Great Wolf Lodge Birthday Trip

Last week my son turned 12 years old! For our children’s birthdays we’ve always given them the option of a birthday party at home or a day trip with just our little family. Some years are very low key and they just want to have a quiet birthday at home with no hoopla and other years are a little more festive. If they choose a day trip with the fam it’s to somewhere an hour or two away and not an overnight. However, since the last two years have brought cancelled birthday plans for our son due to covid and bad weather, this year we made an exception and took an overnight trip to the Great Wolf Lodge in La Grange, Georgia.

This place did not disappoint! It was clean and full of fun! Very much Disney quality but not nearly as expensive especially since one night is all you need as opposed to several days or a week at Disney to get around to everything you want to do there.

Our drive was a little over an hour from our house and we arrived about lunchtime. Just walking into the lobby, we knew we were in for a wild adventure!

Our room was ready when we checked in, so we took our stuff up before lunch. Even the hallways were decorated with the wilderness theme.

This was the cutest room ever! They have smaller and larger rooms and even suites with bedrooms. Ours had a queen bed for the parents and 3 single beds for kiddos, plus a fold out couch. It wasn’t much larger than a regular hotel room, but the kid’s sleeping area was enclosed as a pretend little cabin–so cute!…I mean cool (my son doesn’t do “cute” at age 12).

Here’s a peek inside the “cabin” with my son already testing the top bunk.

The campfire mural with critters gave it so much personality!

The parent’s area was a little more mature but still maintained the woodsy vibes.

After we got our stuff unpacked, we headed down for a quick lunch.

I thought this food bus front was so neat with the patio lights. It’s all the extra touches that make this place fun! The kids got hotdogs and chicken finger meals and my husband and I had some really delicious salads.

Then we went back up to the room to change for an afternoon of water fun!

Because it was January and the middle of the week, there was not a crowd at all which was so nice. We didn’t have to wait for anything.

There were so many activities packed in this place! A playground, lazy river, basketball, obstacle course, wave pool, and water slides!

The water slides were definitely the highlight of the trip! We spent pretty much the entire afternoon in that area since our kids are a little old now for the play area. I had a lot of fun on them too except for the one that swirled like a teacups ride and made me so nauseated.

Late that afternoon we went to the room to take showers and get ready for supper down in their indoor activity area. I loved how they made it look like nighttime in the woods throughout this area.

We got pizza and wings at a restaurant called The Hungry Wolf and it was some of the best pizza I’ve ever eaten!

After supper we told our son he could choose one activity for us to do together since we had to pay extra for those. They have a rock wall, a small bowling alley, a treetop rope course, gold mining, Build-A-Bear, an arcade, and some kind of MagiQuest virtual thingy.

He wanted to climb the rock wall, but it was closed so he decided on the “Howl in One Mini Golf” which he thought it was great fun and said he’d like to do it again sometime. Oh my goodness, this course was so cute! (I mean cool!) And it was all laid out under the rope course which was really neat.

After mini golf we visited the gift shop and candy store.

And then we got ice-cream for a birthday dessert!

We spent the rest of the evening back at the room all pooped out and watched a documentary on the Mount St. Helen’s eruption. I know, sounds kind of nerdy, but we really enjoy documentaries and my son has been studying volcanoes in his science and has been very intrigued by Mount St. Helen’s.

After a cozy night of sleep, we packed up and headed down for breakfast before heading home.

We are all so glad we took this little trip! It was perfect for a cold winter month since it had such fun indoor activities. Our son kept thanking us and telling us he was having the best time. One of the reasons I really wanted to get this in this year (other than what I mentioned at the beginning of the post) was I wanted him to experience it before he felt too old for it. I told my friend later that I shouldn’t have been worried about my son getting too old as much as his parents! LOL! Those water slides and the 5 million steps to get up to them were killer. Great fun, but whew! Joel and I both admitted that our days of water slides may soon be coming to a close.