In my last post I talked all about the waterpark at the Great Wolf Lodge in Colorado Springs. This post will be all about the other things you can do at the lodge and what is like to stay there. The waterpark is definitely the main attraction, but there are lots of other things you can do (although most of them cost extra).
Note: we visited before the coronavirus pandemic was effecting travel in the U.S. The experiences will be different while Covid restrictions are in place.
Kid Activities and Story Time
Let’s start with the free stuff! Every day there will be several activities for children. These include yoga, crafts, exercise, games, dance parties, meet and greets, and story time. Each day you can view the activities on the Great Wolf Lodge app or on the lodge’s posted schedule.
Lucy was two when we visited and she really liked doing the crafts. Every kid who comes to the Great Wolf Lodge gets complimentary wolf ears, and one of the activities is to decorate your ears. Lucy really enjoyed that. There is also a craft time each evening where the children can make a craft to go along with the story time for that night.
Lucy also liked having her face painted, which for us took place at the same time as ear decorating. We also got to do coloring pages at the same place.
Story time takes place each evening. One of the lodges pack members reads a story that involves the Great Wolf Lodge characters. Story time also includes the forest friends show which is a show put on by the animatronic animals in the lodge lobby.
Honestly these free activities were one of our favorite parts of are whole stay because Lucy really enjoyed doing them (and I think it reminded us of being on a cruise ship).
Adventure Park
The Adventure Park is an area on your way to the waterpark. It contains several dry activities which you do need to pay for as well as some food options and shops. We didn’t do any of the paid activities except the MagiQuest which I will talk about in next week’s post in detail. Mostly Lucy was too young for these paid activities and they weren’t things Meagan or I were interested in doing on our own.
There is a mini golf course, a rock climbing wall, a gold panning activity, a mini bowling alley, and an arcade. I think most of these would be fun for kids and parents if the kids are the right age for it. They are a little expensive, as you would probably expect at a resort, but not terrible. You can buy special passes if you want to do several of the activities which can reduce the overall cost.
In the Adventure Park area there is also a treehouse with a swinging bridge that you can go up to with no cost. This gives you some nice views of the entire Adventure Park area.
Just outside the Adventure Park there is a Build a Bear Workshop which is included in some of the special passes. This workshop offers some exclusive Great Wolf Lodge characters.
Food
There are several food options at the Great Wolf Lodge in Colorado Springs. These include a grill, a pizza place, a sit down restaurant, a Ben and Jerry’s, and a Dunkin Donuts. We brought most of our food or ate at places nearby to save some money. The only places we ate at the lodge were the pizza place and Ben and Jerry’s.
The pizza we had seemed extremely good, but we think that might be more related to how hungry we were after a day at the waterpark than its actual quality, it’s hard to say. At any rate we can say that we really enjoyed it. We also enjoyed the Ben and Jerry’s ice cream.
Room
We stayed in one of the standard rooms at the lodge. It had plenty of room for us and was like a good hotel room. They do have more expensive suites that are themed so they feel more lodge like. I think the themed rooms are more fun for older children. Our standard room had a queen bed and pullout couch.
Gym
I try to always keep exercising while we are traveling, so I appreciated that the Great Wolf Lodge had a small gym. There were only a couple of machines and some ball weights there, but I was the only one using it when I went, so it was fine. It’s not the most exciting gym in the world, but it got the job done.
Sum Up
The Great Wolf Lodge in Colorado Springs was a lot of fun for our family. Things are going to be different during Covid-19 so I can’t speak to how they are currently. Once things return to fairly normal though we can definitely recommend.
There are almost always deals on going to the Great Wolf Lodge, so you can sign up to be “member” of their email list and get those deals, they also often have a groupon going.
