In keeping with the season, here are two projects that may inspire you to transform your facility into a holiday hotspot.
This gingerbread house is giant
It’s a Great Wolf Lodge tradition. Every year, each of the chain’s 13 locations compete in an epic challenge to see which can build and bake the most decadent gingerbread house that folks can actually dine in – and eat. Signs, however, request that guests abstain from tasting.
Checking Into Great Wolf Lodge's Gingerbread House
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Here's a look at the confection construction of Great Wolf Lodge Southern California's massive gingerbread house.
Play slideshow“Kids are attempting to eat the icing,” said Phillip Cunningham, general manager of Great Wolf Lodge Southern California. “I’ve got one of my chefs on a daily basis repairing it."
Reservations for breakfast, lunch and dinner have been mostly booked since the sugary structure’s Nov. 26 debut. The program runs through the first weekend in January. And it’s all for a good cause: A minimum donation of $10 is applied to the check, with all proceeds benefiting the Orange County Ronald McDonald House.
The edible edifice at the Garden Grove location can comfortably accommodate up to 10 people.
It’s both an engineering and culinary feat, taking more than 85 total hours of baking and 160 hours of labor.
Here are the ingredients:
· 663 pounds of gingerbread dough· 416 square feet of gingerbread
· 70 gallons of royal icing
· 1,152 Peeps
· 450 pounds of Mike & Ikes
· 135 pounds of gumdrops
Other seasonal offerings include a snow show every 15 minutes in the lobby. And guests who book a special Snowland suite, which include unique decorations and a lighted Christmas tree, can expect a delivery of milk and cookies from one of the lodge’s woodland creature characters.
Splashing though the snow
This is the second year that Seven Peaks Waterpark in Provo, Utah has turned into a winter playground where guests can sled down waterslides and ride bumper boats through the Lazy River Christmas Cruise, among other yuletide activities.
Called the North Pole, the program was conceived as a perk for season passholders. It runs in the evenings, attracting between 400 and 2,000 guests.
“In the waterpark industry, we look at those numbers and laugh, but considering this is a wintertime activity and there are only four main attractions, the numbers are great,” said Nick Strong, sales and marketing manager.
New this year: Guests can watch the story of Clara and Mouse King unfold as they take a side-by-side pedal car through the scenes of the Nutcracker.
