Gaylord Texan Review

It didn’t seem to matter that I spent 3 million dollars at Disney World in January, I didn’t have a vacation planned this summer with the kids and they were expecting more from the coolest mom in the world.

Enter mom guilt.

I figured one night at the Gaylord in Grapevine, TX would get the job done for a nice little staycation. It would be easy enough for a single mom of 4 on a budget that I never stick to and make the kids happy. I had heard good things about the Paradise Springs waterpark. It’s only for Gaylord guests, so my hope was that it wouldn’t be so crowded, the pee to water ratio would be tolerable and I wouldn’t get a bunch of hairs and bandaids brushing up against me in the lazy river. Spoken like a true Arlington kid who frequented wet ‘n wild before it was Hurricane Harbor. Ag Town represent.

I got a notification on my Mariott app that said the room was ready to check in about an hour ahead of time. We hadn’t even left Fort Worth yet, so this was my cue to get moving. Griffin asked if we were getting on a plane or taking a long car trip. When I told him it was only a thirty minute drive, he was stoked!

As soon as we got there, I opted for the $22 self park option, its a short walk. I’m usually a valet snob, but $42 sounded a lot like a hard no to me. Check in was quick and easy and I was asked if I wanted to upgrade to a luxury suite for $50. I did. It was majorly worth it to not listen to arguing about who was going to sleep where. We had a king bed, a queen bed and a sofa bed. Our room looked out onto the atrium and we were right above the riverwalk section.

Aven is wearing a women’s small in these adorable shorts. Kylie and I also wear a small so they are very stretchy!

Blake chose the sofa bed, but was probably second guessing her choice once she assessed the blanket situation.

We went to go explore around and decided the best way to do that was the scavenger hunt. It’s only $11 and you follow clues and look for treasure chests around the resort.

I had just gotten off the phone with a certain anonymous cute guy and he challenged us to finish the scavenger hunt in 12 minutes because that was the record he set with his kids. Well embarrassingly enough it took us 12 minutes to find the first treasure chest. A piece of my competitive heart is still ashamed. The whole thing took us around 30 minutes and was a good first activity to do.

When I read “shiny stash” I immediately think of a oiled up guido mustache. Not so much diamonds and gems, but that’s probably just me.

After shiny stashing, we were ready to eat. The only two restaurants where you don’t need reservations are the Tex Mex place and the sports bar. They unanimously chose the same thing for the first time in their lives. Mexican it is!

We got to the hotel on a Monday evening, it was not crowded and getting a table was super easy. The food was really good and I thought the prices weren’t bad at all. My kids kept getting up to go look at the fish in the river, it was a very kid friendly environment.

Next on the to do list….Sprinkles ATM.

I made reservations for the escape room when I booked the hotel about a month in advance. I’m glad I did because they were turning away people that didn’t have it reserved.

How sad would it have been to miss this photo op on the wobbly-crumpled-and-awkwardly-injured-looking-front-legs horse bench?!

We wish you a speedy recovery.

The escape room was great for us, the kids were the perfect ages for it, and even Griffin (6) was able to really help out! It was $25 a person with a 4 person minimum, takes about an hour and we had a lot of fun! They let you take a picture with their little signs and let you pick some twizzlers out of a tiny basket. What a prize.

Bonus points awarded since we escaped! Bonus points deducted because Griffin wore one shoe. More bonus points deducted because of the “was it cold in there” DM I received. Or maybe that should award me points. IDK. #nips

Thankful that we escaped and pretty tired from all of our activities, we headed back to the room to watch a movie. The kids did not agree whatsoever on this, but we ended up watching Wish Dragon.

I woke the kids up earlyish on Tuesday morning to get ready to go to Paradise Springs which is complimentary to Gaylord guests and opens at 9am!!

A few minutes later we realized Blake had forgotten to pack a swimsuit. For some reason, I brought two, so she wore a moderately inappropriate and borderline too sexy bikini, but it was the only one that fit her.

We were a mother/daughter Vetchy advertisement. I have swimsuits that are far more scandy, so it could have been way worse.

The whole waterpark experience was entirely too easy. You take a shuttle over to the park, show your wristband and you will be greeted by a drowning dummy.

Hi. Welcome. Don’t mind us. Don’t be alarmed. Blake couldn’t help herself and went straight to perform some version of chest compressions on one of them.

Tuesday mornings have got to be one of the least crowded days, there were empty chairs everywhere so we grabbed some prime real estate by the lazy river entrance.

We all stayed together at first, but then I realized it’s not that large of a place and there are lifeguards everywhere so I let the girls go do whatever they wanted. Griffin and I went around the lazy river 987 times and I went down every slide. All of it passed the vibe check.

There were full bars and the frozen drinks looked so good! To order food, you just scan a QR code and a server comes to your chair. The food was impressive, I was expecting it to be meh. We stayed for a few hours, which was enough for us.

Side note: The playlist was basically all lumberjack rock, nickelback and creed. My girls were like what the heck is this?! This, my children, is what was popular in high school and college. They are clearly trying to appeal to all the 40 year old parents up in here.

We waited maybe 2 minutes for the shuttle, went back to the hotel where I checked our luggage in with the concierge and we were out of there!

The kids loved it so much, we decided we would do this every year. Staycation for the win!