AMAZING.....is an understatement for how much FUN we had the last two days at the Great Wolf Lodge Waterpark/Hotel in Williamsburg! It was an amazing experience full of fun memories, two tired kids, and two exhausted parents. But we all had fun the entire time we were there!!
We arrived at 1pm on Monday for early swim check-in (rooms aren't ready til 4pm), so we got to swim til dinner time), then took the kids to dinner off-site, and back to the room to sleep! They haven't been in a hotel room for a while, and with Maddy new to the big girl bed, I was not too optimistic of our restful nights sleep. But to our amazement she did great! The kids fell asleep just after 9pm and didn't get up til 7:30am! Which was perfect because the waterpark opens at 9am daily! Our room was great! Two queen beds, and a half wall separating the couch (pull out sofa, which Maddy slept on all by herself!!)
So at 9am sharp we snagged our table/chairs for the day to setup our "camp" and got swimming!
Maddy had a BLAST from the moment we walked in the door on Monday. I wasn't sure if she'd actually enjoy the swimming, but she was the first one into the water. The photos below are of the "toddler zone". The water level goes from 1" gradually to about Maddy's chest at the deepest part where the kiddie water slides let out. So needless to say, it was perfect, and she walked the whole area by herself with no hesitation!! The kiddie zone has falling water, and 3 mini slides for them to go down on their own!
The facility has life guards EVERYWHERE!!!! Always manning each area of water with great detail. We brought the girls floaties just in case, and they came in handy a few times. Mostly for the regular swim pool and our favorite, the WAVE POOL!!! Both girls loved the wave pool. Every 5 minutes, off/on, the waves would start coming. You could swim with them, or float on a single or double tube! Lets just say by the end of both days our hands/feet were the most wrinkled I've ever seen!! If it weren't for stopping to eat or leave to go home, these kids could have swam ALL DAY! Now I know why people stay a few nights.....it just never gets old!
Another favorite was the lazy river, we rode down that many times! Abby even got to ride the tube by herself! And there was a surfing "ride" thing, that we didn't try but it was fun watching others attempt as they rode the boogie board down a steep hill of rushing water coming up at them!
The park seemed to have it all. There was a lot more in the hotel that we never even looked at because the waterpark was all we needed. There was a teen zone for the older kids, a magic wand game throughout the hotel and lobby, an arcarde, spa, miniature golf......and more!
Mike took the photo below to brag about the fact that they surprisingly sell beer at this waterpark too!!! Another cool feature....your adult wristband doubles as your room key and charge key! So it gets you access to all building access points, and you can charge food/drinks to your room and not carry cash/cards around! WOW!!! All in a tiny thin wristband!
But I wanted to showcase the view from the kiddie area, looking towards the big kid water fort and slides! To access the green and orange single-rider (tubeless) slides you have to climb up to thru the water fort (and you can barely make it out, but the big bucket at the top of the fort dumps 1,000 gallons of water every 5 minutes after a few warning bells!! Dumping it on anyone standing below!! Pretty fun to watch all day long. Abby is 41" tall, making her tall enough to ride the single rider slides by herself, and 2 of the 4 adult rides with an adult on a double tube.
I can't emphasize enough how brave she was, and how much she LOVED all the rides. First she did the single rider slides, which go slow enough that you can sit upright the whole time, or lay on your back, and empty into a trough, not a pool. She did that by herself right away with ease.....then another 50+ times the first day. Then the second day I realized she could do the bigger slides with us (blue one in this photo!!). She sat on the front of the double tube, me in the back, holding onto the front part of my legs/feet. And she LOVED it again! I had gone through it once by myself just to see how fast it was, and was skeptical that she'd enjoy it. Boy was I wrong. She screamed in excitement along with me each time, yelling "I'm not even scared!!!".
Maddy taking a break to snack! When she wasn't swimming, she loved to sit back and watch everything around her. She made the trip very enjoyable. I think 2 was the perfect age, especially knowing she loved to swim with the floaty on when we needed her to. So we got to do a lot of swimming as a family!
Cute video of Maddy being silly, slapping her pony tail around:
You probably can't make it out in the video background, but there is a constant flowing water noise throughout the park, and the park is always 84 degrees! The second day the temperature in the area dropped drastically, and the high for the day was 33! We never knew........until we had to leave and walk from the lobby to our car!!! Burrrrrrr
Unfortunately I wasn't able to get any pictures/video of Abby because we only had our phones with us that first day as we waited for our room to be ready, and I was terrified of dropping it in the water or getting splashed! But rest assured, she had the time of her life!! I think she would call it that at least! Proof, when we got home that night and put her to bed, she asked about when we were going back, and I told her another time. I thought that answer was good enough, until she came out of her room crying and sobbing incessantly 10 minutes later, sad that she wanted to go to the water park again! Poor kid had too much fun.
We were barely 1/2 a mile out of the lodge parking lot and we got two passed out kids!
So it was a nice, quiet ride home!!! The END to a great 2 day mini winter vacation!!!!
Looking forward to an excuse to go again!!!
