Saturday, September 26, 2009

Chula Vista - Not the Worst

Stryker and his family, which includes a wife and a nearly 2-year old boy, spent the last 2 days in the Wisconsin Dells with Mom. Mom had a conference at Chula Vista, and invited Stryker to come visit after it was done.

I haven't spent any significant time in the Wisconsin Dells since Emmett's bachelor party which was probably damn near 10 years ago (or 7). I had a swig at Nig's that night. There was the time that Roger and I drove up to the Dells after bar time in Madison but those are both stories for a different time.

Anyway, I thought I would start a new travel column by letting everyone know about my experience at Chula Vista. Well, this place is a behemouth. Condos, hotel rooms, a golf course (looked decent), indoor water park, blah blah blah. I think there are about 3 or 4 other similar resorts in the Dells (Great Wolf, Kalihari, etc.)

The room was average. Kind of looked old, which I thought was weird since everything else looked pretty new. Nothing special there.

The restaurant that we went for breakfast was pretty spot on. It was a buffet - all the time. Breakfast buffet, lunch buffet, dinner buffet. We enjoyed our breakfast - nothing extraordinary, but the food was good, and they had pizza which I thought was a nice touch. Best part was it was $10. Usually you go to a hotel and eat breakfast and the goddamn orange juice is $7 a glass, so an all-you-can eat buffet for $10 felt like the deal of the century. I enjoyed the bacon. The boy enjoyed the chocolate donuts.

Finally, there's this huge indoor water park. It was good for little kids because there was one pool that was basically catering to the toddlers. 0-depth pool that went to 2-feet deep at the most, a couple of mini water slides, some water cannon thing that the boy loved to shoot me with, and whatnot. I walked around the place and there were also some pretty wicked looking water slides for older kids.

There was also a tiki bar.

And that is what got me thinking. This is what my life has come to and will remain for the foreseeable future. It used to be that I'd look forward to sitting on my ass and watching college football all Saturday, nursing a hangover and working on another. Now, I can look forward to going to Chula Freaking Vista with a couple of my pals and their families, and sit in an indoor beach chair with the other dads drinking Miller Lites out of a plastic bottle and watch the kids pummel each other with water and hoping they don't crack their skulls running around the pool decks.

Anyway, enough about the somewhat grim future of Stryker. Life's all about choices. Chula Vista got a grade of 7.5 out of 10. The cheap buffet was outstanding. The water park made the boy and wife happy, which made me happy. The rooms weren't that great, but you really just sleep there so who gives a shit. All in all an enjoyable time. I'm sure this review will make its way to the Chula Vista website.

1 comment:

  1. Wow it has been 7 years since I almost vodka red bull, yeger, miller lited myself to death?

    Time flies when you are trying to forget something I guess.

    Oh your post, nice work. and as I spent my WEEK with the new in-laws, and moving I had to remind myself, that Life is truly all about choices. Ugg

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