Where to Wednesday: Great Wolf Lodge Sandusky, Ohio

When you decide to take a 14 hour road trip with 2 little kids, it’s very helpful to have somewhere fun to stop.  I knew it would be tough for me to stay sane on a trip that long, but I knew it would be even harder for my two active little girls to stay in a car seat that long. I planned on splitting the trip into 2 days & stopping over night. As I browsed around for somewhere fun to stay, I was thrilled to find out there was a Great Wolf Lodge about halfway between our house & our final destination: Chicago. 

So, as we set out on our journey to Chicago, Great Wolf Lodge in Sandusky, Ohio was our first stop. After a long day in the car, the girls were beyond excited when we arrive at Great Wolf Lodge. From the outside, it really looks like a lodge (just a very big one). Maggie & Alex ran right in & began exploring. 

We couldn’t check in & hop into our swim suits fast enough. They stored up a whole lot of energy after 8 hours in those car seats & what better way to burn it off than their 1st water park experience! 

 We started out in Soak’n Oak Springs™. The size of the pool and it’s slides were perfect for little ones! Maggie & Alex ran around splashing & sliding. Maggie decided she wanted me to swim too, so we headed into the Chinook Cove™ Activity Pool. Here we could all swim & the girls loved climbing on the “giant snake” in the water. An important part of the kids enjoying this “big pool” were the life vests provided by Great Wolf Lodge.

After gaining some courage on the small slides & swimming around a bit, we decided to try some of the bigger water slides. To my surprise, both Maggie & Alex went right down the slides! Great Wolf Lodge does a great job of helping you know which slides are best for which age groups by color coding them!  I’m glad I spent some time on Great Wolf’s website before we left home, reading about what was best for us to try. The site makes it easy to browse, because you can sort activities based on your children’s ages. 

We were having so much fun, we kept sliding & splashing past dinner time! We finally dried off & went back to the room. We decided to get pizza from Hungry as a Wolf & enjoy dinner in the room so the kids could keep playing as opposed to sitting in a restaurant (we would be doing enough of that on the road). We all enjoyed the meal, then got on pjs to head down to the lobby for the The Great Clock Tower Show & Storytime. Maggie & Alex were in awe during the show. They loved the music & seeing the animals moving around in & out of the trees. It was so nice to see all the families gather around in the lobby with their children for the stories. We had a wonderful evening!

After all the excitement, it was very easy to get the girls to bed. In the morning we had a delicious breakfast at Lumber Jack’s Cook Shanty™. The staff was awesome with kids & it made the dining experience perfect. 

 After an early breakfast we put on our bathing suits & happened to be the first people into the water park!  If you have early risers, I highly recommend early morning play in the water park. It made it easy & relaxing to watch the kids. We had just enough time to shower & pack up before we had to hit the road again. As you can imagine, after a morning enjoying a water park, this is what the remainder of our road trip looked like:

The Great Wolf Lodge was not only the perfect place for us to stop “half way”, but it ended up being one of the highlights of our whole vacation. The hotel was welcoming, clean, friendly & had my two little ones smiling the whole time.