Some answers to the questions asked about our new Years eve stay at Great Wolf Lodge Sandusky Ohio.
Yes we all had a descent time. The water park itself was smaller than I expected but offered quite a few options. There was a kiddie splash wading area when you first went in, then a 3 ft children's activity pool divided into two sections. One was water basketball and the other was just a fun area with a floating snake to climb on. The next section was a small pool area with floating "logs" and a rope ladder type thing overhead to hold on to and climb from log to log. Next to this was a tree house water activity area. It has small water slides, climbing areas, and that sort of thing. there was a huge bucket that would dump every ten minutes or so .( This is like the activity area at Geauga Lake and many other water parks only smaller) next to this area there was a wet rock climbing wall ( for an extra $5 charge per climb ) . There was then a pool that had straight kiddie water slides . Next to this was the steps up to the three water slides that went outside the building and then back in to dump you out. The dump out pool was right next to a small simple lazy river. Then there were two hot tubs. First was the family tub, then secluded behind many man made rocks was the adult only tub. This set up gave a tranquil place for adults to relax, however you could not see out from it so someone else had to keep an eye on your kids while you were there. This was great for us having older children but was not as much of an option for those with small children.
The water park itself could have been cleaner as there was trash on the floors here and there. The adult hot tub also had black corrosion around the rocks above the pool itself near the back. People also had left empty cups and wet park towels set in this area. Since Sodium chloride was the main form of sanitation of water you had residue and corrosion on all of the stainless steel throughout the park which was quite unsightly in some places. There was no shortage of towels in the park as none were allowed out of the park. There were bins all over for used ones and life guards would have a shift in their rotations to pick up ones left on the floors, etc. They would then take the dirty to the laundry rooms and bring back warm clean ones folded and in insulated carts. There was never once in my stay that there were not clean towels available.
Since we went on New Years eve , we paid over a hundred and fifty dollars more than the next nights rate would have been. This I would never do again. New Years eve activities were terrible here. During the night there was a room with karaoke, one with a Disney movie playing, a hula hooping contest, and a place to get a free paper tattoo. that was pretty much it. The park did close at ten and each room got one duck ( from five to seven one room has markers and stuff to decorate your duck ) The ducks were put down a water slide at ten and the winning duck from the race won the family a free night stay. After this there was a DJ with many people crowded into the tiny lobby to ring in the new year. I am surprised nobody got trampled at this event that I personally didn't stick around for. I grabbed a couple glasses of champagne and a couple grape juice and headed up to the balcony to watch the new year come in.
There was also a buffet dinner for an additional thirty dollars per person. This was set up ( before the DJ) in the lobby right out in the open where the food was exposed to everyone walking by. I personally witnessed one kid's wet bathing suite dripping on fresh vegetables ( simply laid on a table cloth on a table) as he reached for some. Another child pushed clean dishes back on a table and leaned up against them with his wet suite dripping on the dishes as he waited for someone. Needless to say thirty dollars per person was too much for food poisoning so we passed on this .
The room that we had was nice and seemed clean, Other than promising a bigger refrigerator than it had and our balcony lights being burnt out ( December weather kept our drinks that didn't fit in the fridge cold ) I have no complaints here.
Other positive points of this place were; great decor ,very friendly front desk staff, and no over crowding in the water park because you have to stay there to use the park. there are no day passes sold.
Negative, other than the before mentioned was a staff that were not very knowledgeable. I asked one employee, the time that the buffet would end ( so we could use an elevator, that was closed due to hall way seating , to take Michael back to our room so he wouldn't have to climb three flights of steps) her reply was I don't know" I asked another employee , who was renting lockers, if there were any top ones open. Again I got " I dunno ". The guy running the rock climb wall couldn't tell me the cost per ticket ( in his defense you had to buy them at the gift shop but still) and finally I forgot to pack a bottle opener for Mike's Sam Adams so he called the front desk to ask if any were available in the gift shop. He was told no so he went to a near by store to get one. An hour later I went into the gift shop and there was a box of them for sale.
Would I stay again? Maybe but never on New years eve when it costs four hundred dollars a night.
Pictures coming soon as soon as I unpack the cameras and dump the cards.
