3/17/13
Kyrie "surprised" me with a couple nights at Hotel Rome at the Mount Olympus resort in Wisconsin Dells for our anniversary. I ruined the initial surprise by guessing her plan, when she asked me if I can earn any travel agent commission at any Wisconsin Dells hotels. But she did surprise me, when she secretly took the day off on Monday, so that we could stay two nights instead of one. The kids all got a good kick out of surprising me with that!
We had a nice trip, but I mostly just wanted to give a review of the resort, instead of my usual trip report.
This is our first stay at Hotel Rome (or any of the many Mount Olympus hotels), but we have been to the Wisconsin Dells many times.
The Rooms
We stayed in the BlueGreen section of the hotel, which is the condo section. I'm not sure if these are timeshares or not, but they look like they are. We had a two bedroom unit with a pull-out couch, which was just the right size for our family of six (soon to be seven!). The room was very nice. The beds were comfortable and everything was in good shape. The room looked fairly new. I would say that this was the nicest room that we've had in the Dells. I think the only complaint that I had about the room was the towels. The bath towels were paper thin, which seemed really out of place compared to the rest of the furnishings. We also saw inside the regular rooms in the hotel and those looked to be in good condition as well. Many of those rooms had bunk beds as well as two other beds (probably queen size).
But the regular rooms have guady paintings over the beds. The BlueGreen section was much more tastefully decorated. (K)
The Indoor Waterpark
We were there in March, so the appeal was to take the kids to their indoor waterpark and indoor amusement park. The waterpark is pretty good. It has the typical things - about a half dozen water slides, a lazy river, a play area for small kids, a very small pool area, a couple of hot tubs and a snack bar. Our kids all had a good time. The boys loved all of the water slides. Ella liked the tube slides that I could go on with her. Zoe had fun in the play area, going down the little slides they had there for tots. On Saturday, the place was really crowded and the lazy river was just a log jam of inner-tubes. Sunday, we had the place practically to ourselves and it was much better.
The Indoor Theme Park
The indoor theme park is pretty small as you might expect. I think I counted 7 total rides that were free and then a laser tag area, a rock climbing wall, and a redemption ticket arcade. There were 3 kiddie rides, a foam ball play area, a very small and slow go cart track, bumper cars, and a crazy mouse coaster that took up about half the building. I would have preferred that they used the roller coaster space for other rides, just to have more attractions. Since these are the only rides here for about 7 or 8 months of the year, I think they should have gone with quantity over quality. But, that's just my opinion. This place was also very busy on Saturday and cleared out on Sunday.
Comparison to other Dells properties
As I've mentioned, the rooms here are very comfortable and nice, and in the summer I'm sure that having the outdoor waterpark and theme park included with your stay is a good perk. It's also a very good location - right in the middle of the Dells and close to a bunch of other attractions. However, in the off-season, I would stay at the Wilderness Territory instead. They have a lot more indoor waterpark space and more innovative areas. I do think that the Mount Olympus indoor parks were fun, but I think you would get bored with them fast if you were here for more than a couple of days.
