Indoor Fun at The Wilderness in Wisconsin Dells

We took a 4 day vacation and rented a condo at The Wilderness in Wisconsin Dells. It is a great way to feel like you are someplace warm without flying somewhere. There is so much too do indoors. They even have outdoor waterparks there, but we have only gone there in the winter. Here are some videos to share with you so you can see what a few things there are like.

Noah's Ark

I had not been back to Noah's Ark in Wisconsin Dells since I was an early team. I knew it was something I wanted to do with my kids but I needed to wait until my son was taller than the magical height of 48 inches. At 48 inches he can go on everything at Noah's Ark. 48 inches seems to be a magical height for most things as he can also go on the majority of the rides at Valleyfair now as well. Luckily he is almost 50 inches so there is no question that he is over 48.

This was also a good location to be able to meet other family add so they could spend time with their cousins as well as do one of those memory making trips.

Our cabin we rented included going to Noah's Ark as part of our fee. We went all day on Saturday and then Sunday for a few hours.

I didn't bring in my phone or a camera because I just wanted to be in the moment and spend time on the rides and not worry about taking pictures or making sure everything stayed dry or didn't get stolen. So all I have are pictures from the outside of them and what it looks like.

For the most part they loved it and went on most every ride & slide they could. Going 2 days was really a good idea because we couldn't possibly do everything in one day unless we wanted to stay even longer which would have meant really grumpy kids. As it was we had grumpy kids towards the end because they were just getting hot and tired and had been in the Sun for quite a long time.

We were there with my middle sister who goes every year so they are a bit seasoned at knowing where to go at what time. Each day we picked our most desired ryde that has long lines to go on first. That worked out well and we got on almost everything at the park. I even went on the ride called point of no return which was pretty exhilarating. I wasn't quite brave enough to go on the Scorpion but my brother-in-law did. I am thinking next year I will just have to do it. Yes there will be a next year. The kids loved it and it was a nice way to spend time as a family and with extended family all while having fun in water.

Cedar Lodge and Settlement - Wisconsin Dells

This is the outside of Cedar Lodge and Settlement cabin number 29. Obviously, this is that night. All of the cabins have these lights on them which look pretty neat. Cabin number 28 and 29 are both two bedroom with a loft cabin. Each of the bedrooms has a queen bed and the Loft has two queen beds, plus a sleeper sofa in the living room.

I think what I liked most about the place was its location along the river. The kids could go and play on their place at or dig in the sand beach and we could sit there and enjoy the calmness there after having spent the day in downtown Dells or at Noah's Ark or another water park. This is a picture of the fire pit. They do provide wood and paper and matches to start it. We brought along our own marshmallow sticks and s'mores supplies but they did sell s'mores kits in the office.

My kids and their cousin are young enough to still enjoy a place that so this was an asset to us to have this available for them too get rid of some energy. There were other kids staying in the hotel part that they played with at the place that as well.

Here I am set up at a chair enjoying the coffee my husband picked up for me looking at the river and the Bluffs. You do see some army ducks tours go by and people floating down the river on tubes or in kayaks. Right next door is a place that rents fishing boats, tube, and kayaks. It is quite a lazy river so it will not be and exciting tube time but a relaxing one instead.

The cabin rental did include passes to go to both Noah's Ark and the water parks at Chula Vista Resort for our entire State. We did go to Chula Vista to the indoor waterpark the first night then we went to Noah's Ark the next two days. The inclusion of these wristbands help offset the cost of the cabin which was quite a bit. The cabin next door at the other place seemed to be cheaper but did not include the passes. Had this not been a waterpark intended trip I may have looked at the place next door instead which we may do in the future. It also included passes to go to the Big Cat Rescue but that look to be almost a half-hour away in the opposite direction of where we were going to be heading when we go home.

The place also did have a pool but we never got a chance to use it because we were busy doing other things. We thoroughly enjoyed having the use of a full kitchen and 2 bathrooms. We stayed there with my sister and her family so there were two families in the cabin.

One thing I didn't care for was that we were required to remove our own trash. It's not a big deal but when you pay $400 a night, you expect them to remove the trash. I also found it to be quite Dusty on the lights and light fixtures and underneath the beds. If the kids weren't playing hide-and-seek and came out covered in dust bunnies we probably would not have noticed but I expect it to not have so much dust.

Overall though, it was a nice place to stay and the inclusion of passes was awesome. They only required a two-night stay which is why we chose this place where as a lot of other places in the Dells require a three-night stay in the summer.

Chula Vista Indoor Watermark - Wisconsin Dells

There are a variety of places in the Dells that advertise FREE passes to the Chula Vista watermarks (indoor and outdoor) with your stay. The place we stayed (Cedar Lodge and Settlement - will post about later) was one of those places. With Wisconsin Dells being the waterpark capital of the world it is crucial that hotels, motels, and campgrounds have a water park or offer passes  to one in order to entice customers. We drove by quite a few places that had free Chula Vista passes listed on their Marquis. I knew in advance that we were getting the free passes here from the place we were staying at we decided to stay at a different place other than one of the big water park resorts because we were planning to go to Noah's Ark for the water park.

Having access to an indoor water park was nice. We went to the Chula Vista Indoor Waterpark for 3 hours the evenings we checked in. Anyone traveling with kids should know the magic height is 48 inches and  they can go on everything.

Like most big water parks they have the customary huge bucket that fills and dumps on everyone playing in the climbing area with smaller slides. There is also a roller coaster slide and a couple of body slide a couple of tube slides and a couple of Matt slides as well. There is a hot tub indoors, a basketball playing area comma a smaller kids Splash area, and a lazy river.

Like a lot of lazy Rivers it really is not so lazy. They allow kids to be in it without tubes and they are pretty much running through the Lazy River the entire time. One of my favorite rides there was one that is like a toilet bowl where you circle around until you get flushed down a hole. I thought the roller coaster water slide was quite jerky and was not as fun to go on as some of the body slides and mat slides. I did not think the lifeguards here we were very attentive. They seem to let a lot of stuff go except for in the hot tub I noticed they would make sure anyone under the age of 12 wasn't in there unless they had an adult with them.

It was nice to have an indoor option 4 something to do when it was getting cooler. They do have other outdoor pool and water park areas at this hotel but we did not go to them.

Great River Road Wine Trail, plus a Brewery

I had previously told you about the little mini-vacation my husband and I took going trout-fishing into the National Eagle Center and this was also part of that mini vacation to celebrate his birthday. We visited 4 places that made wine, cider, or beer. The above collages of some of the things we tried at each of the four places.

 This is Villa Bellezza. It is in Pepin Wisconsin. We had no idea what to expect from this place when we drove to it because the ad was very basic in the Guidebook and did not have pictures of the facility. But when we got there we were surprised to see that it was just gorgeous and looked like a mini Napa right in Wisconsin. Who knew? I will have more pictures of the grounds of this place in a wordless Wednesday post on Save Green Being Green in July. There was a wedding going on in the reception hall but we could walk around the grounds and see what they had their including a fountain and big Plaza area separate buildings for wine making and a lot of vines as well as a tasting room and they were in the process of construction of a restaurant on site. It is a pretty neat place. We did the wine sampling for $5 that includes your choice of three wines. And you also get to sample the wine of the month for free.

Next we drove about a half hour to go to Maiden Rock Winery & Cidery. One of the owners who was on site distributing free samples. They sell their own cider and wine as well as wines from other Midwest wineries. They also have a little gift shop there as well. The wine and cider tasting they offer for free includes five different samples. Since we were there we only wanted to try the things they made because we could try wines from other wineries at their location if we wanted to. We ended up buying a few bottles at this place.

This is just a picture of where they do the brewing at Maiden Rock. It is right off of The Tasting Room.

Next up was the Red Wing Brewery. We needed to get some food in our stomachs and the Red Wing Brewery is also a restaurant as well as growing their own beer and root beer. My husband tried a couple of the beers and I had the root beer. They were okay not spectacular, but what we really enjoyed was there homemade pizza that they use brewer's yeast in the crust. This is definitely something to check out if you are in Red Wing Minnesota.

Lastly as we were making our lop and starting to head back for home we went to Cannon River Winery. This place actually stays open quite late compared to all of the rest so we were able to go here and buy a sweet red as an after-dinner drink. Here we bought a bottle and had it while we were there. We have been to Cannon River Winery a couple times before and have done the same thing so we didn't feel the need to do it again. It was quite busy when we were there with a wedding upstairs and lots of groups of people enjoying wine on the main level. This is in Cannon Falls Minnesota