A "Howwwwwwwwling" good time at Great Wolf Lodge

A few years ago, when Barry came back home from Kuwait/Iraq, we took the kids to Great Wolf Lodge in Williamsburg for a fun special treat to celebrate Barry's arrival back home. We promised the kids that someday we'd go back again. That 'someday' finally came. Someone in our home school group posted an email about the Lodges great 'home school days' and the rates were hard to beat......so off we went for a winter mini-vacation.
We spent 2 fun filled days in the balmy 84 degrees of the indoor waterpark (this time in Concord/Charlotte NC). The days were filled with slides, climbing structures, tubes and fun. In the evening the younger ones enjoyed story time at the grand clock in the lobby where the animated forest animals and creatures told a story set in the deep dark woods.
Again, a great time was had by all, well, it took Liam a bit of time to get use to the activities and cool water, (even though they said the water was 84 degrees, it definately didn't feel like that, next time we'll go back to Williamsburg). And, there will be a next time, this just may turn into a biannual event.

Hi Ryan here! My feelings on this trip are pretty good. I especially loved the racing mat tubes. The howling Tornado stunk big time. Its not fun going down while sitting in the front and looking backwards. The totem slides were fine. See ya later.

Arrival to the lodge was an exciting event, the kids were eagar to change into swimsuits and jump into the water.
They had a cool tidal wave pool. Every 5 minutes or so you'd hear the 'howwwwling' the timber wolf and then the waves would start and crash into the shore of the pool. This became Liam's favorite place to be. He loved to be held in Barry's arms with the waves crashing around him.

Here, atop Ft. McKenzie, the kids had fun climbing and playing with the various water buckets and squirting things to play with. The slides that came off this structure were Delaney's favorite place to be. If ever we 'lost' her, we'd know where to look, she was most likely coming down one of those slides or running back around to go down once more.

This is Delaney on one of her favorite rides, the totem towers. Really fun water slides.
This is part of a pool, where you crawl across fake logs, or lilly pads. They are covered with water, which makes them slippery.

One of the greatest things about this trip was watching Delaney as she took on the different rides and gained confidence in herself. When we first arrived, she would do very little by herself. As Vicki stated, she discovered the water slides on the Mckenzie and that all changed. Little by little she tried several of the different rides and became quite the explorer. On the second day she was dragging me off to all types of rides.

There were a few times that she got a little scared. She usually remarked that some part of a particular ride had "creeped her out". But she was a good sport about it.

I found that I am not as near as limber as I once was. Climbing stairs all day to get to these rides is hard on a bald fat man. My knees didn't let me forget it either.

Cailin decided that I needed to ride the Howling Tornado with her and Connor. I think that it was not so much as a confidence builder to her as the fact that I was the center of entertainment. She started out by making me promise "upon my soldiers honor" that I would ride this tornado with her. I will definitely be watching for any other times in life that she comes at me with this phrase. It usually means that something bad, very bad, is about to suck you in. She just needs someone along for the ride.

It is funny in life how all those laws of nature that you learn in science as a kid, can come back to bite you. Let me "preach on it". You see, the Howling Tornado is one of those rides that uses gravity and water to move things along. The Tornado is situated about 2 stores above all the other rides. It always felt like at least five to me. After you have endured the climb up of all those steps, you get to set in a tube. The tube is a floating device that seats four. This device is disk shaped, with four places to sit in. When I say sit in, I mean it is a hole that you place your "forth point of contact" in. Your legs and feet are placed towards the center. You have two handles to hold onto. There is a youth that looks just old enough to shave that is up there to help you get all situation. I found that these very bored youth, are not too proud of poking fun at you. Ryan rode this ride with us once. He was very concerned about not being the person who went down backwards. This engaging youth pointed out that I was the one that "had gravity on my side". He was right.

The ride starts off harmless enough, just a couple of gentle curves. Then you can sense that a big change is coming. You plunge down about 50 to 100 ft. It is straight down. I am not so sure of what keeps you from falling out. True to this kind youth's words, right before we hit the big drop, the tube had swang around and I was the one headed down backwards. That is bad enough, but I should point out here that the designers of this ride forgot that lights are still needed. Not only are you free falling, but you are doing so in the dark. Not real pleasant. But we all survived. I'm not sure just how. Cailin acted as if she was extremely scared of it all. But I was having none of it. She went down at least twice more, where she insisted that my presences was needed.

Liam is a water bug. He really loves to be in it. I think it would have been nice if the water temperature was a little higher then freezing. Like Vicki said, the folks that run the place were always quick to tell us that the water was 84 degrees. I had one guy tell me that any higher would run the risk that bacteria would grow in the pools. I assured him that he need not worry. No self respecting water bacteria would ever grow in such cold water. Liam stayed in so long that his lip turned blue. But he is a trooper. He loved the wave pool.

All in all we had a great time. We came home in the mist of snow falling. Some of the fakes were as big as half dollars. Very pretty. I hate driving cop cars in the snow. Barry

Connor: The best ride for me was the howlin' tornado,

it was very fun. This place for a week would be an

ideal vacation. I also liked the wave pool which even

tastes like the ocaen.

At the top of Ft. McKenzie, there is a bucket that will hold over 1,000 gallons of water. Every 5 minutes a bell will clang and then whoosh, the bucket empty's it's contents. Many kids clamor to get under the large pail. You can't see Delaney and Cailin in this picture, but Ryan's there holding Liam.

This is Delaney. I liked the kitty pool and i like the dump bucket. I'm scared of the innertubes.

I like the wave pool. I like the canyon river run, but it was kind of scary. Sometimes you go side to side. I like the racing mat, but it's scary going down the hill. I like the going down the slides in a two person innertube.

This is the story time.

More sleet, snow and ice was in the forcast for our area. Soooo, we left the fun in warm waters early enough and hoped to get home before it started. We made it--as got onto I81 the snow started to come down. By the time we hit our driveway the snowflakes falling from the sky as big as the palm of Liam's hand, huge and beautiful. I tried to get a picture of them, but they didn't come out so well.