With our recent trip to Club Med Charlevoix still fresh in our minds, we next set off to Great Wolf Lodge in Niagara Falls for our daughter’s birthday trip.
Source: GreatWolfLodge.com
At first glance, Great Wolf Lodge and Charlevoix appear to fill similar niches: both are family-friendly destinations with buffets and multi-bedroom suites, each with a particular attraction – skiing in the case of Club Med, and the waterpark in the case of Great Wolf Lodge. The two even come in at similar price points, at roughly $1,000 to $1,300 per night for a family-friendly suite and meal plan.
However, that’s where the similarities end. Club Med operates on an all-inclusive model, whereas every single experience at Great Wolf Lodge seems to have an extra cost. Laser tag? Extra cost. Bowling? Extra cost. Mini golf? Extra cost. Arcade? Oh, you better believe that’s an extra cost. Only the room, parking and the waterpark are included in the base rate.
Also – unlike the plethora of teen clubs and kids’ clubs at Club Med – parents at Great Wolf Lodge are expected to supervise their children. Club Med also offers activities for all ages, whereas Great Wolf Lodge is very much targeted toward the younger guests (ideally 5-12 years). Unless, of course, you are an adult with a particular fondness for animatronic bears.
Looking at this list, it would seem Club Med Charlevoix wins by a landslide.
But does it?
Our first stay does not offer a fair comparison. We had attempted to make this a bargain trip, and ended up staying in one of the Wolf Den rooms in which the kids sleep in a mostly-separate bunkbed alcove. The room’s appearance is dated (although clean), and the main suite has a queen bed.
Wolf Den photos courtesy of Great Wolf Lodge Niagara
It was adequate, but not luxurious – nor did it allow my wife and myself to socialize after the kids went to bed. So we elected to stay in the Grand Wolf Suite for our return stay. Note the actual door to the master bedroom, which closes and opens! (This seems like a minor feature until you have children.)
Day 1 – Arrival Day
Our drive to Great Wolf Lodge is roughly half the distance to Charlevoix. And so we were able to set off mid-morning without any risk of arriving after dark – despite the heavy snowfall that had recently hit the area.
We elected to stop for lunch at a place called the Lazy Lizard in St. Catharines. They promised solid pub food, and they certainly delivered.
We then drove the last few minutes to Great Wolf Lodge, where we hoped to snag an electric car charging spot. Alas, we were not in luck – despite GWL’s rule that spots could only be used for four hours, we found a row of Teslas that appeared to have been plugged in since the night before. The 2 feet of snow covering the windshields were a dead giveaway.
There’s an easy solution to this – Great Wolf Lodge, put in more chargers. Even if you must charge for them. Even if you charge through the nose for idle time. More and more people are going to be driving electric cars, and it’s only going to take more time out of our vacation to ensure that we can charge up before we go. So please – add more chargers, even if you charge for the chargers when you’re not charging!
End of rant.
(To Great Wolf Lodge’s credit, I did mention the idling Teslas when checking in and I was able to start charging our vehicle a few hours after we arrived. And yes, we stuck to the 4 hour maximum.)
In any case, we were not expecting our room to be ready at 12:45 pm and indeed it was not. But they did encourage us to text our concierge via the app – a feature which we deeply appreciated, and which had not been available at Club Med.
Since it was early afternoon we had immediate entry to the waterpark, so we set off to make full use of it. Waterpark access starts at 1:00 on the day of your arrival and continues until the park closes (usually 8:00) on the day of departure.
It can be difficult at the best of times to find lockers, and today was no exception. Thankfully, we had booked ourselves into one of the ‘beach front’ cabanas.
The other two classes of cabana are the Fort McKenzie and hot tub cabanas – Fort McKenzie is built into gigantic splash park, ‘beach front’ are down at the lower level, and the two hot tub cabanas share a single giant hot tub and have padded chairs and loungers.
I’m not sure there’s a tremendous benefit to the beach front cabana unless you’re the parent of young children who are spending much of their time in the wave pool, but the difference between the beach front cabana and the hot tub cabana is utterly massive, particularly when you consider the modest price difference.
The hot tub cabanas are so good that I was reluctant to even mention them in this post, lest I increase competition for them down the road.
A fence keeps the riffraff out – at least until tomorrow, when we’ll be the ones with Muskoka chairs and a semi-private hot tub
Regardless of which one you choose, cabanas include safety deposit box, cookies, pop, snack mix, bottled water and pre-fetched towels. They also include plenty of real estate for you to stash day packs without having to worry whether they’ll get wet. Well worth the extra cost, in our opinion.
Kids were off and away, so we settled ourselves in to read, relax and enjoy the heat of the water park . They do keep the waterpark warm enough (29˚C or 84˚F) to be comfortable in just a bathing suit although some of the slides briefly venture outside. Though still enclosed by the slide itself, you certainly notice the temperature change – particularly in January!
I won’t say that it’s the same as an all-inclusive holiday down south, but it is a lot closer and they still have frozen drinks. It’s also an enclosed environment with a lot of lifeguards – and there’s something to be said for that, too.
One frozen margarita and three concierge messages later, our room was ready – just before 4 pm, as promised.
The blurry background at the top of the picture gives you some sense of what the waterpark will look like if you have three of these margaritas in an afternoon
We had already been provided with the all-important wristbands – which would allow us to access our room and bill charges to our account – so there was no need stop back at the front desk again. I dropped my day pack off at the room then went to collect a trolley for our luggage, only to be pleasantly surprised when I spotted an empty EV charging spot.
I quickly snagged the spot and proceeded to unload the car. Once all the gear was in our room (and we don’t travel light) I let me wife know so she could bring the kids back to the room. Having been pleased with the pizza during our October trip we opted to have a low-key dinner from Northwoods Pizza and dined in our room. We’ve found the XL pizza is large enough for 4 people (plus a few leftover slices to stick in the fridge) and they let us put different toppings on each half which kept everyone happy.
Then off for a quick round of bowling at Ten Paw Alley. The lanes are a lot shorter than a regular alley, but it’s still a lot of fun, and one of the highlights for the kids each time they visit. The 10 pins are on metal wires so reset happens quickly and bumpers can be raised or lowered by the touch of a button.
Unfortunately – like the rest of the attractions – you can’t just swipe your wristband or tap a credit card, you instead have to loads credits onto a card for bowling, laser tag, mini golf, etc.. I suppose this prevents children from racking up a bill for $3,892 worth of bowling, but it’s inconvenient to have to line up simply to load a card in order and then immediately go swipe said card. Just let us pay by tap!
Photo courtesy of Great Wolf Lodge Niagara
Then back to the room for an early bedtime. At least for kids – the adults dragged an extra chair into the master bedroom to sit and chat (and drink wine) for another hour or so. Great Wolf Lodge is happy for you to BYOB provided it stays in your room. We abide by that but given the fumes coming from other guests’ “water” bottles and / or “coffee” cups we may be in the minority.
Day 2 – Full Day
For our full day we elected to do the prepaid meal vouchers. This included a buffet breakfast, lunch from one of 1 of 3 different restaurant options (with limited menus), and then a buffet dinner.
The Antler Shanty breakfast line at the 7:00 open time was moving briskly until the people in front of us decided that they needed to wait for all members of their party rather than moving on through to the restaurant and meeting up there. Thankfully the staff eventually managed to get them to proceed to their table but there was definitely some grumbling. The buffet was pretty standard fare, albeit with some local ingredients. Think pancakes, waffles, eggs, hash browns, bacon, sausage, muffins, breads and various fruits, yoghurts and cereal. They do have someone who makes omelettes to order which was great.
Then – while the parents enjoyed some coffee and digestion time – the kids dashed off to continue with MagiQuest. MagiQuest is an interactive game with various components (screens, treasure chests, gems, etc.) scattered across a few floors of the hotel near the central staircase/elevators. It does of course cost additional money both for the wand and to play the game. Thankfully it is a set rate that gives you unlimited access to MagiQuest for your entire stay rather than a daily fee and the wand “remembers” your progress so don’t lose it between visits! Theoretically you can even play at different Great Wolf Lodge resorts, but we haven’t yet put that to the test.
The kids met us back at the room at 8:45 and then it was time to get changed into bathing suits and head over to the waterpark which opens at 9:00. Today we had splurged on a hot tub cabana. It was glorious.
Plenty of seating, including a picnic table and the hot tub. Technically the pool is meant to be shared with other cabana, but in practice we seemed to be on different schedules so unless they were at their cabana we let our kids float around the entire thing (and we were fine with them doing the same).
Your mileage may vary, so I’d suggest discussing with the other group sharing the hot tub lest there be some kind of hot-tub border incident. (Or for those truly living large – book both sides.)
While I took photos my wife and kids dashed off to ride the water roller coaster (Niagara Rapids Run) which is probably their favourite waterslide here. However with a minimum combined weight limit of 200 lb they either need an adult to go with them or 1 more child. An excellent reason to make this a multi-family trip as then the kids can do everything themselves.
Photo courtesy of Great Wolf Lodge Niagara
My wife and kids managed 3 Niagara Rapids Runs before a line started forming at which point they switched over to the tube slides. Specifically, Canada Vortex and then Grizzly Falls. By 10:00 the waterpark was starting to get busier so my wife joined me at the cabana while the kids moved off to the bodyslides, obstacle courses and the splash area – none of which tend to have much of a line.
Lunch restaurants and the bars open at 11:00. Our children showed up at the cabana shortly thereafter claiming they’d never been fed. Within the waterpark there are two restaurant options: Buckets, with standard fare such as hot dogs, hamburgers, fries and The Watering Hole, which has tacos and nachos.
Although you can use the orange flag at the cabana to signal to the cabana attendant that you’d like service we’ve found it easier to only order drinks from them and place the orders ourselves from the restaurants. Though the hot tub server was incredibly fast, so I expect it would have been fine either way.
The hamburgers, hot dogs, fries were fine but the kids loved their slushies and the adults found the tacos from The Watering Hole to be quite good. We would definitely choose those over food from Buckets next trip.
Then back out to the waterpark and this time I joined the kids for a few rounds of the water roller coaster. By then the line had dwindled for the tube slides so my wife and I seized the opportunity to go down a few ourselves. Thankfully, this time I did not get stuck in the whirlpool bowl of the Vortex (unlike in Akureyri, Iceland – but that’s a story for another day).
By late afternoon everyone was starting to drag so we went back to the room to change while the kids squeezed in a bit more time with MagiQuest (one shower shared by four people definitely slows us down). We then all met up for laser tag.
Our youngest was apprehensive but the employee was great about letting her see inside the space and he even turned the lights up for us. Ultimately she had a good time although I don’t think this will ever be her top choice. The employee did give her some extra prize points to recognize her bravery – a thoughtful gesture, and deeply appreciated.
Then off to the arcade to play a few games and check out how many points the kids had accumulated and what they could purchase (Spoiler: Mostly plastic junk). We instead managed to convince them to save their points for another time. The majority of the arcade games are what we term “gambling games” since there’s no skill involved – just luck. Instead we try to encourage our kids to mostly play air hockey, shoot hoops or even skee ball. Anything that’s not just pushing buttons. It didn’t take long for the adults to have their fill of the flashing lights and beeping and we headed off for dinner at the buffet – also at Antler Shanty – which opens at 5:00.
We moved through the check-in line quickly and we’re off to the buffet just after 5:00. And what a buffet it was…
Roast beef, roast chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy
Butter chicken curry, grilled teriyaki salmon, basmati rice
Cheese and bacon pierogies
Softserve ice cream with toppings
There were also plenty of salad options as well as pizza slices, hamburgers, chicken fingers and fries. Unlike at the Charlevoix Club Med the servers plated many of the items for you – which was especially helpful for the ice cream station as it prevented the topping spoons from becoming sticky (shudder). The pierogies took a while to cook, but were definitely worth the wait.
My wife and daughter went back to the waterpark (you might be noticing a trend here) while my son and I instead went to do a round of virtual reality. We opted to do Simurai Arena and then a game that I call “throwing snowballs at penguins so they give you things” but which my son claims is actually called Cold Clash.
While we were gone the amazing cabana attendant had thoughtfully replaced the wet towels with dry ones which was very helpful. By about 6:30 most of the line-ups in the waterpark had dwindled and by 7:00 you were rarely waiting more than 5 minutes. My wife and I each did a few more slides with the kids and then left them to play and burn off the last of their energy.
The waterpark closes at 8:00 and we were among the last to leave. However, we were not the absolute last ones to leave – those would be the children who had plastered themselves to the ground and were refusing to get up. This was tempting, but we do have another visit booked for August.
Oddly enough after many, many hours in the waterpark the children were asleep minutes after we turned out the lights. My wife and I didn’t last much longer.
Day 3 – Departure Day
No one felt like the buffet this morning – and we hadn’t prepaid for vouchers – so instead I went to Canoe Coffee to pick up breakfast sandwiches and some much needed coffee.
Considering the cost of the meal vouches and the limited restaurants selection, we’re planning to skip the vouchers entirely next visit . Pizza, breakfast sandwiches/pastries and non-buffet dining should be more than adequate. We also haven’t yet tried Barnwood, Great Wolf Lodge’s fancier sit-down dinner restaurant. Maybe next time.
Although our Grand Wolf Suite came with complimentary late check out at 2:00 pm, we instead planned to hit the road by 11:00 am so we’d be home in time to unpack and prepare for work/school the next day.
Note the use of the word “planned”… the EV gods had other ideas.
After loading the bags in the car I received an error message through the MyPorsche app. Given that we had previously had an issue with the car turning on I decided to sit in the driver’s seat and try to get it up and running. The Taycan stubbornly showed a battery error message.
This happened once before a few months earlier where my wife had been stranded outside my daughter’s gymnastics class and the solution had been to replace the car key batteries, walk away and come back in 30 minutes. Skeptical that the key batteries were the issue this time, we nevertheless gave the car 30 minutes to reset itself and then try again.
In the meantime the kids were thrilled to go off and play some MagiQuest.
30 minutes passed. No luck.
I called Porsche to try and figure out our options. As we’d learned a few months earlier, with an EV you need a flat bed tow truck and Porsche insists on using on specially-trained drivers which further limits options unless it’s an emergency situation – which this clearly was not.
Given we’d been down this road before, I kept popping out every 30 minutes or so hoping the car had reset itself properly and would start. My wife let the children play more games in the arcade and use up an extra game of bowling that was on one of their access cards. No complaints from the kids – they were in their happy place.
And a huge shout out to Great Wolf Lodge, which was incredibly accommodating. Could the car stay overnight in the parking spot since the tow was scheduled for the next afternoon? Yes. If we left keys with them would they be able to turn them over to the tow truck? Yes. If we decided to stay an extra night did they have any availability? Yes, and at a substantial discount (perhaps because it was low season).
I’d just handed over my keys to the front desk when I decided to try turning on the car one last time using my wife’s keys. And – it worked! We had been alternating keys so no idea why this time was different but we weren’t about to question our good fortune.
I texted my wife who rounded up the kids while I took back my keys from the desk and we headed out. We let Porsche Centre North Toronto know they could cancel the tow but that we still needed a loaner vehicle.
PCNT absolutely stepped up, and while I filled out all the paperwork and transferred (almost) all the luggage and our youngest’s car seat from our Taycan wagon to the Taycan GTS sedan they were loaning us my wife took the kids off to the burger place across the street. She’d been to Burgers Park before during a tire swap and although service can be slow she figured the kids would love the food. Some hot chicken sandwiches, burgers and fries later and we were back on the road and heading home – albeit in a different electric vehicle than we’d set out it.
Despite the unexpected detour, our time at Great Wolf Lodge was fantastic and we’d do it again in a heartbeat – especially if the alternative is organizing a class-wide birthday party.