California Great America Theme Park

We went to California's Great America theme park in Sunnyvale, California. It is a combination of amusement park and water park. The kids' cousins have season passes, so we got in for discounts (including free parking!). We went with the cousins and my brother-in-law, so we had a lot of veterans to lead us around.

The main entrance has a nice fountain to greet visitors.

Looks like any other park

The first ride the kids went on was Gold Striker. I and the youngest decided not to ride. It's an impressive wooden coaster that rattled the older kids around a lot.

Gold Striker

Very near by is the Railblazer, another challenging rollercoaster that was a lot of fun for the kids.

The older kids, being daredevils, next went on the Drop Tower, which takes riders way, way up and then lets them plummet back to earth. Again, my youngest was not too enthusiastic (he'd ridden something similar at Hershey Park and did not want to repeat the experience). 

Dropping on the drop tower

The next ride had everyone on it. Psycho Mouse is a slower but not too slow rollercoaster without the big drops or any loops. 

Psycho Mouse

Not far away was Planet Snoopy with its Woodstock Express rollercoaster.  I attempted to ride this but was too big for the car!

Going uphill on Woodstock Express

A close-up

My brother-in-law's favorite coaster is Flight Deck. It was originally the Top Gun rollercoaster but they lost the license and had to rename it. It was thrilling to ride, one of those with your feet dangling as you were spun around along the track. 

Flight Deck entrance

Flight Deck is in the "New Orleans" section of the park, which also has the steel coaster Patriot that was a blast for the older kids. 

"Local" color

Walking off the Patriot

We lucked out because most of the lines were very short. We visited on a Wednesday in the summer, so that might explain the smaller crowds. For lunch we went to the water park where all the crowds were enjoying the pools, rivers, and massive slides. 

Since it's a water park I didn't get any pictures. We established a base by the Tide Pool with our dry clothes (we all changed to bathing suits) and went out to experience various attractions. We rode a tube down a lazy river and enjoyed a gigantic wave pool. The biggest attraction were the water slides. A favorite that everyone rode was the Coastal Cruz, a large circular boat that goes down a big track with plenty of banking turns. We also tried Mission Falls, a two-passenger long boat that drops fast and then goes up a large wall, like a skateboarder, and down the other side. They also have those slides where the rider gets in a tube and then the floor drops out. When I got in line, the line host said we couldn't have jewelry, including wedding rings! So I didn't ride but my older kids did.

Toward the late afternoon, we were tuckered out and decided to head off to dinner outside the park. On the way out, we saw a double-decker carousel that we did not ride. Maybe next time!

Two stories, but not enough excitement

Great Wolf Lodge, Minneapolis, MN

On our Christmas visit to Minnesota, we spent a night at the local Great Wolf Lodge. The place is a hotel with a water theme park (indoors), a MagiQuest adventure game, food, and other amenities. The wolf outside was appropriately snowy, considering the sub-zero temperatures.

Do not ask for whom the great wolf howls...

The water park was a blast though we did not get any pictures of us playing. They have six slides, including one massive one that is seven or eight stories tall. The lazy river was relaxing. The wave pool was a little more stimulating and the surf section had too long of a line for me to try it out. The youngest in our group enjoyed the kids play area.

View of the water park from the "Hungry as a Wolf" restaurant

View of the water park from our hotel room

Our hotel room faced the Minnesota skyline, which was far away. Still, it was exciting for our geograph-phile child.

Skyline at day

Skyline at night

We brought our wands from our Williamsburg Great Wolf Lodge adventure and shared one with our cousins. My kids did a lot of running around, interacting with various decorations and screens on the first two floors of the lodge.

Working together

Getting an assignment

Getting an ice arrow

Getting the drop on a dragon

The dragon dropped

The lodge has other activities like a climbing wall, a high ropes course, and a stage with various performances (including a knighting ceremony for anyone who finished the MagiQuest). We did none of those. Maybe if we had stayed longer we'd have done even more. The water park is the star attraction.

Some other kid on the rock wall

High ropes adventure

Maybe we will visit another Great Wolf Lodge in the new year!

Great Wolf Lodge, Williamsburg, Virginia

In celebration of President's Day Weekend, we drove straight past Mount Vernon (home of George Washington) and drove down to Williamsburg, Virginia, to one of the many Great Wolf Lodges across the USA. The place is a big playground for young teens and younger (and young at heart).

Entrance to Great Wolf Lodge

 When we checked in, the lady behind the desk handed out wolf ears to our kids. Two out of three children were happy to wear them.

A happy four-eared child

Twice the fun

They even posed in a fun wooden chair!

Best you can get with three kids in one picture where they have to sit on each other's laps

We checked in and went to our room, which was spacious, with a kids' area featuring bunk beds and a more traditional area for us parents.

Parents' end of the room

A fireplace and a TV!

Kid's area

Inside the kid's area

Our particular room looked over the back of the property--a view to the water park!

Out our window

In the lobby is a giant clock that has an animatronic performance. We didn't stick around too long because we wanted to get to the water park.

The great clock show

I forgot to bring the GoPro camera (which is nicely waterproof) so I only took pictures from outside the water park area.

Pools and water exploring area

Water exploring, wave pool, toddler pool

The water park was a lot of fun. In addition to the short slides in the water exploration area, the back of the building had much larger slides for the 8-year-old and up crowd. Our kindergartner was not interested in climbing lots of stairs to go down the amazing (and somewhat terrifying) water slides. Those slides required inner tubes. One slide had a custom tube that could fit five people. The older kids enjoyed it a lot, especially dragging mommy on to experience the delightful terrors of going down a dark tunnel on a vinyl tube! We eventually got the youngest to go on the family slide though it took lots of reassurances.

The other big attraction at Great Wolf Lodge is MagiQuest. Parents buy their kids wands at a magic shop that lets them interact with various areas on three floors of the hotel. A handy map is provided.

Map of the fantasy land, with locations in the hotel identified below

The magic shop also gave us paper maps to carry around with us. The first stop for any magi was a magic portal, where missions are given. We started with the Pixie and Princess mission. On the monitor, it showed the runes we needed to collect in order to complete the mission.

Where to start

Each rune has its own set of items to collect. The items are in the halls of the hotel (though just near the lobby, not through the entire hotel). Pointing the wand at an item makes it light up. A hidden speak usually announces what reward is collected for pointing at the item. If it's part of the current quest, the item itself is collected. If it's not part of the quest, sometimes the player just gets some gold. Or the announcement says you don't need it yet.

Hawk's claw

Zapping a frog

Once all the elements are gathered, we went to a portal to combine them or given them to an on-screen character. The typical result was a rune useful for continuing the quest or in other  later quests.

The princess wants to get her jewels back from...

The goblin king, who we defeated

The game is fun but we did a lot of backtracking to get items. To do all the missions takes six to eight hours. The guy at the magic shop said that people can bring the wand back on a subsequent visits to pick up where they left off. I'm not sure we will remember to bring it again if we do go again.

Non-wand action

The place is amazing. It also has a bowling alley, an arcade (like Chuck E. Cheese), a 4D movie, and a few other things we didn't try. A mini-golf course and a high-ropes course located outside were not open in February. They also had activities like yoga, crafts, bingo, and story hour at various times. The kids did yoga once. We didn't try the other stuff.

We had a good time though the older kids are on the cusp of outgrowing some of the stuff.

Sailfish Splash Water Park, Florida

My adventurous son and I went to Sailfish Splash Water Park in Martin County, Florida. What attracted my son's attention were the outdoor water slides. At a height of four stories, they are a bit intimidating for casual visitors. They were the first thing we tried out and the most returned to attraction of them all.

The water slides

View of the park from the water slides

The two options are the blue slide and the green slide. The blue slide is covered, slightly shorter, and completely dark for most of the ride. We recently won a GoPro camera and this ride was my first opportunity to try it out.



The green slide is longer and open to the air, providing a more exciting ride. My son re-rode this one much more than the blue slide, even though the line for the blue slide was shorter.



The park has a lazy river. Patrons can ride gently along in tubes or swim the loop, about a thousand feet long. We opted for tube riding.

View of the lazy river from the top of the slides

View of the slides from the lazy river

Being lazy

The river wasn't all lolling around, however. Occasionally water hazards helped keep people cool and wet.



My son had a personal tragedy when he slipped through the middle of his tube and sank to the watery depths.

Is that really comfortable?

What sort of parent takes a picture rather than jumping in?!?

Hamming it up for the GoPro

In the middle of the park is a splash playground whose main feature (according to my son) is a giant bucket that dumps hundreds of gallons of water on visitors. Fun!

Water playground as seen from the top of the slides

Riding the shorter slides

The infamous bucket

Side view of the bucket

We finished off the afternoon with some cheese burgers from the park. Not the best prices or quality, but a satisfying meal in the shade while we dried off.

Lunch