Photo-A-Day #4116

Today was our full day at the Great Wolf Lodge waterpark. We started off with another ride down the Canyon River Run. When we got to the bottom Eva and I went up to the Howlin’ Tornado. I also took my phone and the XShot with me. I was holding it to film Eva who was directly across from me on the raft. I ended up going down backwards because I was the heaviest person on our raft. I was on with Eva and to kids. We went down the tube and then dropped down into the huge drain. When you do that you go down one side and up the other. I kept having the problem that when water splashed the phone it shut off the recording. I got a fairly good shot of Eva seeing the giant drop for the first time. Some great expressions on her face for that. It is in the vlog for today.

After the Howlin’ Tornado. Eva and I were a bit shaken. It was scary but fun. We got our nerves back by hanging out in the wave pool for a while.Once we were relaxed we went across the way to the other waterpark and played in the Fort Mackenzie area for a while then Allison and Eva did the lazy river and Andrew and I kept playing in Fort Mackenzie. While in there my glasses got blasted off my face and I didn’t realize it. Then I stepped on those glasses and scratched them all up. I hope that I am still covered by the Crizal warranty. There are plenty of scratches on them now. Later on Andrew would lose his Frogglez.

We had lunch by the Lazy River and then the kids tried crossing the Big Foot Pass. They both did a great job on it.

We hadn’t been back to Great Wolf Lodge since the grand opening two years ago. At that time the kids were younger and so we didn’t do any of the slides. One thing that Allison noticed when we were there the first time was the training we saw in all the lifeguards. They were awesome, always moving, always scanning the pools, hand signals to the other guards. This could have been a sort of “everyone on their toes because the boss is there” sort of thing but it wasn’t. We saw that same level of training and care from the lifeguards this time around. In fact everyone we came into contact with was friendly and warm and so good to the kids.

Continue reading The Real Day 2 of Our Secret #GreatWolfLodge Adventure →

Photo-A-Day #4115

Right off the bat let me explain the disclosure on this one. My company was running a 50% deal to stay at Great Wolf Lodge. I found a Wolf Den room which is the only way we’d be staying since a family suite won’t cut it for us anymore. The kids need their own little space and the Wolf Den is perfect for that. So I paid for this trip and two Pup Passes for the kids. However, I contacted the PR person from Great Wolf Lodge and let her know that we would be coming and that I’d be making videos and doing blog posts about the trip. I asked if they could do anything for us. Well, when we got her they had made us VIPs, upgraded the Pup Passes too the next level of Paw Passes and we checked in right at 1pm. The Director of Guest Services came out and greeted us as well. They even left a complimentary cheese plate in our room. Does this influence these videos and blog posts, no. Opinions I have of the place are 100% my own as always.

We drove up after meeting with our Real Estate Agent. We made an offer on the house that we feel in love with. That offer was countered and now we have to decide our next move. We’re going to sleep on it.

Then we drove to Fitchburg and had a nice lunch at Buffalo Wild Wings. This turned the kid’s attitudes right around. You see, they don’t like not knowing what is going on. We did not tell them that we were going to Great Wolf Lodge. Rather we packed up the night before and just got into the car. Allison blames the attitudes on the Bennett Hangrys. If I don’t eat I do get Hangry. Eva does as well and Andrew just feeds on whatever anyone else is going through. But lunch was something that turned everyone around, plus we were mere exits away from our destination.

The reaction from the kids was priceless. They were so thrilled to come to the park. They were even more thrilled to find out that we would be staying in a Wolf Den room. We saw one of them during our first visit at the Grand Opening two years ago. It has taken us this long to get back.

We had a great experience at check in as I mentioned above. Then we went right to our room. The kids decided that one night Andrew would take the top bunch and the next night Eva would have it. We were delighted to see a beautiful cheese plate with prosciutto and a couple of cheeses plus a backed cheese item on top.

We changed and headed to the water park. We did the River Canton Run slide first because the whole family could go at one time. Andrew is just too little for the Howlin’ Tornado (Today’s Photo A Day) but that is okay, next time. We also hit the wave pool and the two kid pools, the lazy river and the hot springs (giant jacuzzi). Eva and Andrew also did this thing where they climbed across wobbly platforms while climbing hand over hand on a rope net. They liked that a lot. Allison helped Andrew do his.

Andrew got the biggest laughs getting me wet in the big playground with kid sized water slides and more. He was giggling like crazy.

After the water parks we went back to the room and got changed up and ready to grab dinner. We were going to grab a pizza and take it back to the room. We checked to see how long that would take and found out it was only a couple of minutes so we poked around at some of the shops because the kids had their Paw Passes with them and they wanted to get their MagiQuest wand toppers. I ran back to the room to get the wands and we got the game started and the kids got their wand toppers. Eva got a harp and Andrew got a Red Dragon. We went to start a quest. Well, both wands were programmed for Andrew so we went all the way back and got that squared away. By the time we did that the pizza was ready and Allison had it waiting for us back in the room. We ate dinner and then did four of the quests in the game. Eva is determined to finish the whole of the quests before we leave. So we’ll see how that goes. We got the kids to bed and then I got to work. The video below is of our day. I shot it on my Samsung Galaxy S7 and used my XShot Float Handle for GoPro & Action Cams With Internal Storage. I also unboxed the Mouth Bite Grip Kit for GoPro with Floaty and Lanyard. I’m not sure if this is the place to use it. I didn’t use it today. The XShot products were given to me back in October after IZEAFest. Opinions of those products are 100% our own.