Back to the ‘Lodge’

The past weekend, to celebrate my oldest daughter's birthday, we headed back to the Great Wolf Lodge for a night. The girls really enjoy the place and everyone has fun playing in the water. We did not play too much with the inner-tubes this time; spend most of our time on the two slides under the Water Bucket. They have also added an outdoor area that has a small water bucket and various other water features. This is also "THE" place to get food. At around lunch time, they put on a small BBQ that is very reasonable. Standard BBQ affair, hot dogs, hamburgers, and kabobs – But, for $7 you can get a cheeseburger with chips and a drink. Hotdogs were around $5 and I don't recall what the kabobs were. The only criticism that I would have about the new area is seating. I am a white boy - I go from white to extra crispy in about 2 minutes. There were only two tables with umbrellas. I would suggest that umbrellas would be a much needed addition. Good food for the cost.

Scoops – the children's manicure/pedicure spa.

As part of the birthday experience, we treated my oldest to a manicure/pedicure treatment. She was really excited (high anxiety) about this for several weeks prior. So, I wanted to make sure that everything was perfect, being her first 'girly' experience. I called and made a mommy/daughter appointment in Scoops, so mommy would get one also and be setting the example. When we arrived, I confirmed the appointment that it was a mommy / daughter set, time, etc… Mommy took my oldest, while I played with the young one in the water. After about 30 minutes, we finally made it out of the water and made it up to Scoops, where we found mommy. I was curious why mommy was not getting her nails done with the birthday girl. I attempted to inquire why, but was shot down very quickly. After the birthday girl finished and we left Scoops, I was like.. okay.. what happened??!!!??? Mommy informed me that they had messed up the appointment. They had it for the birthday girl, but not her in Scoops. They had her appointment in the adult spa. There was only 2 'stylists' available and they were booked and they were not able to move another stylist over to service the adult. Mommy was going to go and talk with them, but the Birthday Girl was not letting go of the mommy.

She made me calm down, since she knows that I would go ballistic over something like this. The important thing is that the Birthday Girl was happy. She could not stop looking at her fingers and toes all the way home. It was well worth the money to see her this happy. I am just not pleased about after all of the effort that I went through to make sure that both my wife and my oldest daughter to have a great first experience and I get an epic failure.. Can't win for loosing…