Lake Erie / Great Wolf Lodge – Part 1 can be found here.
Up bright and early the following day. Time to pack up. In retrospect I think we would have preferred to have an extra day at the Long Beach Resort – one staff member said that most guests stay for 3 – 4 nights, though some will stay for a full week. I think we could have easily kept ourselves entertained for another full day.
Particularly as the morning was to be spent at Horseplay Niagara for a horseback ride at the beach – we left the Resort at 9:10 am thinking we’d need a while to get to the farm, but instead to end up almost 40 minutes early. (They do say that you need to be there 30 minutes early – but 30 minutes is plenty.)
We had to re-submit our waivers, but otherwise the registration process was fairly straightforward. We then mounted our horses and off we went.
We started with a gentle walk along the Trans-Canada trail:
Which was followed by a stretch along a bit of roadside. We then went into a forest:
And ended up along the beach:
It was completely unlike any other horseback ride we’d done – particularly the portion we spent in Lake Erie. We really enjoyed it.
The horses seemed to be really well treated, and they were all gentle and easy to control. My horse – Dave – was perhaps the most inclined towards trying to eat while on the move, but I’m used to this trick and was able to handle it effectively. The staff there really know what they’re doing.
After that, we stopped briefly for lunch at Subway and then made the rest of the 40 minute drive to Great Wolf Lodge Niagara.
We did a detailed review of Great Wolf Lodge previously, so we’re not going to cover this trip in detail – though we will include some further highlights and lessons learned as we go.
We arrived at 1 pm to find the Lodge busy, but not unmanageably so. No electric car charging spots available, but that wasn’t a surprise – we’re used to having to keep an eye out throughout to find a charging window at some point during our stay.
There was about a 5 – 10 minute wait for the check-in desk, though we were pleasantly surprised to find that our Grand Wolf Suite was already available. Better still, a car charging spot opened up while I was in the process of loading bags.
The bad? They somehow forgot to key our wrist bands to the room, so I had to go back to the front desk for another 5 – 10 minute wait to take care of that.
Meanwhile, my wife and kids headed to the waterpark and staked a claim to our hot tub cabana. We previously had a smaller cabana during our initial arrival, but have since decided it’s better to have the extra space – particularly when we’re not sure if we’ll have early access to our room.
It took me maybe 30 minutes to get our bags up to the room, and then I too got changed and joined them for some time at the indoor water park – which is kept at the same balmy 29 C (84 F) as it is in the winter. There’s also an outdoor section available in the summer, though the kids weren’t really a fan – it was just a pool and a small water slide. Slim pickings compared to the massive waterpark inside the Lodge.
It was busy but not too bad, considering that we’re into the last week before September. We think it might be because much of the United States has already gone back to school. Kids managed to get a few of the larger waterslides in, but are mostly waiting until later in the evening and early the following morning. In the meantime they enjoyed the wave pool, Fort MacKenzie, and our own hot tub.
We only did two days worth of meal plan this time around, so we opted for pizza for dinner the first night. A large pizza cost about $20, so this was a fairly economical offer – and we were able to bring it right into the cabana.
We stayed until about 7 pm or so, and then my son and I went off to do a bit of bowling before calling it a night.
And in case you were wondering, there are indeed live critters to be seen at Great Wolf Lodge.
Continue reading Lake Erie / Great Wolf Lodge – Part 3.