Howlin' Good Time

Shane, Luke, and I first visited Great Wolf Lodge last year over spring break.We wanted to do something special with Luke, since this would be our last trip as a family of three. It was a spur of the moment thing, so I basically googled Wisconsin Dells and went with the best deal. We ended up loving it so much that on our last day, we didn't want to leave. The food was great, the staff was amazing, and it was so perfect for a toddler.

We'd planned on returning for spring break this year, but we were so excited that we ended up going President's Day weekend. It was so wonderful that when I received an email inviting us to be a part of the Great Wolf Lodge WaterSlideaThon, I immediately wrote back and said YES! Okay, so I had to wait two days for Shane to get on board, but then I wrote back and said YES! If I weren't such a nice wife, it would've been immediate. We ended up at the King's Island location, which is awesome because my sister lives nearby. Great Wolf Lodge is excellent about allowing you to purchase guest passes in cases like this. In fact, all my sister had to do was go to the front desk and say she was with our family. How easy is that?

I just honestly cannot rave enough. We arrived at 1:30, although check-in time isn't until 4. When I checked in, I was told that our room wasn't quite ready yet, but that if I left my cell, they'd call as soon as it was ready and until then, we were welcome to go to the waterpark. Being that we were 2.5 hours before check in time, I didn't expect it to be ready. However, by the time Shane moved the car from the front entrance to the door near our room, they called to say it was ready! I'm not sure how they did it, but could you ask for better service? Not only was the suite spotless (and sporting bunk beds, which Luke LOVED), but the General Manager had left a hand written card for me, along with a box of FUDGE.

I'm pretty sure we all know the way to my heart is through dessert, right? I quickly devouredsampled all four flavors, and then we made our way to the waterpark. Now, we've only ever been to the Dells location. Kings Island is actually newer than the Dells, and they've made a lot of changes. One of the best improvements that I saw is that the toddler slides are wide open. At the Dells, they're built in such a way that kids are out of your sight for a brief while, which neither Shane nor I liked very much. They have made a huge improvement on that and the slides for smaller kids are now completely open, so that your child never leaves your sight. I love this, and I think it shows that as a company, they are always striving for better.
Luke was having so much fun that the only photos I got looked like this:

He ran and played and ran some more until it was time to go to bed. The next morning, we were treated to an amazing breakfast where we got to meet with the General Manager and the head of Marketing, both of whom have such an evident amount of pride for their work. I learned that Great Wolf Lodge has some pretty amazing things in store, and I hope you'll follow along with them over the next few months to see what's going to happen.

Although I was there as a blogger, obviously I didn't go around broadcasting this to the staff--so when I say that we received excellent service and found all of the employees to go above and beyond, I say this as a GUEST. Every employee we encountered smiled, greeted us, asked if we were enjoying our stay, and so on.
Oh, and the Water SlideaThon? Not only did Great Wolf Lodge make it into the Guinness Book of World Records, but they raised money for the Big Brothers, Big Sisters program. How wonderful is that? I'll end this post the way that we've ended every stay at Great Wolf Lodge: I can't wait to return.

I was provided with a complimentary suite (and fudge, mmm), but was not paid to blog about it, nor was I even asked to blog about it. All opinions are mine and would remain the same had we paid for the stay ourselves, as we have in the past