Hope everyone is enjoying their summer. We have been having a blast over here. Staying up late, sleeping in, living in swimsuits. . .all the summer things. Last week we kicked off summer with a family staycation at Great Wolf Lodge and we had the best time! If you follow my on Instagram Stories you saw a lot of behind the scenes, but today I am recapping our trip!
GREAT WOLF LODGE STAYCATION
Let me just start by saying, I love a staycation. It is such a fun, easy way to get away with your family and really focus on each other. Something about staying the night in a hotel just makes it feel that much more special. We live in McKinney, so the Great Wolf Lodge in Grapevine (about 30 minutes away) was the perfect staycation getaway. We had been once before when Avery was 3 and I was pregnant with Braden, but Braden had never experienced it for himself.
We just went for 1 night but it was 2 action packed days and felt like a nice little vacation. We headed up there Wednesday after lunch (check in is at 4 however you have access to the water part at 1) and luckily our room was ready early so we were able to check in and get settled. After that we headed down to the water park to start our fun. Personally I LOVE an indoor waterpark. I don’t enjoy applying sunscreen and being inside you don’t really have to worry about it. The cool think about Great Wolf Lodge is it has both an indoor and outdoor waterpark although we spent most of our time indoors. It really is an all in 1 resort with TONS of activities. I do think it lends more to younger kids ages (meaning younger than teenagers) however kids of all ages can have a good time there. My kids are a great age at 4 and 7.
There is a huge indoor area for younger kids called Whooping Hollow that is great because little kids can stand everywhere and there are slides, etc for their size. My kids had a blast in this area and I was able to relax and watch them for awhile.
They next area they really loved was Fort Mackenzie which was a huge water treehouse complete with slides, water guns, a huge dump bucket, etc. Again this area was great because kids of all ages could run around without floaties and you didn’t have to worry about it.
We spent a lot of time in the wave pool and and lazy river and Geoff enjoyed the bigger slides. Most kids love going on the slides (Avery’s friends all do them), but my kids are not the most adventurous when it comes to stuff like that, which is fine by me. They once told me one of their favorite rides at Disney was the monorail! I hope this “lack of daredevil behavior” stays with them through their teenage years!
We also had fun at Raccoon Lagoon. It is the outside pool full of fun activities like basketball, lily pads, water sprays, fountains, 2 large slides, etc.
We swam later than we were expecting so we just grabbed a pizza at Hungry as a Wolf and took it back to our room so we could eat quickly, clean up and get ready to enjoy the other great activities Great Wolf Lodge has to offer. Through Labor Day they are having a fun SUMMER CAMP IN event ( you can actually save 15% with CODE: SMORES) and we participated in the activities. They had face painting, smores, storytime and then a fun PJ dance party. My kids loved it! That is one of the things that sets Great Wolf Lodge apart. . .it is not just a waterpark. There are tons of other activities making it a complete resort. We also ran into some friends while we were there who have kids Avery’s age so she was loving that! They were dancing up a storm.
Avery made her own wolf ears 🙂
After all that fun we all crashed hard! We woke up bright and early to start the fun again. There were arts and craft activities, rubber duck decorating for the duck race that took place later in the day, etc. We headed back to the waterpark for another full day of fun. Check out was at 11 so we just loaded up our car and packed some clothes to change into for the ride home (they have changing rooms and showers available in the park). More swimming, pool party, rubber duck 500 (they put the ducks down one of the big outdoor slides and saw which one when the furthest when it came out. . .super fun), food and arcade and we had completed a fun filled 24 hours!
Everyone had a great time and the kids are already asking when we can go back. There were tons of things we didn’t get to because we had so much fun doing the other activities, but you could definitely stay a couple nights. There are shows and then additional activities you can do for a fee like the Ropes Course, MagiQuest, LazerTag, Compass Quest, etc. Next time we go back we will have to do the Quests because they looked really fun. You explore the entire resort with magic wands, etc and unlock clues on your way. It is like a really fun scavenger hunt. If you are planning on staying more than 1 day I would look into getting a Paw Pass. It gives you access to a lot of the extra activities.
If you are looking for a fun family staycation idea our family really enjoyed our time at Great Wolf Lodge. Now we are home for a week and head off next week for another summer vacation with family and friends!
Thank you to Great Wolf Lodge for providing our stay. Our family had a wonderful time. I only share places that we truly enjoy and would recommend to our friends and family. You can read my full disclosure policy here.