A Great time at Great Wolf Lodge

I’ve decided that one of the things like about groupon is that it floats ideas past my busy brain that I’ve not really considered, and offers me a good price for them.  This was definitely true when they had a groupon for Great Wolf Lodge near Charlotte the month before Christmas.  I looked at the price and decided that this was exactly what our family needed as a family Christmas present this year. 

The kids were so excited when they opened the envelope with the information on Christmas Day.  They were even more excited when we told them that we were going to go while Cindy Lynn & Mahon were visiting.

The day after New Year’s we cleaned up the house, packed up the car, and drove to Charlotte.  We were really glad that the van happened to be an 8-seater (not something I had been specifically looking for) because it meant that we could all ride together.  We had a great time chatting (or napping for some of us) and before too long we had arrived at our destination.

(ok, so there were no flowers blooming, but you get the general idea…)

We were able to check into our room pretty quickly after arriving, and that was really the only bad moment of the day.  It turned out that our large and wonderful room was MILES away from the indoor water park!  Ok, not quite miles.  But it really was a shock to realize how far we’d have to walk to get back to our room.

Everyone got suits on and we headed for the water park.  I’d been worried about being cold but as soon as we walked in the door I relaxed.  Before we were wet it was almost hot in the water park, it was so warm & humid.

We hit the slides immediately and basically the fun didn’t stop from that point on.  We played & played from 4pm until 7:30 when we were starving, then went back to the room and showered & changed.  Russ & I drove around to various fast food places picking up dinner and by the time we got back everyone was ready to eat.  Russ also got several containers of Dippin’ Dots which were a delightful surprised—the kids really love those.

We weren’t done eating until almost 9.  At that point Cindy Lynn needed to do her breathing treatments & therapy, so they started talking about which game to play.  And then they were all shocked when I said that I was going to bed instead of playing games.  I really did, though—that water wore me out!

The next day the water park didn’t open until 10AM so we had a relaxed breakfast, played a game while Cindy Lynn doing therapy, and were in our swimsuits and ready by 10. 

Our original plan was to change & check out at 2pm.  We had to check out of our room by then and the little kids had a dog-sitting job and needed to feed the dog in the early evening.  We were still having so much fun at 1:30 though that we decided to figure out another plan.  I texted our wonderful neighbor who agreed to go and feed the dog for us, we checked out and loaded all of our stuff, and then we came back and kept playing.  We walked up stairs to the water slides until our legs were dead and our feet hurt, but boy did we have fun! 

Everyone’s favorite slide was called the Howlin’ Tornado.  You got on a raft that could hold 2, 3, or 4 people, and then started down a little slope.  Then there was what felt like a huge drop-off—lots of screaming from some of us!

After the drop off (which doesn’t look nearly as long, steep, or scary as it felt while you were in it!) you emerged into what we finally decided was most like a half pipe.  Up one side, and then back down and up the other side.  Each time you went up or came down you bumped over a “wake” that could do some serious damage, including knocking Rachel completely up in the air one time!

(I know it looks like a funnel, but really it’s much more a half pipe…)

Russ started tiring out late in the afternoon, and then ended up going backwards down one slide and it made him nauseated.  (Whenever 4 people were on a raft, someone was bound to spend most of their time going backwards.)  He decided he was too tired to play anymore and went to shower and change.  By 5 I was worn out too, so I rode everything one more time and then showered and changed.  Then we started telling the kids it was time to get ready to go.

On the way home we managed to fit in another New Year’s tradition…we made our best & worst of 2011 lists in the van, using regular notebooks rather than paper covering the table like we usually do.  We wanted Mahon to be able to be a part of that and since he was leaving early the next morning we knew we wouldn’t have any time at home.  I’ll try to post our final list later.

We didn’t arrive home until 10:30—all exhausted, and very happy.  What a fun Christmas present!