We stay at a lot of hotels, hotels, motels and resorts, and some of them work for our family and some not so well.
The Wilderness Resort was one that absolutely worked for us!
We were introduced to this resort and town by our friends and neighbour's who had previously traveled there with a few families. Since they had returned from their trip we had begun planning our trip with them to go back to Wisconsin Dells and stay at the Wilderness Resort.
2 and a half days after leaving we pulled into the Wilderness Resort.
We will try to explain why this resort worked so well for us and what we think they sucked-the-big one at.
Staff
By far the most often staff member we had interactions with were the lifeguards. And they were as you would expect at a family water park, stoic and on the edge of extreme anger. But we never had one snap, instead we met some great lifeguards that had to get hands on when we had a few injuries during our trip.
Lifeguards, the wolverine of resort staff. They look good, but if you cross them they will destroy you.
Room
We picked the double queen room with a pull out couch to be our home base during the 5 days.
The cost of the room was on the high end of what we usually pay per night. And even though we knew that it came with access to 6 waterparks and a whole lot of other amenities, we were a bit surprised at how dated the room was.
The room was very clean and the furniture was in good condition, the carpet and bathroom was oooold. But that doesn't really matter and we don't really care much as long as it is clean.
The room came with a decent sized fridge for a hotel room, small coffee maker (small), a microwave that we put through the paces and one sink. Sadly that was our biggest point of contention. The washroom only had the tub and toilet and no sink. The poo and pee hand washing station was in the main room right beside our mini kitchen. So that left our toothbrushes and coffees way to close.
We also wish we had more clothing storage than the one dresser.
Waterparks
The Wilderness Resort had a grand total of 3 indoor water parks with a wave pool, 2 little kid water play areas, and numerous slides and lazy rivers, and 3 outdoor water parks with a snaking lazy river, a few extreme slides and thousands of square feet of pools.
Each time we went to a new water park we were not disappointed! Even though the resort is massive in size, with a shuttle to get around and long walkways connecting the different buildings, the waterparks were not crowded. Even when we walked into a new water park at 2:00 in the afternoon we were still able to find a table and chairs or a few lounge chairs that we would set up shop at.
The age ranges of the 10 kids that we went with were 5 years up to 13 years old, and each park had lots for each kid to do. As well there were plenty of lounge chairs and places to hang out watching the kids play. And the lazy rivers did a great job of allowing everyone a chance to rest a bit and regain some strength to pound the steps up to the slides.
That lazy river took a good 30 minutes to make a around trip.
Other things to do
When mom booked our rooms she also bought an activity pass for each of us. For $25 each it allowed us to access to 2 indoor mini golf courses, laser quest, a laser maze, indoor go carts, ropes course, bumper boats and $1 off ice cream at Pistol Petes.
Buying these passes was definitely worth it if you plan on doing even a few of these. It also encouraged us to get out and do all these fun things. A few of the activities our little guy couldn't do, but he didn't mind because he just went to the indoor play centre.
Overall there was a tonne of stuff to do when your bathing suit rash begins getting out of control. The only reason we left the resort was to go for supper, buy snacks and food for in the room and to visit the downtown strip of Wisconsin Dells.
Our youngest spent a few good long sections of time enjoying this indoor play centre.
The activity pass included 30 minutes on the ropes course.
We had a great supper on main street/downtown Wisconsin Dells.
Oh, and the kids had a bit of fun at the arcade.
Overall
After it is all said and done we were extremely happy with the Wilderness Resort. It had tonnes of water park fun to be had when we wanted to be soaking and more activities than we could do in a long stay for the times you need to be dry.
We have heard that Wisconsin Dells has been called Las Vegas for kids, and after test driving the place for a good part of a week we completely agree. There are still things for parents to do when they are a bit tired of sliding but this is not the place to go to relax and catch some rays. This is where you go to have late suppers and exhausted kids crash in bed with rosey cheeks.
There was a lot of sleeping in at the Dells.
