Have a Great Wolf Day! – a review

As promised this is my review of Great Wolf Lodge. Up until this past weekend it, in fact, felt as if we were the last family on earth to visit the infamous family waterpark. But having heard from several of my reades over the past two weeks I know now that’s not the case and many are waiting to hear if it’s worth the money. I have to say we were pretty much thrilled with this trip. We decided to celebrate my daughter’s ninth birthday and combine that with a graduation/ end of school year trip for both girls. This Canada Day end of school year thing has become a family tradition for us. Lucky for us, Niagara Falls is just over two hours from here and we were right between Canada Day and the 4th of July, so we had a very exciting celebration at the falls. 

We stayed in the Kid Kamp Suite, a very spacious room with bunks and murals. The waterpark was a solid $$$$$ five out of five. Service was exceptional and, it seemed to me that this place has really taken a page out of the Disney service handbook when it comes to families. 

Story time in the grand living room was so much fun. Every night at 8 children wear pyjamas to the lobby and a person tells a big bedtime story with characters from the Lodge present and audience participation. We all wished to stay longer than we did, but work and ther commitments called. 

There is a children’s (Cub Care) area where parents can sign their children in and take a break. Crafts and activities are available. Some crafts cost extra. For instance a child can colour a Lodge T-shirt for about $15. There are occasional pyjama party nights, especially for the younger set here. The area was clean and looked fun. The caregivers appeared to be responsible. (These are the kinds of family frills I really appreciate as a Mom.)  I had 2 or 3 minor complaints really. 

We managed to get to GWL as a result of Lay’s Chip Trips promotion, which I have been blogging about here and with Mom Central Canada. If you collect 50 chip trip points you get 50% off the second night of your stay at Great Wolf. That made our price affordable. I think our grand total was about $525 for two nights and three days worth of play at the park. Without the Lay’s deal we couldn’t have managed this trip. Many rooms are priced according to size but you can’t get anything under $300 a night. The slides are fantastic. (100,000 square feet of waterslides for all ages) The wolly mammoth slide we could all ride together and we loved that. Niagara Rapids run was way too fast for my blood but my husband loved it as did one of my daughters. It was kind of like a roller coaster paired with a waterslide. There were dozens of lifeguards everywhere and the bonus part of visiting at this time of year is the outdoor pool area which is popular. The rooms were adorable and service was great for the most part. One night we ate at the Antler Shanty and while food was excellent, our family of four paid $70 and our service was sub-par. The server was very slow.