It’s not every day your littlest guy turns 7. So when we had the opportunity to book Great Wolf Lodge for an amazing price a few months back, we jumped at the chance to do so and celebrate the occasion in a momentous way.
Traveling is tricky during the Coronavirus, especially now with numbers increased. We decided to keep with our plan and do this short trip as safely as possible. Read on to see details of our accommodations, the fun and play Great Wolf Lodge has to offer, and just how safe we felt during it all.
Accommodations
Great Wolf Lodge is a large indoor family waterpark resort – complete with thrilling waterslides, splash areas for the littles, even a surfing simulator that my olders adored – all at a balmy 84 degree air temp year round.
For our experience, the staff was AMAZING. It’s uncharacteristic of them to give free upgrades, but the girl who checked us in was quite sweet. My husband let her know of our son’s birthday and she upgraded us to a fun, kid friendly room. The rest of us were surprised – and the kids were THRILLED – when we entered our room!
Magiquest
If you’ve never been to Great Wolf Lodge before, you may be surprised to hear they have a huge virtual game running throughout the lodge.
Magiquest is comprised of two separate games that put you on a quest to find certain objects in the lodge as you follow an adventurous story line. The Magiquest store is filled with numerous wands and accessories to pick from and the wands light up the hidden objects and activate the game portals.
My kids always have a blast playing this game. And even better, the games is saved on your account so you can pick up where you left off on your next visit.
Once again, the staff was so kind and generous. We must have stood there a good 30 minutes, trying to decide what to purchase, which wands to activate, which games to get…we made our purchases and the cashier ended up activating all our wands and uploading both games for us, bonuses all free of charge!
Around the Lodge
The lodge was decorated in quite a lovely fashion for the holidays – Snowland, as they like to call it. As always with Great Wolf Lodge, I love the cozy feeling of folks feeling the freedom to walk around in their pj’s in the evenings.
Storytime is usually done in the main lobby by the clock; it was done via TV this year. Not quite as homey, but we live in a COVID world now.
Safety Measures – And Did We Feel Safe?
First of all, Great Wolf Lodge definitely took many safety cautions in light of the coronavirus. Signs littered the lodge and procedures were put into place to keep guests germ-free during their stay. Just some of the protocol included:
~ Sanitizing stations set up around the waterpark and lodge. Life vests were to be returned for sanitization prior to re-usage.
~ Guests were advised to keep a 10 foot distance from other families in the waterpark.
~ Only one family was advocated to use the elevator at a time.
~ Chairs were tied together in small groups and then anchored down so they couldn’t be moved.
~ The waterpark closed early and staff would scour the area to clean.
SO – Did we actually feel SAFE???
I don’t want to knock Great Wolf Lodge, especially in light of the many precautions they put in place for guests to follow. But honestly, comparing this stay to our Universal Orlando Trip back in November – the Universal Trip felt much safer.
For one, even though the protocols existed, they weren’t necessarily maintained by the Great Wolf Lodge staff.
I rarely saw guests using the sanitizing stations.
There were times when multiple families occupied the elevators.
Probably the biggest issue was the ten feet apart rule – a fantastic notion when considering extreme measures to protect oneself from a pandemic – but one not easily followed, nor enforced. Guests were clearly not adhering to ten feet apart – not in line, not in the pool, not walking around the park itself.
And, with no one wearing masks – though understandable in a waterpark – I felt quite a bit more exposed and vulnerable than I wanted to. Especially when people would come too close for comfort.
Crowd-wise, the only time I felt the waterpark was overcrowded was our first evening there.
Not sure why there were more people that Wednesday evening, but I recall the bit of concern that ran through me when we first entered the park.
My husband commented on increased crowds due to the holiday (we had last gone in May 2019 and it was fairly empty, and here we were the week before Christmas)…but then the park was not overly crowded all the next day – we were grateful to see less people!
Thankfully, we haven’t appeared to have picked up any pandemic germs on our two trips late this year. 🙏🏼
And we truly had a blast on both trips, not harboring excessive thoughts about getting sick, just being cautious and thoroughly enjoying our days.
We’ve absolutely loved and cherished these fun times as a family, but we’ll be staying in a bit now and laying low, especially while numbers are up.
If we go anywhere in 2021, our hopes and prayers are for travel to China – to pick up the littlest member of our family! Praying for change in the year ahead 💞
