Great Wolf Lodge

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A few months ago the local news did a story on Great Wolf Lodge, which was opening about 75 miles south of Seattle. It sounded a little expensive for our tastes, but later we saw ads for special rates for the opening month of April and figured this was our chance to go. The central attraction is a 60,000 square foot water park, surrounded by a large hotel. There are several others elsewhere in the country, but this is the first in the northwest. I'm not sure if they are all tribal projects, but this one is a joint venture with the Chehalis Tribes. It has the feel of a tribal casino project (a large facility in the middle of nowhere), except aimed squarely at families.

At the next price level above the basic room they have several special rooms for kids. We chose the "wolf den". It was essentially a normal long rectangular hotel room, but an 8x8' section had been separated with a wall and the opening filled with a "cave wall" made to look like cartoon stone. The girls' favorite feature, though, was bunk beds. They must have crawled in and out of their beds a hundred times just because they were so novel. We've been planning to build the girls themed bunk beds (most likely a castle) this summer. Now we are even more motivated.

We were only there for 24 hours, but we had several sessions in the water park. The "room" is quite large and there is a lot of noise and reverberation. Charlotte found that overstimulating and spent most of the time clinging to Carol. Audrey had a lot of fun, but was still just a touch too young for it. The little kids' area was cool, but it had lots of jets and showers and overhead buckets that would spray, squirt or otherwise douse you without warning. At first Audrey thought it was fun, but after a while it started freaking her out. There is also a central structure in the water park that is several stories high and incorporates the stairs up to a couple of water slides. On top of the structure, probably 40-50' above the floor, is a 1000 gallon bucket that slowly fills, then tips over and dumps about every 8 minutes. It makes a huge roar (and a blast of cold air if you're near). If Audrey was anywhere in the vicinity when it dumped she would get pretty frightened. On the other hand, they have life jackets in a variety of sizes and Audrey loved wearing it and floating. She had a great time in the wave pool with either Carol or me, even in the deep end where the waves were taller than she is.

The worst part about going somewhere the kids love is leaving. Audrey in particular was very, very disappointed to leave. She was upset for several hours. I felt very bad for her and spent the rest of the day comforting her. We'll definitely go back if they have rate specials in the future.