Trips

2026 (Dells)

• walkie-talkies!

Notes

• The Lodge's sheets were real scratchy - bring your own sheets and pillows
  • The room we had in the condo had a King bed, we brought Queen sheets :face_palm:

2025 (Gurnee)

We returned to Gurnee in June of 2025 (so a summer trip) and had a great time.

We experienced the bigger slides on this grip - and they were a blast. We had our oldest sneakly get up on her toes when the door guard measured her height and we got her JUST up to 48" for the GREEN bracelet which got us on the double whirlwind amongst other super fun slides.

This trip I also got the idea for the gwl-margarita-tracker!

Tips

• I brought my lulu shirts but the wristband snags them and my sweatshirts like crazy - bring athletic hoodies and regular cotton t-shirts to avoid the snag
• There is a Culver's literally down the street, you could walk... so if you' re starving at night and don't want to spend $29 on a personal pizza, you can take a quick hike for a butter burger
• Bringing a crock pot with pulled pork worked great for meals
• Mini fridge is available for lunch meats and cheeses
• There's an ice machine in the hallway if you want to keep anything on ice
• We brought a griddle but it was brand new - got some smoke, will break in next time

2025 (Dells)

After experiencing the Gurnee location we were excited to checkout the Dells as well.

The waterpark is organized a little differently - and the only real observations are that the wave pool is a lot bigger than Gurnee's but the lazy river is a lot smaller...

We stayed in a condo during this trip, which was great with a kitchenette - buying groceries and just doing sandwiches or pasta for meals saved a boat load of money, probably enough to nearly off-set the cost of the condo over a regular room.

At this location the Magiquest setup is unique - it's in its own building, which is setup as like a 4 story high jungle gym. It's very cool, and the kids can run around to play the magiquest game, or ditch the wands and just run around and slide down slides and stuff... our kids had a blast at 3 and 5 years old.

2023 (Gurnee)

We went to GWL in Gurnee in 2023 for the first time, and we didn't know exactly what to expect. We are also are not very experienced travelers, so packing for a trip (particularly in the food department) is tough... which isn't a huge deal - it just means we spent a LOT on food at the resort...

For this trip our kids were 2 and 4 and it was still a valuable trip. The waterpark is organized in such a way that the littler kids have their own space away from the bigger ones, it's very safe, and the slides and stuff even for the littles are great.

I'm writing this in July after our 3rd trip, so I don't have all the memories from this first one, but here's a short list of things if traveling with kids say younger than 5:

1. water shoes would be a good purchase for the kids if they're going to be in the littles area. The ground there for some reason is murder on the feet (on a future visit we realzied the rest of the waterpark's ground isn't so bad... not sure why the kiddo's pool was so rough)
2. you don't need to bring towels
3. you don't need nearly as many clothes as you think, just underwear and enough swimming gear... no one is dressed in much more than swimwear and a cover-up like a t-shirt even at the restaurants pretty much

Packing List

Pack

• Coffee + mushroom stuff
• Espresso + grinder (or ground beans)
• Fairlife milk
• Sheets (the Lodge's sheets were real scratchy)
• Pillows
• Sleeping Bags

Buy (Aldi)

Breakfast

• Cereal + milk
• Fruit
• Frozen waffles (if toaster)

Snacks

• "Functional" protein bars
• clementines/apples

Lunch

• Deli sandwiches
• Chips

Dinner

• Mac and Cheese + chicken nuggets
• Pizza
• Veggies

Misc

• ziploc
• napkins/paper towels
• ketchup
• mustard/mayo
• drinks