Great Wolf Lodge
This is what it means to be an indulgent parent of an American kid turning twelve years old in the first decade of the 21st century: you pile her, three friends, and your spouse into a borrowed SUV and drive about a hundred miles from home to an oversized hotel/waterpark in the middle of nowhere, basically, and spend the equivalent of a weekend for two in Paris, France, so the kid can have a birthday slumber party and stay up all night before dragging herself and her buddies out the door right at 8:55AM to be the first ones down the big tubular waterslide when the park opens at 9:00.
Woo-hoo, I guess.
The good news is the place isn’t quite as scary as one might fear and the drinks in the bar are surprisingly strong; I’m hoping that this experience is a once-in-a-lifetime fad, but if the youngster really wanted to reprise the event next year, I wouldn’t be totally opposed to it.
The other upside is that our four young charges are too big to be into the Disney-influenced theme park going on in the hotel that requires children to figure out some kind of mock-adventure using plastic tree-branch wands that they wave at plastic injection-molded treasure chests and the like; the hallways are filled with young parents shepherding their toddlers around with that look of exhaustion and dyspepsia characteristic of doing something with your pre-schooler that’s been designed to maximize his or her likelihood of nagging you to buy some mass-produced fantasy knick-knack.
I fear, naturally, the consumerist indoctrination that’s going on here all around us; this is the type of place that trains youngsters to grow up to find the sights and sounds of Las Vegas attractive; once you develop a taste for themed hotels and animatronic singing animals, they’ve got you.
So I suppose that means indulgent parents will be footing the bill for a soiree at the Mirage in nine years.
Woo-hoo, I guess.
The good news is the place isn’t quite as scary as one might fear and the drinks in the bar are surprisingly strong; I’m hoping that this experience is a once-in-a-lifetime fad, but if the youngster really wanted to reprise the event next year, I wouldn’t be totally opposed to it.
The other upside is that our four young charges are too big to be into the Disney-influenced theme park going on in the hotel that requires children to figure out some kind of mock-adventure using plastic tree-branch wands that they wave at plastic injection-molded treasure chests and the like; the hallways are filled with young parents shepherding their toddlers around with that look of exhaustion and dyspepsia characteristic of doing something with your pre-schooler that’s been designed to maximize his or her likelihood of nagging you to buy some mass-produced fantasy knick-knack.
I fear, naturally, the consumerist indoctrination that’s going on here all around us; this is the type of place that trains youngsters to grow up to find the sights and sounds of Las Vegas attractive; once you develop a taste for themed hotels and animatronic singing animals, they’ve got you.
So I suppose that means indulgent parents will be footing the bill for a soiree at the Mirage in nine years.
posted by Professor Dave at 9:38 AM
1 Comments:
We have a couple of those indoor water parks in WI, too; even a Great Wolf. The big attraction, for WI anyways, seems to be in winter; cure for cabin fever - kids can play in the water and parents can sit in the bar. I've been to professional conferences at them, too - that's really weird - people in business casual vs. people in beach bum casual, and all those glazed looking parents being dragged around by their toddlers.
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