Great Wolf Lodge

I’m looking for opinions and/or experiences anyone has had going to Great Wolf Lodge. We will be going to the one in the Poconos, PA. We are looking at going in June after school lets out. I did a search and I only saw one mention of it at all, and the OP wasn’t directly related to their experience there, but something else.

Google on “great wolf lodge” pennsylvania reviews.

We went to the one in Michigan. Kids loved it. Wife & I - eh, not as much - but then again we went for the kids enjoyment.

We stayed for one night at the one near Cincinnati last October. The kids really enjoyed it. The rooms were nice, but smaller than what they look in the literature. Of course, like almost any nice hotel, the prices on things were a bit expensive, but not out-of-line with similar hotels or vacation spots. There was a decent variety of “rides” in the water park. Also, you can use the water park until it closes on the day you check out.

That is kinda what I thought. We are mostly going for the girls. My oldest daughter is turning 9 a couple of weeks before and we thought it had to be better than another trip to Chuck E. “Nasty-Pizza” Cheese.

From their site:

Family of timber wolves above the fireplace

WTF? Real wolves? Is that legal? On the other hand you know the wolfloaf in the cafe is fresh.

Whaddyaknow, I’m going for the first time later this month, to the one in the Poconos as well.

Can anyone comment on how much there is to do there, either in the Lodge itself or nearby? I’ve scheduled a three night stay, arriving Monday and leaving Thursday; is that way too much for what they’ve got?

We’re also planning on visiting Bushkill Falls one of the days, and generally would prefer to stay in one room/lodge for the whole trip, but Great Wolf is pretty pricey, and I’m reconsidering staying just 2 nights at the Lodge and one night somewhere else for the day we go to Bushkill.

I’m doing that as well, but let’s be honest. I trust a Dopers opinion more than a random person off the internet.

I’ll chime in with personal doper experience. We’ve been to the one in Williamsburg probably 3 or 4 times in the past year or so. My feelings about it are mixed. For a getaway during the winter it’s great. Although it could be just a tad warmer in the water park area, it’s still a blast. As you’re going in June, I don’t see the advantage as much. It would be much cheaper to just find an inexpensive hote and water park to visit. The water rides are ok, but I see the advantage being that I can go when it’s snowing outside. The rooms all usually start around the $200 range per night. Now it’s true that you can go to the water park starting at 10am the day you check in, and can stay until 4pm the day you check out. So proper planning can get you more time to utilize the water park. After our first visit, we just brought our own snacks and breakfast food. It’s way cheaper and worth the hassle as the food there wasn’t anything memorable…except the price that is.

Overall we had a good time and enjoyed ourselves, but only because it was an opportunity to visit a waterpark during the cold, rainy part of the winter. I wouldn’t consider it at all for anytime during the summer months. Although they do usually stay booked, so obviously other people enjoy it.

*damn, lot of comments in just the few minutes it took for me to type mine. As for other things to do there, there is MagiQuest…you buy this magic wand thing, and register your kids and they run around pointing the wand at stuff in the hotel to make it light up and do stuff. It’s a fairly involved quest, so if your kids are old enough to get into it, it can probably kill a fair amount of time. There is also a pretty decent arcade…so you’ll probably run out of quarters before they get bored. And lastly there is the kids club. They have crafts and story time and such like spread out during the day. So you can take the kids down there as a break from the waterpark.

Another good thing about Great Wolf is that it’s a family place. So a lot more people there that look like me (buddah) than the tanned people that seem to hang out at the beach. Helped make me much less self-aware of my own waistline that I’m struggling against.

We went to the one in Niagara Falls, Canada. It was a great time, especially for the Small One.

It’s definitely a kid’s place. The waterpark was excellent and our daughter could have happily stayed for a month. They had storytime, animatronic animals, and all kinds of other stuff she found insanely cool. The rooms are pricey at first blush, but you can fit a bunch of people into them so you’re getting what you pay for.

As a adult, though, you should know a few things:

  1. At least in the Niagara case, the hotel had terrible food. There are a few pizza stands and one buffet restaurant that was really, really bad.

  2. The place is infamous for huge lineups to check in, so be appropriately prepared for that.

We stayed at the one in Traverse City Michigan. It’s a terrific place for keeping kids occupied - they were running all over the place finding electronic easter eggs in some kind of medieval wizard-themed game when we checked in, and there was a story time and other kid-friendly stuff scheduled.

The rooms were okay, nothing special, but comfortable.

The water park was really pretty good; the bigger slides were big enough to occupy us adults for a morning, and I could see little kids happily making a day of it.

We went to one in Wisconsin several years back.
Not our ususal cup of tea.
With young kids it was decent to go during the winter to allow the kids to run around in an inside water park while the adults lazed around drinking beer.
But we haven’t been back.
Loud, but that;s pretty much par for the course.

I have grown weary of these indoor swim parks loaded with kids. When we visited, two out of three times the pool/parks were closed, and one time by my prompting, when too much ‘floating debris’ was sighted.

I don’t care how much chlorine they pump in, they’ve got hundreds of kids who ain’t potty trained soaking their swimming diapers for hours. Shit’s gonna get out…and the water is getting a crap treatment as it swishes in and out of the hundreds of rectums sloshing around in it.

Not big on public pools, especially on that scale. All my friends kids come home with strep or ear infections. Anecdtoal evidence. YMMV.

We stayed at the one in Wisconsin Dells (and the year before at Kalahari) as a Boy Scout troop - with one room rental we’re able to sleep 12 people, which made our room cost about $60 per person so it was reasonable. We took advantage of the early use of the waterpark and then more the next day until we left at 1:00 PM. We didn’t eat there - since our rooms were condo units we had a full kitchen and tables etc. Beware: some of the kids actually spent more time in the arcade area than in the pool!