The Roar and Explore Getaway is in Columbus Ohio. The package is available starting out at $361 for a family of four. It includes a two night stay at a Drury Inn, four tickets to the Columbus Zoo, four tickets to COSI, and four tickets to Zoombezi Bay, a gigantic waterpark.
My family and I drove in and checked into the Drury in located in Dublin, Ohio. We were just in time for their 5:30 Kickback. This is really a great idea, and saved us a lot of money on dinners!! They have a little dinner buffet set up in the lobby. On this particular night, they had hot dogs and chicken strips. They also had a few sides, and a salad. Their soda machine was up and running, and adults 21 and over are allotted two alcoholic beverages for the evening. We are crazy, my husband and I each got one and drank half of it! We don't like to drink, so I don't even know a lot of drink names,but it looked like they had a lot of choices.
We got up on Friday morning ready to take on the day and do it all!!! We headed down to the lobby for breakfast. My boys loved it because they got to eat french toast and cereal both!! My husband decided he would have a bagel and a muffin. I really wanted to try their make your own Belgian waffle station, but my boys were so excited about getting on the road that I just had scrambled eggs and a biscuit. Again, the soda machine was on, plus the had the standard breakfast drinks of milk, coffee and juice.
Off we went to the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium. The Zoo itself is huge, and to help make it easier to navigate is divided into five sections. We checked out the North American region first. I am sure that this was the most entertaining section. We watched a Polar Bear playing in the water with a barrel. We went downstairs to the underwater viewing area, but the little stinker was having so much fun that he stayed above water with his barrel!!! We wandered around a bit and found two brown bears that happened to be brothers. They were wrestling in the water and smacking each other on the face.We were laughing so hard! We didn't get a good picture of them fighting because we were behind glass, but the borrowed picture above is the bears. We cruised through Asia Quest where my husband was intent on finding the Golden Pheasant. After about three trips through the enclosure, he finally spotted it. He said he wasn't leaving until we found it, so we were glad he did! We wanted to check out the African Forest, but we didn't get to stay there too long because some of the Apes were making my littlest a little uneasy.... I couldn't wait to get to the Australian section. I wanted to see those hopping kangaroos. My little boys started hopping around too. It was so cute. Now, the North American section was the most entertaining, but the Shores section is where we spent most time. The Shores houses the Aquarium. There was a little section that my boys could touch a starfish. I felt it too!!! There was huge tanks along the walls filled with sooooo many different fish. My boys walked up and down and watched them forever. My favorite fish was a little one that was black and orange. We also lost my husband to the reptile house. I thought we were going to spend the whole day in there!!!
It was about 101 degrees that day. Off to Zoombezi Bay to cool off. My kids are young so we went and spent most of our day in Barracuda Bay, which is a kiddie play area. Even though it is a kiddie area, they still have to be supervised by an adult when in there. My boys loved splashing and goofing around. This area has one of those giant buckets overhead that dumps on you. My oldest boy ran away from it, but my middle boy rushed into it every time he was close by. This waterpark is huge and has several body slides as well as slides that you have to use tubes on. What is also neat, is some of the tube slide rides are multi-passenger ones, so that families can go together! Since our boys are so young, we didn't get to try those out, but they sure wanted to!!! There is also a giant wave pool which my boys didn't want to try out!!! They did go ahead and float down the lazy river, before we headed back to the hotel to clean up and get supper.
That particular night's kickback dinner was tacos and hot dogs. The boys scarfed their hot dogs down and their soda, and were begging to go to COSI, the science center. I was exhausted but they didn't care. COSI normally closes at 5, but on Fridays they have a special discounted rate family night and remain open until 9. this was perfect for us, because if they had closed at 5, we would have had to visit the next day, and we intended to get an early start. We really enjoyed this place, and I am not just saying that because it had air conditioning!! We sat and watched a weather show. Their favorite part was when the lady showed us what it took to make a cloud and the kids got to run through it. We also got to go down and sit in an actual submarine!! Each of my boys and I tried it. My husband said he couldn't wedge himself in it, but it was big enough for him!!! I love to recycle, so I really liked the exhibit showing the different stages of recycling. It is amazing how much space plastic takes up originally and how much more compact it is after recycling! We enjoyed watching some children use a unicycle on a tight rope line. We walked up to the mezzanine so my boys could try it, but neither of them were tall enough. They had an exhibit called "Water." It is going to be at COSI until September 3rd, so were glad to check it out. They had several different movies that we could have watched, but we decided that it was best to let the boys have a hands on experience, and not expect them to sit still!! I am sure we made the right choice. What do you think?
After a night's rest, we got up, went down and had breakfast, and headed for home!! We had never stayed at a Drury Inn before, but the Kickback and breakfast saved us so much money that we would definitely stay again. I forgot to mention that the lobby had popcorn and the soda machine on from 3-10pm. This also saved us a lot of money. We were always really thirsty, and it was great not having to buy evening snacks for all of us. The hotel staff couldn't have been and friendlier or nicer. The first night my littlest got sick all over the bed. I called to tell them this. They were so concerned and wanted to bring us up some sheets immediately. All I wanted to do was get a bag to put the linens in so that they didn't have to touch them. That wasn't even a concern for them. After they brought the linens up, they were so nice and wanted to know if they could do anything else for us. You surely want people to be nice when you are so far away from home and have a sick little kid!! All of the staff in the lobby were always stopping and talking to the boys as well. One of the girls even went and got my son two coffee stirrers because he was crying for a straw. They were getting some straws to bring out, but he was crying so hard that she thought that might be a quicker fix, and it was!!!!
Thank you to Roar and Explore for my experience. I was not compensated in any other way. My opinions are my own and honest.
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