You know how you find a new band, and they come out with an album, and you are like, this is the best thing since deep fried macaroni and cheese with a chipotle ranch dip?
Then you get their second album, and it is all sand and eggshells with day old Jello that has the nasty skin on it?
That’s kind of like our trip to Great Wolf Lodge.
The first time we went, we had a great room. Comfortable, nice amenities, and we had a great time.
So for that reason, we decided to take our family back to Great Wolf Lodge. We planned the trip before we left the first time getting a pretty good deal. We had 2 rooms reserved, and we picked a time when they had low occupancy (the week before Memorial Day weekend).
Side note here, GWL, your website right now says “Book your memorial day weekend trip before the rooms are gone!” I think if you changed that to “Book your trip now, because the place is empty and there aren’t any lines” you’d get a lot more people like me coming. But at the moment, that is the least of your worries.
So we checked into the two rooms. Our room was incredibly moist and had that smell of humidity and whatever commercial grade solvents you use to disguise it. We ran the air conditioner, but it could barely keep up. Our sink was kind of weird as the drain wouldn’t come up so the water drained slowly.
So this on a scale from “running out of the building with your hair on fire” to “eh, just have a drink” are tossed about inside.
Being the nerd that I am, first thing I do is plug in the computer at the little desk, plug in, and get some Internetz. Hey look an ant. I bet you are a little lost. Kill.
Hmm, another ant. Kill that one. Wow, that’s two. Ant, ant. Then I look back at the sliding glass door. 15-20 dead ants. Hmm, looks like someone has an ant problem.
So we travel kind of heavy bringing a lot of snacks with us. We typically bring these snacks back home with us too, so it is kind of a pain to move.
I called down to the front desk and ask if they can either spray, or move us. The guy offers to move us, and I suggest maybe tomorrow since we are all ready to go to bed for the night.
The next morning we are alloted the room next door. So we moved all of our stuff.
Moving into the next room, we notice some pieces missing from the fridge. No problem, I know a nearby fridge that has the parts. Swipe. Then I look out at the deck. Now I see where the ants are coming from, and that our little table for the two chairs has served 3 tours in ‘nam. So we swap out that table, and call down for some ant spray for the deck. (And yes, we do actually use the outside deck while on vacation.)
Turns out the first room our guests have doesn’t have a handle on the shower. This room also has some serious wear and tear on it. Give me 10 minutes and a paint roller, and I could hide all the crazy stuff that has happened and make it look great. The book with all the info for the hotel also has some crazy sticky funk on it, swapped that out.
We called down to the front desk to get the spray for the ants, and they responded quickly, so that was cool. The same guy also will fix the leaky shower handle in the new room.
Now the water park. The water park is awesome. No lines, but most of all, the life guards there are SERIOUS about their job. I mean they are like hawks waiting to dive into a meal after fasting for 10 days. These people take their job seriously (for safety) but are still nice people helping fat nerds like me get out of the boats and stuff.
We’ve got 3 more days here, and we’ll see how it goes, but so far, I’m not so sure about GWL as a destination that is clean, well kept, and worth the $200 per night price tag.