Northern California will soon be home to its very own Great Wolf Lodge! They have just started breaking ground in Manteca, CA…which is in California’s Central Valley, and about a 1-2 hour drive form the Bay Area, depending on where exactly you’re coming from. It’s expected to be up and running int he first half of 2020. So, with all this Great Wolf Lodge talk, I couldn’t help but reminisce on our family’s visit this past Spring Break to their Grapevine, Texas location.
If you’re not familiar with Great Wolf, here’s the low down…it’s a huge indoor waterpark and hotel aka family-fun zone, with some dining, shopping and other activities all within one location. It’s open year round and kept at a toasty 80 degrees all the time. It’s themed to look and feel like an outdoor, woodsy, wilderness lodge…and it’s as probably as close to camping as our family will get!
The waterpark is the main attraction and it has multiple slides, splash play areas, a lazy river, wave pool, etc… pretty much something for everyone, and the way they are able to maintain “crowd control” is because you must be a guest of the lodge in order to have access to the amenities.
My kids had caught wind of this indoor water playground after seeing the commercials on TV. I had known about it because of friends with older kids who had already had the Great Wolf experience, so we surprised them and checked it out during our Texas trip. We opted to stay for one night. They have a few different of options for rooms, all are suited for families and their different needs. And even though we were only there for one night, we got to enjoy 2 days of waterpark excitement. One the day you check in, even if you’re room isn’t ready you can access the park beginning in the afternoon, AND you can stay all day the day you check out! Plus, every child who checks in gets their very own wolf ears! 🙂
Other fun activities to check out at Great Wolf are the arcade, I mean what kid can resist playing games and winning tickets!? The also have a ropes course (which we couldn’t do because of the stormy weather outside), as well as a MagiQuest live-action adventure game. We enjoyed attending their pajama story time and dance party in the evening, once the waterpark had shut down for the day. Check out my boys busting out the dance moves in the video below…
At the end of the day, the one nighter was a good amount of time for our family, and now we can’t wait for this new facility to open up in NorCal!