Our Trip to Great Wolf Lodge: A Mind Numbing Experience

Phil Younger said:
Take em camping next summer in Ouray - unless you break an axle it will cost less. Dehydrate some food and you are golden. You’ll need earplugs to keep the complaints at bay
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Even if he does break an axle, and swaps a new one in himself, it might cost him less. Plus the stories and the pictures would be a much better payback methinks.
 
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StG58 said:
I've got a little bit of a different take on kids and "creating memories". Even when I was making six figures in IT, we didn't spend a boat load o' cash on trips, and parties and resorts and such.

I used to own, and sail the snot out of a 30' racing sailboat. We sailed it down the Columbia River one year to Cathlamet, WA from Portland OR. The weather was beautiful, and one day I let the kids and my wife run it full tilt for about three hours. They still talk about that. Another time we sailed it up the Willamette river to Portland for a long weekend. Going under the bridges and seeing the city from the water at night still gets talked about. The trip to Government Island, blowing through a race and beating every boat out there by a wide margin, trips down river to the small towns along the way...saw a Halloween movie being filmed in one of them.

They also got to go, see and do a lot of things in the out doors on our camping and fishing trips. Like the night we were howling like wolves by the lake, and the pissed off camp host came around to see what was up. Going through the Pioneer Museum in Tillamook. Hitting as many light houses on the Oregon Coast as we could in one day.

We've had a lot more "experiences" as well. We still do them, but now it's with both the kids and grand-kids.

I've always maintained that it's the exposure to new things, different things, and all the interaction that goes along with it that creates the memories. It's a big world outside our doors. There's a lot of interesting things to do and see close at hand that often get overlooked. Most of them cost nothing more than time and a little gas money.

Just my two cents worth.
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There's a gal here at work who used to do summer road trips with the entire family every other year. Her dad was a car guy, and they'd go from wrecking yard to wrecking yard throughout the west and mid-west. Now to me, that would be awesome! Problem is, when it comes to non-automotive anything, I find I just don't have much of an imagination. I literally cannot think of anything to do, so just tend to stay home. I've taken 5-week vacations where I was in my garage almost the entire time. So for the guys who can come up with stuff like @StG58 did/does, I think that rocks. But I can't fault the guys who spend the bucks on places like Great Wolf Lodge, either. Sometimes we just have to pay for someone else's creativity to make at least something happen for the family, ya know? :)
 
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Squatch said:
There's a gal here at work who used to do summer road trips with the entire family every other year. Her dad was a car guy, and they'd go from wrecking yard to wrecking yard throughout the west and mid-west. Now to me, that would be awesome! Problem is, when it comes to non-automotive anything, I find I just don't have much of an imagination. I literally cannot think of anything to do, so just tend to stay home. I've taken 5-week vacations where I was in my garage almost the entire time. So for the guys who can come up with stuff like @StG58 did/does, I think that rocks. But I can't fault the guys who spend the bucks on places like Great Wolf Lodge, either. Sometimes we just have to pay for someone else's creativity to make at least something happen for the family, ya know? :)
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Used to take my girls tire shopping, even though I didn't need tires. We'd stop and get a hamburger at some hole in the wall burger joint then hit all the tire stores within a 15 mile radius of the house. They got to touch tires and talk about tread design (at their age, they didn't even know what tread design was, lol) and talk about all the things going on in their lives. We called it going bumming. Sometimes it was sailboat parts, or looking at new trucks. Whatever struck our fancy that day. They loved it. I did end up with a Beagle and a house cat one time because of it though.
 
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WE TOOK OUR KIDS about 10 yrs ago in Williamsburg VA to the great wolf lodge, but I think it was around $250 a night. but somewhere we still have the wand and the kids still talk about going on the raft and feeling like we were flushed down the toilet at the waterpark..One day the memories will be worth all the expense.
 
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StG58 said:
Used to take my girls tire shopping, even though I didn't need tires. We'd stop and get a hamburger at some hole in the wall burger joint then hit all the tire stores within a 15 mile radius of the house. They got to touch tires and talk about tread design (at their age, they didn't even know what tread design was, lol) and talk about all the things going on in their lives. We called it going bumming. Sometimes it was sailboat parts, or looking at new trucks. Whatever struck our fancy that day. They loved it. I did end up with a Beagle and a house cat one time because of it though.
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LOL Some people were just meant to be parents. You rock, my friend! :)
 
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StG58 said:
I blame it on my wife. I hate kids.
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x2. I tolerated mine, hated everyone else's. My wife loves kids, even had a daycare for several years. Ugh!

Sometimes vacations later in life are worth doing also - we did a Viking River Cruise, Prague to Paris, for two weeks for our 40th, and took our daughter and her husband. Best vacation ever, worth every penny. Plenty of great memories from that trip...
 
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glwood said:
x2. I tolerated mine, hated everyone else's. My wife loves kids, even had a daycare for several years. Ugh!

Sometimes vacations later in life are worth doing also - we did a Viking River Cruise, Prague to Paris, for two weeks for our 40th, and took our daughter and her husband. Best vacation ever, worth every penny. Plenty of great memories from that trip...
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Same story here. My wife loves kids in general, I hate everyone else's kids and tolerate ours (naaa, I really do love ours). I think that's probably typical among men.
 
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bobthetj03 said:
That changes when you have grand kids. You, then for some crazy reason, find all critters cute and fun. @Chris, I bet you could have flown the fam to Hawaii for a week for what you spent there.
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Well, grand kids are still your own flesh and blood, so it makes sense.

But yeah, for the amount we spent at Great Wolf Lodge, we could have paid for airfare to Hawaii. Man, I feel even more ripped off now, haha.
 
We took the kids to Disney World new years eve 2016-17

Complete. Utter. Madness.

But the sheer happiness on their faces when they watched illuminations new years eve special fireworks show, or when my little one first laid eyes on Elsa and Anna is priceless to me. (the boy liked them too, for other reasons I'm sure)
 
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