bring the pack

Wildly popular Great Wolf Lodge breaks ground on massive Houston-area indoor water park resort

Great Wolf Lodge is coming to Webster.

Photos courtesy of Great Wolf Lodge

Local families who’ve traveled north on I-45 to take in the joys of Great Wolf Lodge near Dallas are now in luck. The wildly popular, nationwide family resort and indoor park will break ground in nearby Webster, Texas on Thursday, September 22, for what will be its second Texas location.

Great Wolf Lodge Gulf Coast Texas will boast 532 rooms and — importantly for kids and families — a 95,000-square-foot indoor water park and a 58,000-square-foot family entertainment center known as the Great Wolf Adventure Park. The 27-acre destination, located east of the Gulf Freeway near the Flyway at Clear Creek development, is slated to open in mid-to-late 2024, according to Great Wolf Resorts announcement.

“With millions of families visiting our resort in Grapevine, we know Texas families love the Great Wolf Lodge experience and we’re excited to introduce our second resort to the Lone Star State,” said Murray Hennessy, CEO of Great Wolf Resorts. “A hallmark of Great Wolf Lodge is that we help families strengthen their pack by offering a fun-filled getaway that is close, convenient and carefree, and with this new resort, we will be able to better serve families in the Houston area and southeastern portions of the state.”

Accommodating year-round visitors, Great Wolf Lodge Gulf Coast Texas will feature myriad attractions and amenities for all ages, including:

● An expansive, 95,000-square-foot indoor waterpark, heated to a comfortable 84 degrees, featuring a variety of body slides, tube slides, raft rides, activity pools and splash areas for every member of the family – from toddlers and teens to parents and grandparents.

● The aforementioned, 58,000-square-foot family entertainment center known as the Great Wolf Adventure Park. This center will offer a variety of family-friendly attractions, including MagiQuest – Great Wolf Lodge’s exclusive live action-adventure game where players use interactive magic wands to battle goblins and dragons.

● A collection of complimentary family events and activities including Yoga Tails, a morning exercise program that combines tales from the creatures found in the Spirit Water Forest with yoga poses, and evening events such as Great Wolf Lodge’s signature Hustle & Howl dance party and Story Time event.

● Several dining options that will appeal to a variety of culinary styles ranging from pizza and burgers to upscale dining and premium ice cream treats at Wood’s End Creamery.

● Family-friendly suites in a variety of categories and styles including Great Wolf-themed suites with separate sleeping quarters for kids designed as either a log cabin or wolf den and outfitted with bunk beds and Great Wolf character theming. The resort will also feature suites with multiple bedrooms for large families or multi-generational groups.

Area businesses can make use of the destination’s more than 11,000 square feet of flexible conference space with breakout rooms, built-in A/V technology, customizable catering options, and a team of dedicated industry professionals to serve visiting conferences and events.

Aside from a major tourist attraction, Great Wolf Lodge’s new outpost will be a boon for area employment. An estimated 600 construction and trade workers will be on-site each day during the peak of construction. And the resort will fill approximately 500 full and part-time jobs to prepare for the grand opening, with positions including senior management, engineering, IT professionals, lifeguards, guest service agents, housekeepers, and more.

In an effort to seamlessly integrate with the community, the new resort will operate with environmentally friendly practices, including energy usage and water consumption.

Notably, the resort’s location in Webster makes the perfect addition to a weekend jaunt to nearby NASA/Johnson Space Center/Space Center Houston — as well as Galveston.

“Tourism is one of Webster’s top economic drivers,” said Donna Rogers, mayor of the City of Webster, in a statement, “and Great Wolf Lodge is a force multiplier that will attract visitors from a super regional and global market.”

Great Wolf Resorts currently operate across the U.S. and in Canada. The company plans more growth: a Great Wolf Lodge in Perryville, Maryland is scheduled to open summer of 2023 and a location in Naples, Florida just broke ground.

Fans of the howlingly fun resort can stay up to date on developments on the company’s social media channels and on www.greatwolf.com.

Movie Review

Denzel Washington brings new spectacle to the Colosseum in Gladiator II

Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures

Paul Mescal in Gladiator II.

There are some films for which making a sequel is natural, and others where a follow-up is wholly unnecessary. Gladiator, which made both tons of money and was named Best Picture at the Oscars, told an impactful stand-alone story that ended with the protagonist dead and no real loose ends. And yet because there’s always more money to be made, here we are 24 years later with Gladiator II.

The lead character this time around is Lucius (Paul Mescal), a general in a North African army who becomes a prisoner of war when the Roman army led by Marcus Acacius (Pedro Pascal) bests him and his troops in battle. Taken back to Rome, he is put in the pool of captured men forced to fight at the Colosseum for the amusement of twin emperors Geta (Joseph Quinn) and Caracella (Fred Hechinger).

Lucius is controlled by Macrinus (Denzel Washington), an ambitious schemer who bets liberally on his prized fighter and always has an eye to move up in the world. Meanwhile, Lucilla (Connie Nielsen), the sister of Emperor Commodus from the first film, is now married to Marcus Acacius and has a unique connection with Lucius that is fairly obvious from the get-go.

Directed once again by Ridley Scott and written by David Scarpa, the film commits a number of sins throughout its 150-minute running time, the most blatant of which is that, aside from a few embellishments, it essentially tells the same story as the first film. Lucius, like Maximus, is a deposed military leader who’s out for revenge on the person who killed his family. Instead of one obnoxious emperor, there are now two. And the only way for Lucius to earn his freedom is to fight his way out.

Stories told in the same world can echo each other and, if done well, overcome those similarities. But Gladiator II is shockingly boring for a purported sword-and-sandals epic. Scott and his team try to introduce new elements to the fights, like a gladiator riding a rhinoceros or a ship battle inside the Colosseum (with sharks!), but most of the sequences are inert with no propulsion to them.

The action fails because none of the relationships in the film amount to much. There are stand-out characters like Macrinus and the twin emperors, but instead of creating antipathy or strong feelings of triumph or defeat, the story just kind of happens without any sense of excitement or importance. Much of that issue lies at the feet of Lucius, who simply doesn’t inspire in the same way that Russell Crowe’s Maximus did.

Mescal is a fine actor who’s done good work in more intimate roles, but he’s not up to the task of being an action star, at least not in this film. Any bombast he shows with the character feels forced, and the story doesn’t give him enough opportunities to counteract that lack. Washington, however, fills up the screen with his charisma, and it’s during his scenes that the film comes closest to being rousing. Quinn and Hechinger are a lot of fun as the twin emperors, but in the end they feel like retreads of Joaquin Phoenix from the original.

Any sequel should have a purpose that sets it apart from what came before, but Scott, Scarpa, and the rest of their team fail in that respect in Gladiator II. It’s a mostly lifeless film that delivers scenes that would be exciting if they had any kind of good story to back them up.

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Gladiator II opens in theaters on November 22.

movies film

bring the pack

Wildly popular Great Wolf Lodge breaks ground on massive Houston-area indoor water park resort

Movie Review

Denzel Washington brings new spectacle to the Colosseum in Gladiator II

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