Waaaaaay back in Christmas 2015, we gave the kids the gift of a day at a water park. In March, it was time to make it happen.

This is part of our 100 Things in 2016 challenge. Here’s the full list.

We’ve driven past the Great Wolf Lodge many times on our way to and from Seattle, and we’ve been promising the kids that we’d go there for quite a while. We did our best to hack the system: buying a night at the hotel gets you water-park passes for half of the day you check in, and all of the day you check out! We booked one night, got there just after dinner, took delivery of our rainbow wolf ears, dropped off our stuff, and headed for the pools.

The water park is pretty great. There are no less than three giant water-slides, which are visible from I-5, since part of them is outside the building. The hotel is fine, too; we booked a room with a bunk-bed nook for the kids, which was decorated like a giant tent (which they loved).

Handy hack for anyone else planning on this trip: go out for breakfast. The hotel’s buffet isn’t included, and doesn’t open until an hour before the pools open. We headed just down the road to Judy’s Kitchen, had a fantastic breakfast for $25, and got back just as the line for the Great Wolf buffet was getting long. We were among the first into the pools that day.

Our overall impression was “kitschy, but fun.” The Great Wolf aesthetic isn’t for everyone, but it wasn’t too cheesy, and they were pretty consistent with it. We were able to find good food for us, which is sometimes a challenge with dietary restrictions, and it wasn’t super expensive. Recommended.