Great Wolf Lodge Sandusky Ohio Review

Great Wolf Lodge

February 12, 2006

Located in the middle of State Route 250, Great Wolf Lodge Sandusky is Ohio’s first indoor water park and receives numerous awards each year.  In 2005 Great Wolf Lodge was awarded “The Best Place To Experience Summer In Winter” by Ohio Magazine.  Great Wolf Lodge Resorts is America’s Largest Family of Indoor Water Parks.

According to MapQuest.com, Great Wolf Lodge is a 12-minute drive to Cedar Point.  The resort has 271 suites rooms with seven different room configurations.  The indoor water park is 33,000 square feet.  By using this numbers, Great Wolf Lodge Sandusky has a room per square footage ratio of 122.  Meaning that for every one room in the hotel, there is 122 square feet of water park.

Great Wolf Lodge is specifically themed towards the north woods, which is a wilderness type of theme.  Great Wolf Lodge opened on March 15, 2001 to some skeptics in Sandusky whether an indoor water park would be possible in the area.  After five years, Great Wolf Lodge is still a popular destination for families from all over the region.

Currently Great Wolf Lodge features an animated clock tower in the Grand Lobby.  The characters sing along to fun songs with the kids.  One of the most amusing parts of the show is at the end when it starts to snow.  That is right, inside of the lobby, its snowing.  It isn’t actually snow though, there is a small machine on the ceiling that shoots out tiny little bubbles that then float down, giving the effect of snow.

Great Wolf Lodge has two main restaurants, The Gitchigoomie Grill and Lumber Jack’s Cook Shanty.  Gitchigoomie Grill is themed to Canadian fishing and features a 1947 Piper Tri-pacer float plane over the bar.  Lumber Jack’s Cook Shanty has a lumber jack theme and features home made styled cooking.  Klondike Café is a small quick service food stand inside of the water park, so you can maximize your time swimming.

Several stores can also be found inside of Great Wolf Lodge to make your stay more comfortable.  Northwoods Exposures, Buckhorn Exchange, and Bear Essentials are the three stores.  Northwoods Exposures in a small photo center, in which you can purchase photos taken of you or buy other film and photo related items.  Buckhorn Exchange offers many different types of souvenirs bearing the Great Wolf Lodge name.  Bear Essentials is located inside of the water park and sells swim wear and gear.

The Northern Lights Arcade is located right next to the water park on the lower level.  This arcade was designed with little kids in mind.  Unlike most arcades, in which games are randomly placed throughout the area, Northern Lights Arcade could be considered two arcades in one.  The main portion has all of the ticket games and ‘non-violent’ games, while the other half has some of the more violent games.  But be assured, none of these games are gory and you do not have to worry about older children with any of the games.

With Great Wolf Lodge being five years old, some may think it will be run down and the quality may not be as high.  That is not that case at Great Wolf Lodge.  Even after running for five years, the place looks brand new.  They do this by consistently maintaining and cleaning their facilities.  They go so far as to once a year, they close down for about a week and deep clean everything.  Places will be painted, replacements made throughout the facilities, and more.  Anything that wears down over time from the use is fixed during this period.  By maintaining their facilities, Great Wolf Lodge proves that they are a high quality facility with the guest in mind.

The main feature of the indoor water park is Fort Mackenzie.  Fort Mackenzie is a giant play structure for the whole family featuring a 1000-gallon bucket dumping water every 3-5 minutes.  This means that the bucket at the top of Fort Mackenzie has dumped onto guests over 282,000 times since Great Wolf Lodge opened.  Also on Fort Mackenzie is Eagle Peak Rock Wall.  It is a rock wall that you climb up, but instead of being dry, water is pouring down on you.  If you have done one of these dry, just wait until you try it at Great Wolf Lodge!

The rest of the indoor water park consists of Bear Track Landing.  This features a kiddie pool for toddlers, which has a dumping water tree, that dumps small buckets of water on kids.  A basketball pool and activity pool are also right next to it, allowing older kids to have some fun in a pool.  Toddler area’s are common throughout the water park, including a lily pad pool.  In this pool guests try to walk along a series of lily pads floating in the water with a net hanging about to hang on to.

The biggest attraction at the water park are the waterslides!  At the top of these slides, you are at the highest point in the water park.  After getting into your tube, you are whisked away down and outside of the waterpark.  After going through several tight turns in the tunnels outside, you are plunged into a pool of water.

If you need some relaxation, then your in luck after the water slides.  You can float over into the lazy river without having to leave your tube from the slides.  This lazy river goes nowhere and offers no sudden waterfalls or bursts of water.  It simply just goes around, offering a very relaxing ride.

One fact about the Great Wolf Lodge water park that often is overlooked is that Great Wolf Lodge employees fully trained Ellis Lifeguards.  Most people believe a lifeguard is a lifeguard, however that is not the case, and Great Wolf Lodge agrees, that is why they use Ellis.  Ellis uses strict standards and is the same company that Cedar Point used for their lifeguards.  So when going down those water slides at Great Wolf Lodge, you do not have to worry about your safety, as you know it is in good hands.