’t matter if it rains or snows or hails or drizzles… at Great Wolf you know you can throw on a swimming suit and have a rip-roaring good time on waterslides and wave pools and did I mention the waterslides?

So let’s talk about the waterslides, for just a minute. Of course there are small ones perfect for the wee tots that run our lives. But there are also these enormous CRAZY ones that made me wet myself just by looking at them. There’s this one, in particular, where you get on this yellow round floaty raft with three of your dearest friends or strangers, and shoot STRAIGHT DOWN a tube into this crazy funnel and then zip around and around and down and… holy smokes, it looks terrifying.

On the list of things that I think would be fun to do, that ride fell somewhere below spraying myself with a skunk. Yes, I’ve turned into a wimp in my old age. I admit it.

So when Kathryn threatened to blog about it if I wimped out, I pointed out that I could reciprocate by posting a picture of her with her raccoon eyes. (Two words, Kathryn: WATERPROOF MASCARA!) But I digress. The truth is I totally wimped out and am now completely disgusted with myself. We have to go back, if only to prove that I can do it.

My takeaway based on our stay at the Great Wolf Lodge? Completely family friendly. Perfect for Seattle weather. A true destination resort (there’s a lot more to do than just the water park). Sure it’s sort of campy and a little bit Las Vegas (is it day or night? who can say?) But it’s also really fun.

Will we go back? Absolutely.

But if you go, I have to warn you, it would be really, really easy to spend a lot of money here.”

Carrie Blankenship: We loved it! Katie hasn’t taken her writsband off yet (it’s Thursday), the boys have been bragging to all their friends about their numerous bumps and scrapes and I am still using the yummy, bubble gum-scented kids shower gel!

I think my kids were the perfect age for the waterslides and the arcade. They partied till they could party no more and if we had paid for this ourselves, I’d definitely be feeling like we got our money’s worth! There are so many little touches throughout the place that it’s hard to list them all, but things like the kiddie spa, the Build-a-Wolf stand, the warm cookies, the lodgey atmosphere . . .
it is all there, and more!

The events we attended were so much fun and my only complaint is that we Seattle Mom Bloggers didn’t get to spend more time with each other!

The Lodge receives five thumbs up from us and we can’t wait to go back and slide down the Howlin’ Tornado, get dumped on by the gigantic bucket-o-water and be sloshed around in the wave pool. Fun! Fun! Fun!