MomMomOnTheGo and family has just arrived back home this week from Great Wolf Lodge, Grand Mound, Washington. I am so impressed with Great Wolf Lodge and the family, fun and memorable experience that it creates. Read on to find out why MomMomOnTheGo thinks Great Wolf Lodge is THE Family Vacation and find out some tips for your Great Wolf Lodge adventure.
Where do I start, where do I start? There is so much at Great Wolf Lodge!
Known for its water fun, Great Wolf Lodge does not let you down. From hot tubs, waves, slides, water dumping, water spraying and adrenaline rushing tube rides, Great Wolf Lodge has something in the water park for every age.
On the day you check in, you are allowed to use the Water Park from 1:00 pm onward as you wait for your room to be ready. official check in time is 4:00 pm. I recommend getting there for the 1:00 pm time to start enjoying your adventure right away and to also allow for any special requests for room accommodation you may have.
Upon your arrival, you are provided wrist bands that get you into the water park. The wrist bands are also your room key and can also act as a method to charge items throughout the Lodge back to your room bill. It is a very convenient option that means you can lock everything up in the safe in your room and go around the Lodge with nothing to lug around.
For our stay, we stayed in the Wolf Den and I highly recommend a themed room for your kids. My girls aged 6 and 11 absolutely loved their Wolf Den.
Both my girls had amazing sleeps in the Wolf Den. It stayed dark in the morning so my Little One slept in good which was great because with all the activities at Great Wolf Lodge, we were up pretty late every night. My girls also loved the television in the Wolf Den, though admittedly, we were not in the room for very long periods to watch too much television.
My Little One will sometimes wake through the night and want me to cuddle her back to sleep and in the morning she usually crawls into bed with me. With the Wolf Den, my Little One loved it so much that when she waked in the middle of the night, I saw her come out of the Wolf Den and peek that we were there and then she went back in, crawled back into her bunk bed and fell back asleep alone. This is historical for us, because until that night, she had never fallen back asleep alone.
My Little One also waited for me to go into the Wolf Den in the morning, she did not leave the Wolf Den when she was awake. I asked her why she did not come for her morning cuddle and she told me she wanted to stay in the Wolf Den because she liked it so much.
My 11 year old loved being on the top bunk in the Wolf Den and of course having a television of her own. My 11 year old was just as excited and impressed with the Wolf Den as my Little One.
I have read a lot of reviews and advice about what floor and room to ask for when going to Great Wolf Lodge. At the Grand Mound location there are eight floors. There are elevators and stairs that you can take up and down to all the rooms. The Water Park entrance is on the second floor. All the stores and activities are on the first or second floor. The famous MagiQuest and CompassQuest are on floors one to five. Oh and parents, Starbucks is on the first floor 🙂
MomMomOnTheGo and family were on the third floor. I had asked for the first or second floor with a balcony but none were available and in the end I am happy about that. With most things on the first and second floor, they are very, very busy and to say the least. I think that the third floor was absolutely perfect. I took the stairs our entire visit and it was quick and easy to get to everything and not too tiring. The elevator can get pretty busy so it is easier to use the stairs to get around.
We did not have a balcony as there were none available. I would have liked a balcony as I like sitting on a balcony in the morning for fresh air and to have my coffee. Having said that, we were not in our room too much so I really did not miss not having a balcony.
We actually had a room with an awesome view of the Water Park and the red and yellow Tornado that you see in the picture below put on a colorful light show at night that we loved to watch.
Behind us was the I5 highway and we did not notice any noise from it, so do not worry about being on the side of the highway.
We stayed for two nights and we still did not have time to do everything that Great Wolf Lodge has to offer. We used the water park of course. We went to the Northern Lights Arcade which was a huge hit with my Little One. We also did MagiQuest.
We did not have time to get to the following activities:
Cub Club
Scoops Kid Spa
Compass Quest
Howl At The Moon Glow Golf
Great Forest Challenge
We wanted to do the other activities, but with a two day stay, we just ran out of time. We plan to do the other activities during our next visit to Great Wolf Lodge. We all really wanted to do the Howl At The Moon Glow Golf and the Great Forest Challenge.
Now one important thing to realize is that included in your stay at Great Wolf Lodge is your passes to the water park. You can go to the water park as much as you wish and it is open from 9:00 am until 9:00 pm so you can definitely get a lot of water park time in.
All the other activities are an additional cost. So how do you do more, but not spend too much? I recommend purchasing one of their packages known as Passes. There is the Pup Pass, Paw Pass and Wolf Pass. Each pass is aimed to an age group putting together activities that each age group will likely wish to participate in. We purchase the Paw Pass for each of our girls, but here are the details on each pass.
Color Your Own T-Shirt or Pillowcase
One Animal from Animal Land (Outfit Not Included)
One Pair of Wolf Ears
32 Paw Points for the Northern Lights Arcade
GWL Kandy Kup (cup filled with candy of your choice)
One Single Scoop Ice Cream from Bear Paw Sweets & Eats
(Save 35%)
$40.16/package
One MagiQuest classic wand (or standard topper) and game.
One pair of wolf ears.
50 Paw Points for the arcade.
One animal from animal land (outfit not included)
One single scoop of ice cream from Bear Paw sweets & eats
One glitter tattoo
One sports bottle w/ drink from Spirit Island Snack Shop
(Save 30%)
$59.99/Package
One round of Howl at the Moon Glow Golf
One game at Great Forest Challenge
50 Paw Points for the Arcade
One MagiQuest game and classic wand, topper, or belt
One Animal including outfit from Creation Station
One Sports Bottle with Drink from the Snack Bar
Single Scoop Ice Cream from Bear Paw
One Glitter Tattoo
One pair of wolf ears
(Save 35%)
$81.36/Package
There are a lot of packages that you can add to your stay that can save you money.
The next time that we go to Great Wolf Lodge we would purchase either the Paw Pass or the Wolf Pass for each of our girls.
I recommend doing MagiQuest. It is so much fun, great exercise with all the up and down the stairs, and exciting family fun. If you have younger kids, you can purchase the wand and accessories without the actual game. Your little one can still run around and make things light up, talk and move. This is a perfect option for the younger kids.
For ages 6 and up, I recommend purchasing the actual MagiQuest game as well. MagiQuest is a great family activity and the kids absolutely love it. It provides a challenge in solving clues and gather everything to be a true Magi. It is really well done. It is apparent that kids love MagiQuest because the Lodge is full of kids running around with wands and doing the quests all the way until 10:00 pm when they turn the games off for the night.
As soon as you get your pass or get to the Lodge, I recommend that you get a sports bottle with the drink. The sports bottles are refillable which will save you a lot of money during your visit. We all found that we were very thirsty during our stay because we were all so active so it was a cost savings to be able to simply refill the sports bottle. The sports bottle is also a great souvenir.
With our Paw Pass, our girls also got a glitter tattoo which they got on the last day when we were not going into the pool anymore. The glitter tattoo lasts for seven days unless of course you are in the pool with it getting wet and rubbing it all the time.
We also received a plush toy of our girls choice with the Paw Pass which is always a hit with my girls. They each chose a pillow of one of the Great Wolf Lodge characters. They are great quality plush toys and they have a wonderful selection.
My Little One really love the Northern Lights Arcade. She loved playing the games where you win stuffies and she scored two Hello Kitty stuffies, a cute monster stuffie, two bacon stuffies and a enormous Great Wolf Lodge souvenir ball. On top of that, my Little One played games where she got tickets and then traded the tickets in for other item such as small trinkets and candy.
There are numerous stores for you to shop at and you can get anything from toiletries you might have forgotten to souvenirs.
There are food options as well and you can get snacks, treats and full meals. We did not eat at the restaurants on site, but we did order the on site Pizza both nights. The Pizza at Great Wolf Lodge is awesome and I highly recommend it as a dinner option. It is very affordable and reasonably priced. Close by there was a McDonalds and Quiznos and we also ate there.
The bottom line is that every one of my family members highly recommends Great Wolf Lodge. Great Wolf Lodge is the type of family resort that will make a wonderful yearly, family trip. The staff at Great Wolf Lodge are also wonderful and there to make your stay spectacular.
Here are MomMomOnTheGo’s tips for your Great Wolf Lodge Adventure:
*Arrive as soon as possible on day of check in to maximize your stay and to submit room preference.
*Stay on the third floor. First and second floors are too busy and the others are pretty high which results in tons of walking especially for little legs.
*Purchase a Pup, Paw or Wolf Pass to save money.
*Get a refillable sports bottle as soon as you arrive to save.
*MagiQuest games can be done as a family so you only need to purchase one game with one or multiple wands. The game comes with a Paw or Wolf Pass though!
*Wear water shoes in the water park as some parts can be slippery.
*Bring a life jacket if you have one or you can use the ones on sight for kids that are not strong swimmers.
*Get a themed room as they are amazing.
*Eat the pizza at Great Wolf Lodge. Awesome pizza at an awesome price.
MomMomOnTheGo recommends staying connected with Great Wolf Lodge to stay up to date on news, deals and more.
Official Website
Facebook
Twitter
Blog
Great Wolf Kids
Here is a video of our stay at Great Wolf Lodge Grand Mound, Washington.
Disclosure: MomMomOnTheGo was provided product for the purpose of conducting this review. As always, MomMomOnTheGo only supports companies and products that she loves. All opinions expressed herein are those of MomMomOnTheGo.