We went on vacation this week. Our kids have spring break a few weeks before the rest of the town. A fringe benefit to private education is having Spring Break all to ourselves I guess. That and the stellar education and lack of common core. Whatev.

We stayed at the Mount Olympus Hotel Rome. I’m not sure I can recommend it in good conscience. We’ve been to better places. But that’s coming from the snooty grown ups who were like “These beds are uncomfortable” / “this indoor waterpark reeks of chlorine and the bottom of the pools feel like knives in my feet” / “stuff seems kinda run down” / “stop trying to upsell me” – that kinda stuff. My kids didn’t really notice any of that.

They noticed:

So yeah the kids thought Mount Olympus was awesome. And at the end of the day, that’s what really matters. Dan and I decided to check out of some the tourist attractions we’ve ignored in the past because “there is so much to do right here at the hotel!!!” Without that excuse holding us back, we  finally checked out:

TOP SECRET

This place is ridiculous in kind of a great way. They were running a discount that day so we all got in for $16. A lot of the hotels in the area have discounts for stuff like this, too. The premise is that in 2002 the White House somehow crash landed upside down in the Wisconsin Dells. Now it’s a tourist attraction. Like furniture is bolted hanging from the ceilings and there are weird creepy passages and famous historical guys lurking about. It’s campy entertainment and we kind of loved it. We also went to the…

Tommy Bartlett Exploratory

More campy fun. This place is kinda like a kid’s science museum and kind of like a Star Wars rip off theme park. You barely know what you are walking into when you go inside and three hours later when you stumble back outside you will have no idea how so much time as gone by. But in addition to the silly Star Wars-esque robots there are tons of hands on science-y exhibits that the whole family geeked out over. Some highlights included:

and:

And of course the best part about going on vacation is how comfortable your bed feels when you finally get home!

Where is your favorite place to go on vacation with the family?