Visiting Great Wolf Lodge - Olivia Michelle

Great Wolf Lodge is a huge resort full of tons of activities, restaurants, games, and an 84 degree indoor water park. Its a fantastic time for the whole family. Here are some things you should know before your visit! We specifically stayed at the Grand Mound, Washington lodge but much of this info is applicable to any of the 16 Great Wolf Lodge locations.

Great Wolf Lodge has everything you need. Plan to park and spend the entire time at the resort, its like an all-inclusive vacation (but you have to pay for the extras). On the day you check in, you can access the waterpark at 1:00pm, even if your room is not ready yet. The day you check out you can use the water park all day until they close at 8:00pm, even though check out of your room is at 11:00am. So pack your swimsuit in a different bag for easy grab and go when you arrive.

We visited during Snowland (Winter Seasonal) which included snow in the lobby every afternoon at 4:00pm. Download the Great Wolf Lodge App before your arrival to access hours for all facilities and times for scheduled events.

Snowland also included the resort being decorated for Christmas, Pajama story time, Christmas songs and books during activities, and special Christmas merchandise.

Activities are FREE with your stay and include things like:
Morning Show
Character Meet & Greets
Yoga
Family Games
Arts & Crafts
Storytime

The water park is also FREE with your stay. It is HOT in there (a lovely climate controlled 84 degrees) so make sure to pack your flip flops and a cover up to have with your swimsuit. Swimming floaties and life jackets are provided, as well as towels! If you prefer to bring your own life vest or floatie, that is allowed also. No pool toys or floats, noodles are permitted. I didn’t feel like we needed water shoes but they are allowed and the floor can be slippery.

The water park has chairs as well as tables. If you want to secure one then I suggest sending someone in your party to the water park when they open at 10:00am to grab one. There are also private seating areas available for rent daily they call “cabanas”. We were always able to find chairs but not necessarily ones with a table.

There are quite a few different areas in the waterpark. Certain water slides have height requirements. Aurora’s (age 8) favorite place was the wave pool. There is a large little kids play area, multiple tubing slides, water activities, splash zones, and more.

There are also quite a few other activities that are NOT included with your stay, and cost extra to participate in. These include:
Build-a-Bear Workshop
Putt Putt Golf
Arcade
Mining Experience
MagiQuest
Ropes Course (Open Seasonally)

If it is your first visit, I highly recommend purchasing a Paw Pass for your kids. This will save you money on the activities in the long run (if you plan to do all of them during your stay). There are a few different options to choose from varying in price. You will be able to add this during booking or later when you check in. There is also an adult pass called the Sip & Savor which I also felt was worth it.

We booked a King Suite, which was great for our family of three. It was very spacious compared to normal hotel rooms. The character rooms are perfect (and SO cute) if you have more than one child. Every room has a mini fridge, microwave, and coffee maker. So you can’t cook but you can heat up your leftovers. We ate every meal at the resort. When you book there is an option to pre-pay an amount for food, which saves you some money.

If you’re like me and need creamer, bring your own! Coffee and sugar is provided.

If you need a real coffee each morning, there is a Starbucks located inside the resort. The line can get long starting around 9:30am so I’d say to get there earlier!

Putt Putt Golf is indoors and is glow-in-the-dark. It is very small but still lots of fun. Many families will wear pajamas at night to various activities arund the resort. We saw a ton with matching pajamas. This is an activity included in some of the Passes, but if not it runs $4-7 per person for one round.

The arcade is another fun activity. Arcades drive me nuts charging so much for games and giving you the most pitiful and cheap prizes BUT Travis and Aurora are obsessed. If you get the pass it only comes with a $5 arcade credit so you’ll want to purchase a card in the arcade. Have a set amount you want to spend and stick with it.

The Build-a-bear has exclusive Great Wolf Lodge character stuffed animals and clothing. This is where kids go through the process of making their own stuffy. It is included in some of the passes or stuffed animals run about $20-30 without clothing/accessories.

Magiquest is an activity that can drive us parents pretty bonkers. I don’t suggest it for younger kiddos (6 and under). We had to help Aurora (8) do it and she really enjoyed it but it can be a lot. You must purchase the wand if you don’t have a pass (comes with pass). Basically you will walk around the resort and try to find objects like paintings, crystals, treasure chests and your interactive wand will make it light up and talk to you. So you go on “quests” to find certain objects and “collect” them in a certain order.

When you pick up your wand they will also give you a booklet. Keep an eye on the words in bold as they hint to where you can find the objects for each quest. You can find this sign in the hallway, it will tell you what each floor is named and helps a ton. Keep in mind objects for the quests can be on almost any floor and anywhere in the resort so you are running around.

I also suggest doing the quests in order. They increase in difficulty the more you progress and are harder to find. Once you finish all of the quests, you can do the adventures. We spent hours doing these and did not finish them all in the book. We did do all the quests and two adventures but there are a ton.

There are quite a few restaurants to choose from inside the lodge. We found them all good too and most were reasonably priced. You can mobile order through the app and it will notify you when your order is ready for pick up. Some restaurants are only open for breakfast and lunch, or lunch/dinner. You can view hours and menus for all food locations on the app.

Our personal favorite was the Lodge Wood Fire Grill. We enjoyed all of the food we had though. There is even a restaurant in the water park so you can grab food while you’re still splashing around. There is also a bar in the water park.
View all of the dining options HERE.

Read my full post on our favorite foods to grab at Great Wolf Lodge in my other post:
A Foodie’s Guide to Great Wolf Lodge

The mining area has two different activities you can do. This is one of the big advantages of getting the pass, because the mining is $35+ for both. First thing you can do is mine for precious rocks. Aurora loved doing this. You’ll get to sift it in the water just like the olden days.