At $500 a night, one would expect to be near a beach in Miami or a ski chalet in Aspen or perhaps a suite in Nantucket. One would not expect a random December day in Fitchburg. But here we were in Fitchburg at Great Wolf Lodge. A paradise for children of "all ages" featuring arcades, water parks, activities and restaurants. Here is our review.
DLG and I arrive first and walk in to the front entrance. We are met by a warm fire and frowning faces at check in. The line must have been 40 people long and with kids running to and fro, no one seemed too thrilled. Let me check to see where your Mom is, I told DLG, believing that she would take care of everything for us.
Unfortunately, that would not be the case since C and G walked in and were startled by all of the little kids running around in painted faces. G's memory of the place coming here with his buddies was probably much different since he did not come to this place during Christmas break. But really, there are a lot of little kids running around. We decide to get Mom involved with us.
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| At least it wasn't snowing. |
TWO hours later...the kids have spent all of the money that we gave them for the arcade games and Mom and I have two drinks in us - drowsiness starts to set in. The kids have decided to pull their tickets together to get a mini basketball hoop, a bouncy ball and some cheap candy. Sounds good to me. Incidentally, C barely contributes to this endeavor since he spent most of his money on a claw game trying to win a watch that was probably made of plastic. At least we were sitting near a pizza place that served beer on draft while they searched for the prizes.
The boys start roaming around after another 15 minutes and I decide to follow them. We go to the other part of the lodge where there is bowling, mini golf and some other activities - none of which seemed geared toward kids older than toddler age. The bowling alley was about half the size and the mini golf was similar to those derelict courses attached to Howard Johnsons. There was a mini rock climbing wall and a couple of rides. Dave and Busters this was not. Six Flags this was not.
"G, are you sure that this is the place you came with your buddies?" I wonder. We get a laugh at the mini bowling especially, since it looked like it was geared for toddlers, just without the rails. Maybe the water park will save us. G seems incredulous that this is not kicking ass as much as it did before. C seems somewhat disinterested by anything other than the Dunkin Donuts that was located on site (He must have gone there 4 times in 24 hours).
We get inside and C decides that he does not want to go on the water rides today. It was tough to tear him away from his phone long enough to ask him if he wanted to go, although he was not causing any chaos either. G, on the other hand, seemed content going with Mom's friends' kids who met up with us and led them around the water park. Once DLG put her bathing suit on, I could not find her as she zipped around the two room complex; she seemed fine with all of the rides and slides. Mom tried some of the slides, I was just too cool.
We end up eating in the room after a couple of hours at the water park. Although they seemed disinterested during the day, C and G at least looked tired (or maybe my eyes were blurry because I was tired, who knows.). While I did not actually poll anyone, here are our ratings:
C: 5/10
G: 6/10
DLG: 7.5/10
Mom 5.5/10
JMR 4/10
Maybe I'm the kid that this park is not meant for?
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