Great Wolf Lodge

 For our tenth anniversary, we had the privilege of staying at a local family fun spot: 

I was looking for somewhere fun and celebratory for us, and Great Wolf Lodge, Grapevine came to mind. I knew with our family size it would just be too expensive, so I contacted the media marketing manager to ask if I could do a review on the resort. I filled out paperwork and we were accepted at a media rate we could afford! Woohoo!!

So off we went on an unusually cold and blustery day:

 Thursday, May 2nd.

The kids were of course super excited about the indoor waterpark. And what fun it was!

But we will get to THAT in a minute.

First, we checked into our room which was the Loft Suite.

The room had two full beds and a living room with a sofa sleeper.

This gave all of our people the perfect amount of  room for relaxing and sleeping:

The boys enjoyed their semi-private space. The girls spread out on their big bed, and Keishun was thrilled to plop right in the middle of his own bed.

The extra TV's in each room helped too!

And for Billy and I?

Our own private loft with bed and half bath!!

The children of course enjoyed running up and down the stairs to spy on us:

So we unpacked, stocked our mini fridge with drinks and headed down for dinner:

 Here we chose the tortilla chips and dips appetizer (delicious!!), burgers, chicken kids meals, and philly cheesesteak and fried. It was all very good and our waitress was super friendly and engaged with us.

After dinner we toured the facilities:

The arcade:

 The kids spa:

And the gift shop:

There is also an activity you can play called Magiquest...where you purchase magic wands and walk around the resort in an interactive game. 

We didn't do that because we are anxious to get to the waterpark.

A wave pool, lazy river, big slides, kids play parks, and hot tubs kept us nice and busy.

 Jayden is a FISH. 

He spent most of his time underwater in the waves:

After the water park, we bathed and got pajamas on in time for the 9 o' clock lobby clock tower puppet show:

It was cute, but the girls were of course scared.

Then we went down to the Sweet Shop and had our treats:

The desserts were yummy!!

 The only problems we saw with the resort were that it was not maintained well. Note the overflowing trash and recycling. When I took this picture, a Great Wolf Employee walked by...wiped a table (but incidentally did NOT take the trash off the table) and ignored the overflowing trash cans.

 

Also, the breakfast buffet was beautiful but cold and not well maintained...thereby making it over priced. They did have a chef doing up made-to-order omelets, so that redeemed breakfast for Billy and Isaac. I would recommend skipping the the buffet and picking up pastries and drinks at the Starbucks located across from the gift shop.

We made up for the disappointing parts by hitting the 

waterpark on day two:

 Great Wolf Lodge allows you to go to the water park even after checking out...from open til close (9am to 9 pm).

To do much else though, costs money.

So if you want to get all you can out of Great Wolf Lodge...bring lots of cash.

Overall for the price I give the resort 3 out of 5 stars.

For a fun family time, it is worth trying out atleast once cause our kids loved it. Our wallet...not so much!