Great Wolf Lodge
Ah.. Great Wolf Lodge. We recently returned from the one in Grand Mound, Washington, as we went over spring break. There are many things to do, and we thoroughly enjoyed visiting.
One thing you can do is play a game called MagiQuest. Cody and I played it, and it’s pretty fun. I got to let the nerdy side of me out to play 
.There’s an extension of it called Compass Quest, as well, where you just get a compass and have that activated with your wand. There’s also a place called gr8_space, which is just for teens, where you can play video games on consoles like X-Box 360 Kinect, Wii, and more. Some games you can play on those consoles are RockBand, Guitar Hero, Just Dance, and more. Â There is also an arcade called Northern Lights Arcade, where you can get tokens for your money (one quarter equals one token), play the games, and it prints out your tickets, which you can redeem for prizes. So, it’s pretty much like Chuck-E-Cheese’s, but without the rides. There are two spas, one for adults, one for kids (Elements & Scoops), as well as Design-Your-Own Crocs and a Great Wolf Stuffing Station.
There’s also many restaurants. There are sit-down restaurants, like the Loose-Moose Cottage Breakfast Buffet and Camp Critter, and to-go places, like Wolf It Down and Pizza Hut Express. There was also an ice cream place (Bear Paw Sweets and Eats (yum)) and a Starbucks (The parents were glad about that. The coffee in the room wasn’t very good). There’s also a gift shop called the Buckhorn Exchange where you can get things like hats, shirts, key chains, and things of that sort.
There’s also the one thing Great Wolf Lodge is best known for. The water park! The picture on the left is Fort Mackenzie, where a  1,000 gallon bucket gets filled with water and spills about every 2 minutes and 20 seconds (Yes, I counted ). There’s a bunch of smaller buckets, too, which you can fill and dump on other kids. Or adults! And the thing about it is that you could dump it on kids and adults, and the other kids and adults could dump it on you, but they can’t get the other in trouble for dumping it on them! They brought it on themselves; they stepped into the danger zone! Melanie really liked that 
. There are a lot of water slides, too, all over the park. Our favorite being the Howlin’ Tornado.
They have a wave pool
as well, with not one, but two kinds of waves! They have the generic waves that go from the back and roll forward, and our favorite kind of waves, the AWESOME 
ones that go diagonally (side to side in back, but progressively head to the front). The wave pool is called Slap Tail Pond . They also had a swim shop that you could only access from inside the water park, called Bear Essentials Swim Shop, in which you could rent a locker, buy a swim suit, buy a Great Wolf Lodge towel, or a cover for your swim suit (for walking to and from the water park). There was also an area for the little ones to play in, where the water was only about a foot deep. We didn’t play in it, being that we were a bit old for it, but if I was 3 or 4 again, I’d say that it looked like fun.
There was also a snack bar where you could have a lunch of hot dogs or hamburgers and such, called Spirit Island Snack Shop. AND, the water park area is always a toasty 84 degrees (unless of course you go to the outdoor extension of the hot tub (yes, there is an indoor part), which is just the temperature of the outside). To be honest, there were only two things we didn’t like about the water park, one not as much, but still don’t like it. One, they close at 9 p.m. However, they open at 9 a.m., so the water park is open 12 hours a day, not too shabby. But, the other thing was the constant smell of chlorine. Even if the water didn’t smell like it, you did. I mean, as soon as you walked in you could smell it. Dad’s eyes hurt as soon as he came in the door. And then the water in the wave pool and the other pool smelled kinda like a mixture of chlorine and sweat and pee. But that’s later in the day .
And when we weren’t in the water park, we were playing MagiQuest. And boy was that fun . You get a wand, and there are different designs for the wand that you get (Here is a hyperlink to their site where you can see the selection available in store). How you play the game is first the nerdy guy or girl at the front counter gives you the game and a book. The game is a small circle piece that goes inside the wand (or as I, Ashley, would say,”In the butt of the wand”). You also get a book that gives you hints on where to go to finish the quest you’re on. Along the way you will turn from a magi into a master magi, (and if along the way the elevators are full you will have to take the stairs 
) And when you would like to check your progress or go on a new quest/adventure, go up to either a large plastic tree or  box, wave your wand at the screen, and it will show you the things that you still need to find or quests/adventures you have not completed.
All 8 floors had rooms. The rooms all have different themes. Just put in a date and some people, 
and look at the rooms! We stayed in the Grand Bear Suite. To the right is me and my dad, in the room. One of the only good pictures we took on our stay. Â While you don’t spend much time in your room, it’s nice to have one with a lot of space and a good view, maybe even a balcony!
All in all, the Great Wolf Lodge is a pretty cool place. We really liked visiting, and hope that you will if you go. Great Wolf Lodge is not a waste of money. We hope you can go and enjoy what we enjoyed .
Hope you can get your howl on too,
Ashley & Cody *howl*
P.S. It’s cheaper to go to the Great Wolf Lodge when it’s not Spring Break or a school vacation… We learned that the hard way.
