Saturday, March 26, 2011

Great Wolf Lodge

Last Thursday we packed up the swagger wagon and headed up to the Great Wolf Lodge in Concord, NC.  The concept is a big hotel with an indoor waterpark.  This was a mini-vacation that's been on the back burner ever since those "going to the Great Wolf" commercials starting burning themselves into our brains a year or so ago.

The place is pretty impressive when you pull up--we had no idea it would be as big as it was, and there were a lot more people there than we expected around 2:00 on a Thursday afternoon.  Here's Nate (bottom left) checking out the "little kids" area.  In true Nate form, he waited until the second day, about an hour or so before we left, to truly embrace the GWL.


While Gil and the boys went on the quest with their magic wand, Cheryl and I relaxed in the main lobby.

Ben and Gil had about a hundred races down this pair of slides plus another one where they had to go head-first.  Gil wanted me to point out that it appears he won this particular race.

 They had several slides, a wave pool, and a big water "house" that had a wide variety of water features--including one of those 1000-gallon buckets you see at most water parks that dumps every few minutes.  Ben joined the 8-10 year-old jetsetters by lying on his stomach and taking the full force of the water.  They also had a regular pool with basketball goals and this cool ropes course with floating "lilypads".

Taking a break from the "magiton" (Nate-speak for "magic wand").  There were several treasure chests and pictures on the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th floors that you could wave the wand in front of to complete a quest.  We didn't have the book (you're supposed to do them in a certain order), but it was still fun.
 "Story time" at 8pm, where all the kids wear their pajamas to the main lobby for a story and to meet the weird girl-wolf mascot.  Cool idea but definitely a candidate for the "Don't Believe the Hype" award.
All in all, pretty cool place and I'd recommend checking it out.  We only stayed one night but they let you use the water park facilities until 8pm the next day if you want.  We stuck around until a little after lunch, hit the Concord Mills about a mile away, and headed home.  Good times!

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