Our Stay at Great Wolf Lodge (Perryville, MD)

For my kid’s birthdays I prefer experiences to gifts. We’ve done years of birthday parties and we end up spending the same amount as we would for a full day of snowboarding or a weekend trip to a new city, so we normally decide on the latter. This year my daughter turned 3 and we jumped at the opportunity to visit the new Great Wolf Lodge location in Perryville, Maryland. We visited the Williamsburg, Virginia location several years ago and had an ok experience but we knew it could have been better. Luckily, we were right! We had the best time at the Perryville location and my son even said he wants to go back for his birthday in January!

(36)Malennial (@malennial) | TikTok

We made our reservations through Groupon hoping to save a couple bucks and that ended up being all it was. I think we saved about $20, which is still better than nothing. We booked about a month ahead of time and got regular emails from Great Wolf Lodge on how to easily check in and what to expect in the weeks leading up to our visit. They offer an app that you can download before your stay that makes things a lot smoother.

I’ll be honest, check-in can feel a little overwhelming on your first visit. The place is massive and there are hundreds of people (mostly kids) running around checking everything out. It took us about 35 minutes to complete the check-in process. You’ll also have to pay for parking each night you’re there and they’ll have you take the parking pass back to your car after check-in which is a tad inconvenient. At the Perryville location there’s a ton of stuff happening in the lobby. There’s a big open area where they’ll have scheduled sing-alongs, dance parties, yoga for the kids, and more. Behind that is a huge arcade and VR play area, as well as a massive ropes course- and that’s all before you even get into the water park. There are also two restaurants available on the premises.

So excited to be at Great Wolf Lodge!

After we checked-in we went straight to the room to drop off our luggage and get changed. Once the kids had a glimpse of all everything the place had to offer, they didn’t want to waste any time. The rooms are all the same (standard for a hotel) and everything was very clean and spacious. There is a really nice little mirrored bar area which we thought was really convenient for throwing things down when we came into the room. 

For our one-night stay, we spend most of our time at the waterpark, which was fantastic. My little one had a blast in the kiddie area and running away from the buckets of water being dumped on everyone every few minutes. My older child (13) loved the basketball hoops and the wave pool. The adults? We loved the lazy river and the slides! We spent 3 or 4 hours in the water park before heading back up to the room to change and get ready for dinner.

Going into dinner, I won’t lie, I had low expectations. I mean, how good can the food be in a place like that. Boy, was I wrong. We had a fantastic meal. Every person at the table was so happy with their meal- I would honestly go back to Great Wolf Lodge just to eat! 

After we swam and ate, we spent a few hours at the arcade and exploring the ropes course, which the teens and adults in the group thought was a blast. By the end of the day we were exhausted and fell asleep watching cartoons. 

We all slept like rocks and woke up later than we normally would. We decided to skip breakfast at GWL since the lines were super long and instead chose to grab Wawa right up the street on our way out. We had a fantastic stay and will definitely be back for my son’s birthday in a few months. Highly recommend taking your kids to Great Wolf Lodge for a celebratory stay!