Wondering what to do in Minneapolis with the kids? We took our four kids to Minneapolis in April and it was such a fun family getaway! We stayed at the Great Wolf Lodge, which was a total hit. We stayed in a Queen Cabin Suite. It had a queen bed for Joel and I and then a separate nook with 4 bunks for the kids. The room also had a mini fridge, coffee maker and microwave so we made a few of our own meals over the course of the trip. They also had a few accessible features which made it super comfortable for Aria to get everywhere with her walker.
The kids loved the indoor waterpark. Entry is included in your room price. It’s massive and has so much to do. There’s a beach entry wave pool, a huge lazy river, a flow rider, multiple water slides including a tube slide with double tubes so you can go with your kid. There was also a huge tree house splash park with smaller slides and toys. There’s also just a regular swimming pool with basketball hoops which is where we spent most of our time.
Great Wolf Lodge also has a ton of other complimentary activities like yoga sessions, story time, character appearances, arts and crafts, trivia, and dance parties depending on location and season. There are also other activities that you can pay for suck as the MagiQuest which is an interactive game, an arcade, a ropes course, kids sized bowling alley, rock climbing wall and Oliver’s Mining Co. where you mine for gemstones. We ended up purchasing a family bundle that included unlimited bowling, rock climbing, ropes course and one family sized bag of rocks to mine for gem stones. I think it was around $80-100 CAD. And we did buy a card with some arcade credits for the kids to try a few games.
The Mall of America is just a 5 minute drive from the Great Wolf Lodge so we had to go there for a bit! We didn’t do a lot of shopping, but the Nickelodeon Universe theme park was super fun, and there was even an elevator up to the roller coaster loading area, which worked perfectly for Aria’s walker. The kids favourite attraction was the Paw Patrol Adventure Bay Playground.
We stopped by Lego Land at the Mall of America and the kids love looking at all the big creations. There was an area where you could play with lego and each of the kids got to build a small eagle and take it home for free.
One of the days we were in Minneapolis, we went to the Como Park Zoo and Conservatory. Entry is by donation so you can pay whatever you want. It’s a smaller zoo so it only takes a couple hours to get through. It was actually such a relaxing way to spend the day, surrounded by animals (including a gorilla, lions, tigers & giraffes) and a massive lush conservatory with ponds and waterfalls and plants (obviously).
On our last day, we checked out at 11am but the Great Wolf Lodge lets you stay and use all the amenities till close on your check-out day. So we went to the waterpark and stayed till about 4pm before starting our drive home. We finished our drive with all the kids sleeping which was so nice.
If you want to check out our vlog from the trip, it has some other info and just some fun footage of the trip!
