A Review of Mt. Olympus Water and Theme Park, Wisconsin Dells

... and you thought that I'd forget about this post. Sorry... this post is a freebie, so I've got to take advantage of it.

That's right. Today's post is a review of Mt. Olympus Water and Theme Park in the Wisconsin Dells. There are several different aspects to Mt. Olympus... there's the hotel itself, the indoor water park, the indoor theme park, the outdoor water park, and the outdoor theme park. Due to the fact that we went during the off-season, the outdoor water park was unavailable, so I won't be giving it a review. We checked out most of the other stuff though, and I'll happily give you a review. Hopefully, this review will help others who are considering Mt. Olympus or a trip to the Dells in general.

The first thing I need to mention about the Dells in general is that it's a tourist trap type of destination. This in and of itself is not a good or bad thing... you just kind of need to be in a mindset where you realize that you're in a tourist trap before you head out. Food is REALLY expensive there, and every other shop is a crappy little shop that sells stuff plugging the Wisconsin Dells. Backing up to the food... I take pride in my desire to try out local restaurants, and trying the local cuisine. The Dells is one place though, that I'd recommend NOT trying the local food. The local establishments tend to be significantly more expensive than the national chains, and the food isn't that good. And good luck finding a place to take a leak. But getting back to Mt. Olympus...

I really wasn't impressed with the hotel rooms - or the hotel for that matter. There was a cursory attempt to make the hotel look Roman, but the designers did a piss-poor job of pulling it off, and the maintenance crew further undermined the designers' mediocre vision. The halls were carpeted with 1970's-era carpet squares, the lobby was decorated with chipped Styrofoam columns (translation: babies could have choked on the foam beads), and the rooms were furnished with 2X6-constructed furniture. The furniture wasn't bad in and of itself, except that it clashed with the decor of the hotel... the furniture would have been fine in a rustic cabin-style room. By the way, there were NO drawers in which to store clothing.

The TV was ancient. There was cable TV, but no place to hook up a computer, portable DVD player or gaming console. Not a problem for me, but a horrendous oversight on the part of a "resort" that caters itself to kids. Thank God the kids were able to occupy themselves with the pay-per-view porn. (KIDDING!!)

I was equally underwhelmed by the indoor water park. It was too small, there weren't enough water slides, and the hot tubs were more accurately called lukewarm tubs. The indoor theme park was okay... if you were 12 or under. It had a small roller coaster, an indoor jungle gym, laser tag, a few games, and an indoor go-kart track. The kids liked the roller coaster. The laser tag arena was okay, but apparently a rather old setup, or the employees were idiots, because the only way to play was free-for-all... no teams. Personally, I think the employees were too lazy to configure it.

The games were the worst!! Every game there was one of those ticket-dispensing games... no games of skill... no race games... no pinball... no old-school nostalgic games... it all sucked! And the indoor go-kart track? Oh man, what a disappointment! The first day, the woman working the track was a veritable go-kart nazi! If you didn't ride single-file, slightly below the kart's maximum speed, watch out! Furthermore, the line was too long and slow. This could have been alleviated by a greater amount of efficiency on the part of the staff, but again, they didn't really care.

The real highlight was our last day... the one day the outdoor theme park was open. The roller-coasters looked respectable. (The kids rode them and had fun. I avoided them because of my tweaked neck.) But the outdoor go-kart tracks!! They rocked!! They alone were worth the crappy experience we had up to that point! Of course I suspect that if you go in the summer, you're going to spend all day in line. Suck to be you.

Oh yeah. One really good thing about Mt. Olympus. Before I say this, remember that we were there during the week, during the off-season... but we all played hide and seek/tag in the hotel on our last night. We played on all three floors of the hotel, running up and down the stairs and halls, hiding behind vending machines, and so forth. We made sure to try to keep things quiet, but when you have a herd of people running up and down the halls, you can't be fully successful in any endeavor to remain silent. At no point did any staff member or guest give us any grief about this. In fact, the staff simply gave us knowing smiles and continued about their business. I must say that THAT was cool.

At the end of the day, I wasn't impressed with Mt. Olympus. I liked The Wilderness better. The accommodations were better, the water park was MUCH better, and the arcade games didn't suck NEARLY as bad. But I think we spent a lot less at Mt. Olympus.