Rhys' 9th Birthday in Grapevine's Great Wolf Lodge

It was not hard to convince Rhys to spend his birthday at the Great Wolf Lodge in Grapevine. As his birthday approached, he got more excited than he has ever been in the past in anticipation of our trip. The kids talked me into leaving on our trip one night early. I booked a room in Norman, OK for Friday evening at the Hampton Inn so that we could take our time on Saturday morning driving the rest of the way to Dallas/Grapevine. I really dislike long-distance driving as the monotony practically puts me to sleep.

We left for Norman after I got off work and had dinner at Cheeseburger in Paradise in OKC. Rhys ate almost an entire hamburger and the kids enjoyed the guy on the stilts who made balloon animals for Rhys (a puppy who had eaten a "burger" and a rabbit - Rhys' favorite animal). We checked in to the Hampton Inn at around 9:30 pm. It took about 45 minutes to realize that the A/C in our hotel room was not working properly. The thermostat was set at 65 degrees but the room still felt like it was 80 degrees. The A/C would kick on for about 10 minutes then turn back off again just as the room started to cool down. I called down to the front desk and was assured that the temperature would improve within 20-30 minutes. It didn't. After a couple more phone calls, I finally went downstairs to complain about the heat in our room and pointed out that we were not staying in a cheap $40 hotel. The hotel was almost completely booked up and we were offered either single smoking rooms or one handicapped room on the ground floor with a double bed for all 3 of us. I was also told that the Fairfield Inn across the parking lot was also booked up. I finally had to REQUEST a fan be put in our room.

It sounded like a plane taking off all night but it did cool the room down a bit. The following morning, we had breakfast and moved our things to the car. I returned back to the front desk to check out and decided that I would test the hotel's "100% satisfaction guarantee". I told the front desk clerk that our stay was not in the least bit satisfactory because of the malfunctioning A/C. She apologized immediately and acknowledged that we would not be responsible for the room charge. I filled out a small form with information and signed it. The room rate was credited back to my credit card. I have to admit that the Hampton Inn really does honor their policy and I was not made to feel guilty in the least bit. My experiences at Hampton Inn has always been good - this was the first time that I've been dissatisfied and they did make it right.

We drove to Dallas and stopped by to pick up my sister, BIL, and mom. My mom did mention that she was having dizzy spells because she mistakenly doubled up on a blood pressure medication that she mistook for her thyroid pill. I didn't think much about this. We then followed my BIL to the Rainforest Cafe at the Grapevine Mills Mall for lunch.

Rhys had an enormous pizza for lunch and we all shared the Volcano Cake to celebrate his birthday.

We left the restaurant and headed straight for the hotel which was just down the street.

There was a short wait at the reception desk to check-in. I chatted for a moment with the guy behind me in line who was at the GWL for the second time. He had brought his family to the lodge in March but they were turned away because the hotel had been overbooked by about 100 rooms. He thought that the internet reservations were not matched with the other room reservations and there were simply no rooms to offer them. They were not given gift certificates or any sort of apology despite having come from Little Rock, Arkansas. This had happened shortly after the hotel had opened for business and he described many very very angry people in the lobby that day. Check-in went smoothly for us, though. While I checked in, Jason, Dee, and the kids went downstairs to check out MagiQuest.

I booked a Wolf Den suite as a party of 2 adults and 2 children even though Seth was in Las Vegas at a Board review course. The cost was the same with 1 vs 2 adults. Guests could bring friends to the water park for a fee of $30 so I figured the extra "guest" in our room might come in handy - it did. As the kids were looking around downstairs, I took some of our luggage to our room. I was given 2 "room key" wristbands and 2 regular wristbands at check-in which was really ingenious, imo. The wristband got you into the water park and also acted as your room key by waving the wristband in front of the door handle where you would normally "swipe" a room key card.

Our room was very spacious and we had a nice view of the outdoor water park from our window.

Everyone soon came up to the room where Dee and Mom rested while Jason, the kids, and I went back down to play MagiQuest. I'm going to blog separately about MagiQuest and the waterparks. After playing MagiQuest for a bit, the kids wanted to visit the waterpark before dinner so Jason ran Dee home so she could rest and he could get his swim trunks, while my Mom waited in the room. Jason got to use the other wristband to get into the water park for free.

After a bit, we went back to the room and got ready for dinner. We decided to have dinner at the Camp Critter Bar and Grill rather than the buffet (Loose Moose Cottage). Rhys had opened a few birthday presents in the room already (from Amina).

Dinner at Camp Critter was really pretty good. It was unreal how many guests were celebrating birthdays this evening. By the time we finally got done with dinner, we had already overheard about 1/2 a dozen other birthdays. I had ordered another caked from Cher-Den's in Enid - this time chocolate in the shape of a computer to represent the laptop computer that Rhys asked for but didn't get for his birthday.

The restaurant staff sang him a birthday song and he opened the rest of his presents.

After dinner, Jason took my mom home and wanted to go back to the water park with us in the morning. The kids and I played MagiQuest right up until it closed for the evening - 11 pm.