If you are on the fence about visiting Great Wolf Lodge, this is your sign to book it now. Look out for deals and book it! We found a deal in May for 51% off and booked it right away. Trust me, you will have a blast and so will your kids.
Read this blog post to learn some tips to help you have a blast. This was our first time visiting Great Wolf Lodge and trust me there is a lot of things that can help male your stay great plus help you save money!
About Great Wolf Lodge
Great Wolf Lodge location and hours
1240 Chesapeake Overlook Perryville, MD
It opened in June 2023 and has the largest indoor water park of all the Great wolf lodge.
Hours:
Indoor water park 9-8pm
Outdoor pool and hot tub 9-7pm
For the hot tub, kids under 14 years will need an adult to get in with them. They can only stay for 10 minutes at a time and then stay out for ten minutes before coming back in.
Free things to do at Great Wolf Lodge Perryville
- Hustle and howl dance party
- Arts and craft
- Character appearances
- Legend of Luna lobby show
- Adventures of the great wolf pack Story time
- Master Magi ceremony
- Yoga tails
Great Wolf Lodge passes
Wolf pass from $79.99 per person
This is the best value option as it includes a ton of options
- One MagiQuest game
- Choice of Vellara Wand, standard Wand Mod, or Magi belt
- One small Great Wolf Lodge Candy Shop candy cup
- One game of bowling at Ten Paw Alley
- One Paw Points game card for Northern Lights Arcade ($5)
- One climb on the Howler’s Peak Ropes Course
- One admission to Moonstone Mine
- One Kid’s Ice Cream
- One round of Howl-in-One Mini Golf
Paw pass from $59.99 per person
This of perfect for older children and teens. It’s ideal for ages 5+
- One MagiQuest game
- Choice of Vellara Wand, standard Wand Mod, or Magi belt
- One small Great Wolf Lodge Candy Shop candy cup
- One Kid’s Ice Cream
- One Paw Points game card for Northern Lights Arcade ($5)
- One Leather Treaty bracelet to take home as a keepsake
Pup pass from $49.99 per person
This is perfect if you have little ones in your pack or just younger children and toddlers
- One Pass Exclusive Build-A-Bear Furry Friend
- One small Great Wolf Lodge Candy Shop candy cup
- One Kid’s Ice Cream
- One Paw Points game card for Northern Lights Arcade ($5)
Food options
- Woods end creamery: we got some amazing ice cream here
- Camp Fire kitchen
- Barnwood
- Hungry as a wolf
- Timbers
- Dunkin’
- The watering hole
- Freshwoods market
- Pretzel maker
You can order ahead on the app for some of these food options.
Paid things to do at Great Wolf Lodge Perryville
- MagiQuest
- Build a Bear workshop
- Howl in one mini golf
- Howlers peak ropes course
- Oliver’s moving co
- Northern lights arcade
- Ten paws alley
- Moonstone mirror maze
Things to try at the indoor water park
- Chesapeake plunge
- Crooked creek
- Wolf tail
- Otter cave water works
- High paw howler
- Big foot pass
- Chinook cove
- River canyon run
- Forest flume
- Slap tail pond
- Raccoon lagoon
Rooms available to book at GWL
Standard suite
For up to six guests
Themed suites
This is great to experience themed rooms especially for the kids. Mine loved their wolf themed room.
Premium suites
This is perfect if you have more than 6 people in your wolf pack. There are rooms that sleep at least 8 people, up to about 13 people.
About our stay
We arrived at Great Wolf Lodge around 4pm on Sunday. Feel free to arrive as early as 10am. We didn’t want to skip church so we opted to go later. You can get there early and have fun at the waterpark while waiting for your room.
They have a variety of room sizes and suites. We stayed in the KidsCabin suite which had a Wiley’s Clubhouse sleeping area for the kids with bunk beds and a twin day bed. The main living area features a queen bed and a full-size sleeper sofa.
I love the check in and check out process. It’s all on the devices but there are staff available to help you out. The check out process is also automatic where you don’t need to get in a line to speak with anyone or return anything. The wrist band you get is your room key and also how you pay for stuff.
Day One/ Check In day
After checking in, we went to grab our free wood ears from the store. Its a great souvenir especially for kids.
We headed to our room, changed and went straight to the water park and it was amazing! The water park itself is quite warm which I love and the water was warm too.
There are tons of slides for everyone and most of them go by height. If less than a certain height you either get the yellow or green wrist band. Yellow wrist band means some rides you may not be able to go on at all or may need an adult to ride with. My twins had to wear the yellow wrist bands.
The staff are very friendly and ready to help!
There were tons of beach chairs around so I didn’t feel like we had to scramble for one.
We explored most of the water park on Sunday and headed back to our rooms.
The water park closed at 8pm and then the rest of the night, we had dinner and the kids scrambled round the resort main floor with their MagiQUest wands. You will see lots of kids doing this as well.
The lodge has quiet hours from 11pm to 7am and most things shut down to support this, although the arcade is 24/7.
Day Two
The second day, Monday, we had breakfast and went down to the water park again till lunch time. After lunch, we grabbed ice cream which was really great with several flavors.
Then we headed down to the outdoor pool. Although the water in this pool was not as warm as I expected. Thankfully there was a hot tub nearby but it gets crowded fast lol.
Kids are also not allowed in the hot tub without an adult going in with them and they have a rule about not staying in longer than 10 minutes. So ten minutes in, ten minutes out if you have kids with you.
There is an outdoor grass area where we hit up after the pool to cool down. It has a few games like connect 4, bean bag toss, etc.
After the pool, we went to the room to change and then hit up the arcade area. The points required are quite high per game so plan ahead. The $5 arcade card you get with the pass would not get you anywhere. After the arcade games, they went to get prizes for whatever points they racked up.
Day Three/ Check Out day
The next day was Tuesday and we slept in, then checked out around 11am, put our stuff in the car. We packed a small bag of clothes etc for after the water park. We stayed at the water park till about 1pm and then changed to head home. We could have stayed till closing but had to leave for other engagements.
Overall the kids had an amazing time and so did we, so I’ll 10/10 recommend Great Wolf lodge and can’t wait to go again!
Things we didn’t like
- Only one central elevator which made walks to our room long
- No microwaves in the room
- The arcade is pricey, It runs out fast because the points to play each game is high with the lowest game being about 7 points and the good ones are higher. Some even run as high as 35-40 points. Hence why I was glad we didn’t get the passes because the wolf pass only comes with $5 arcade money which will only give you about 20 or so points.
- The sink is outside the bathroom, personally I prefer having it in the bathroom especially to wash your hands after using the toilet. I just prefer keeping it away from the living area.
- There is no gym which I guess makes sense cause it’s a resort for kids lol so if you are like me and you packed your workout clothes, you are out of luck haha.
- The blankets on the kids bed were quite short, my daughter is a bit tall so it was too small for her.
Tips for a great time at Great Wolf lodge
Come as early as possible on your check in day! You can come as early as the water park opens even if you can’t get into your room till later so make use of it especially if you plan to only do one night.
It does get crowded and in my opinion, mornings seemed a lot more crowded than evening even though evenings were still a bit crowded.
They have towels so no need to bring yours but if you borrow them and do not return all the towels, you get charged $15. They scan your wrist band to pick up the towels
Stay as late as you can. Even after check out, you can stay till the water park closes.
Be sure to bring your snacks, water etc. I’m quite cheap and all about budgeting so trust me, we’re bright tons of snacks and also got all our food from outside. There are options like pizza places not too far away plus fast food, restaurants etc. We got Dunkin’ at the lodge for breakfast one day since the price was comparable to outside. We also treated the kids to ice cream which was affordable as well.
The Lodge is cashless, your wrist band can be used to make payments for things.
Download the app! It helps to find free activities going on in the lodge and has information on hours, restaurants etc. You can also use it to order food in advance.
We got the MagiQuest wands for the kids and they loved it. You can pay to add the game to it for more fun but again I’m cheap so we opted out of that. The wand itself is fun because you can use it to light things up around the lodge and also participate in the scavenger hunt. The great thing is you keep the wands and can reuse at any GWL in future.
You don’t need to bring life jackets for the water pack as they have a lot but we brought ours cause I have used them several times before and trust them so not about to take any chances
Ways to save for your tickets
Book in advance if possible or book when there is a great sale going on. We booked only a month ahead when we saw 51% off on the website.
Try to go during off season, we went during the school week, Sunday through Tuesday. I noticed the prices were higher when schools got out for the summer break so we decided to do ours right before school went out.
Sign up for the free great wolf lodge voyager program where you get to earn points towards discounts.
If you are trying to really save money, you can book one night and come as early as possible on check in day and check out as late as possible on check out day. This gives you two full days even though you only paid for one night.
Bring your own snacks and food plus order outside food to save costs rather than getting pricey food on the resort
You can ignore the wolf pass because even though it seems like a great deal, it’s only great if you have older kids and plan to do all the activities it includes. If not then it might be better to do individual activities which is what we did.
What to pack for Great Wolf Lodge
Swim suits (more than one)
Clothes
Waterproof phone case
Flip flops or water shoes
Snacks
Swim cap
Goggles
Bag to carry your stuff and wet stuff
Final Thoughts
There you have it! Our stay was amazing and I would do it over again in a blink. We did not get the passes this time because with 3 kids, it can get very pricey fast so we opted to pick out what we wanted to do and pay individually for them and it definitely worked out for us. I hope this post is helpful to help you plan your trip to Great Wolf Lodge!
Have you visited Great Wolf Lodge? Tell me about it in the comments!
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