Howl at the Moon Glow Golf at Great Wolf Lodge

I decided to surprise my son over the holiday weekend by taking a quick trip to Great Wolf Lodge. It had been a few months since our last visit and I wanted to check out some of the updates, like the Howl at the Moon Glow Golf. My wife had to attend some teacher training classes, so it was a dad and son weekend and a good excuse to have some fun together.

The round of golf quickly went on the back burner when my son saw the giant Fruit Ninja game across from the glow golf entrance. We ended up spending a few hours in the Northern Lights Arcade playing skeeball, racing cars, racking up a high score on Fruit Ninja, and winning a few tickets in the process. It has been a long time since I last set foot in an arcade, but I had a really good time playing a few games with my son.

The arcade uses a system called Paw Points to pay for the games instead of the tokens I remember using as a kid. You load a Paw Points card with credits at one of the kiosks and then just swipe it like a credit card before playing each game. The machines still spit out actual paper tickets as a prize, so you have that tactile reward moment when you hit the 10,000 point bonus. But the really neat thing is that they have a ticket counting machine that tallies your haul. You just feed in the tickets and then swipe the Paw Points card to store the ticket count. You can then redeem the ticket credit at the counter for prizes or hang onto the card and add more tickets the next time you visit.

When loading the Paw Points card, I also added two games of mini golf for $5 per person. When we eventually made our way over to the Howl at the Moon Glow Golf, they just scanned the Paw Points card to register payment. The employees were really nice and helped my son choose which color of club and ball he wanted to use. The base of the club and the ball match (so you can easily remember which ball is yours) and they glow under the black lights.

It is worth noting that it is kind of dark inside the golf course and the forest sound effects are somewhat loud. My son wasn’t a fan of the darkness and noise at first, but quickly warmed up to the game. He even “helped” me knock my ball into the hole several times. I checked the scorecard, but it didn’t have a column to tally the team effort.

Great Wolf did a nice job of packing a lot into the small space. As you move through the course, there are plenty of statues, murals, and stars hanging from the ceiling to give you something new to see at every turn. There were even a couple trick holes where the ball could exit a tunnel in a few random ways, adding another layer of fun to the game. The mini golf room was packed during our visit, but we never felt rushed.

As a kid, I used to visit Golf N’ Stuff fairly often (though my mini golf skills have not improved over the years). Back then, getting the lowest golf score was a big deal because the scorecard had a tear off tab that the winner could redeem for two arcade tokens. It would be nice if Great Wolf Lodge added a small prize like this to their scorecard, especially since the arcade is directly across the hall.

Howl at the Moon Glow Golf just recently opened at the Grand Mound, WA location and is also offered at the Great Wolf Lodge in Pocono Mountains, PA. We spent about half an hour playing the round of golf, which made it feel well worth the $6 price of admission.

Updated, Oct 2013: Added new photos and updated pricing.