Making the Most of Your Trip to the Great Wolf Lodge

posted by Stacie on September 29, 2009 // 2 Comments »

This is post two in a three-part series of our adventures at Great Wolf Lodge in Concord, NC.

The first post gave a long, detailed description of our weekend trip. Now I give you “What I Wish I Had Known Before Going to Great Wolf Lodge.”

What We Liked: There are a ton of food choices and the food is very reasonably priced. They have Pizza Hut and Dunkin Donuts. Aren't these the family vacation food groups, anyway?

Or just drive off property to more than 20 food choices within a few miles including Bob Evans, Chick Fil-A and much more.

Great Wolf Lodge lives and breathes a family friendly atmosphere. You will find kids and adults of all ages.

There really is no curfew so it is not unusual to kids hanging out in the lobby at 11PM. We hung out there too.

No hidden extras with the water park. Great Wolf is an inclusive place which means the water park is free with your room reservation.

Plenty to do. There are tons of activities available for all ages (most with a fee).

They have multiple locations across the United States so the chances are, there is a Great Wolf Lodge near you!

What I Would Change or Address: Not enough elevators to service the place or at least the crowd during the weekend. The halls are long and the lodge is shaped sort of like a ‘V' with one set of elevators in the middle (at the point of the V) plus one set at each end. We took the stairs most of the time but those halls seemed twice as long when carrying a sacked out child or two.

The towel situation annoyed me a little. When coming from the water park, it is the policy (we were told) of Great Wolf Lodge that you must return the borrowed towels before exiting the water park.

On the first day, my two year old ended up swallowing a little water and had quite a fit. This led to a meltdown and she fell asleep in my arms. The attendant MADE me give him the towels that I had her wrapped in.

This attendant clearly did not have children. As soon as I unwrapped her, she woke up screaming and shivering. We had to trek it back to our room to get some warmer clothes. I went out and bought towels at Walmart so this didn't happen again. They were just towels. I didn't want to keep them. I really would have brought them back. What is odd is that you can only use the water park if you are a guest of the hotel.

The rooms can be a bit on the pricy side during the peak travel season but they have some great sales throughout the year so check back often. Also keep in mind that Great Wolf is an inclusive place. Again, the water park is free with your room reservation and so worth it.

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The verdict: Great Wolf Lodge is now one of my families favorite places to go. We decided during our trip to make this or yearly back-to-school/end of Summer trip.