Great Wolf Lodge: Fun in any weather!
by Amanda Formaro
Waterparks are all the rage these days. Suite style guest rooms, family friendly entertainment, and full service indoor water fun, what's not to love? Wisconsin Dells, in south-central Wisconsin, has been hailed the "Las Vegas" strip of water parks, hosting a variety of indoor and outdoor slides, rides, and good, clean family fun. It doesn't matter if it's the middle of summer or the dead of winter, visiting a water park provides splashing family entertainment all year long.
Great Wolf Lodge, located in this water park mecca, hosts a variety of family fun events nestled comfortably inside their rustic, north woods resort. Whether you're looking for a stomach dropping thrill ride, like their 6-story funnel known as the Howlin' Tornado, or want to shoot some hoops in the activity pool, Great Wolf's water park has something for every age group.
Little ones can giggle and splash in the Raccoon Lagoon. Kids and parents will love the zero depth entry pool, which leads to kiddie slides, squirt stations, and bridges to run across. There are plenty of slides for children of all ages, and lifeguards everywhere you turn help keep parents at ease.
Another fabulous area is Fort Mackenzie, an interactive treehouse water fort that includes suspension bridges, cargo nets to climb on, plenty of spray stations, and soaker buckets. There's also a monster sized soaker bucket kids love to stand underneath which dumps 1,000 gallons of water onto those eagerly waiting below. There are several other slides, a wave pool and two hot tubs to enjoy.
When you've worked up an appetite, you can pick up a snack right inside the water park, or dry off and grab a bite to eat from the Loose Moose Bar & Grill or Pizza Hut, both available inside the resort. While all the rooms include complimentary coffee, you can venture down to the Bear Paw Sweets & Eats for some juice, coffee, tea, and fresh baked goods. Grab some famous Wisconsin fudge or chocolate dipped strawberries while you're there!
If you are looking for some dry fun time, Great Wolf unveiled their newest attraction, MagiQuest, in the summer of 2009. MagiQuest is an interactive treasure hunt where players search for hidden clues and objects, collecting them with their "magic" wand. The wand records everything they find and leads them on to the next stage of the adventure.
When players have found all of the treasures, they then have the opportunity to battle the mighty dragon! While this exciting attraction is fun for all age groups, tweens seem to enjoy it the most and spend a considerable amount of time questing. Though we were told by a MagiQuest team member that there have been some dads just as obsessed as their kids! So consider yourself warned, there's fun ahead!
Also inside the MagiQuest building you will find the Cub Club, which offers fun programs suited for ages 5 through 12. Any day of the week, kids can choose an item to paint (such as a piggy bank or t-shirt), decorate it, then take it home as a keepsake (for a small fee). Cub Club also offers seasonal projects such as painting a flower pot for mom for Mother's Day, and going on a hayride and painting a pumpkin in October.
This is a great place for parents to bring the younger set once their attention has wandered away from MagiQuest, but older kids aren't quite ready to stop playing yet. There's a little slide with a ball pit and a snack bar as well, so you won't hear "Mommy, can we go now?". When the kids are ready to venture out of MagiQuest, they can head to the huge game room to play some games, or head over to the Scoops Kids Spa where they can enjoy an ice cream flavored manicure or pedicure, exclusively for ages 4-12! Parents can work up a sweat in the fitness room, or enjoy some pamper time in the Elements Spa Salon.
Every night at 8:00 PM, the Clock Tower show starts in the lobby. This interactive, attention grabbing display engages a lobby full of pajama clad kids nestled in the laps of parents. Adorable animals come alive on the clock tower, and then at 8:15 a story is read to captivated children. A great way to end a fun filled day at Great Wolf Lodge.
Great Wolf Lodge is located right off Highway 90-94 and is minutes from all the area Dells attractions. Great Wolf is also proud to be the first, and only, U.S. hotel chain to have all U.S. properties Green Sealâ„¢ Certified - Silver. For more information on Project Green Wolf go here.
For more information regarding Great Wolf Lodge locations, reservations, rates, activities, and more visit their main website http://www.greatwolf.com/
Great Wolf has locations in the following cities (as of April, 30 2010):
Charlotte-Concord, NC
Grand Mound, WA
Grapevine, TX
Kansas City, KS
Mason, OH
Niagara Falls, Canada
Pocono Mountains, PA
Sandusky, OH
Sheboygan, WI
Traverse City, MI
Williamsburg, VA
Wisconsin Dells, WI
For more information on all of the attractions available in the Wisconsin Dells, be sure to check out their website at http://www.dells.com/
About the Author:
Amanda Formaro is the crafty, entrepreneurial mother of four children. She loves to bake, cook and make crafts. She is the craft expert for FamilyCorner.com and Kaboose.com. You can see her crafty creations on Crafts by Amanda and her delicious recipes on Amanda's Cookin'. She is also the owner of Fun Family Crafts.
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