Enjoying Chula Vista Resort in Wisconsin Dells {Review & Discount} #ChulaAmbassador

Disclosure: I am a Chula Vista Ambassador and will receive two nights, meal vouchers as well as some other amenities in exchange for sharing my honest opinion on our upcoming trip.

A few weeks ago, for my son’s 5th birthday actually, we made the just under 3-hour drive to Wisconsin Dells.  Our hotel:  Chula Vista Resort & Waterpark!  Now I hadn’t been to Wisconsin Dells for about 15 years and my husband and kids had never been there.  After exploring the Dells for 4 days and staying at Chula Vista, I don’t know why we hadn’t gone sooner as a family!

First off Chula Vista is a resort that has pretty much everything you need from restaurants to spa services to golf (mini and regular) to over 200,000 square feet of watermark!  We could have stayed on property for the 4 days and been totally fine, and next time we might since we did everything in town that we wanted to this time!

The waterpark is directly in the middle, our Golf Villa was off to the bottom right:

We arrived early and since our room wasn’t going to be ready until 4 p.m. we just walked around the property and ended up eating at Howler’s Sports Bar & Grill.  They had Happy Hour prices and it is located right there by registration so we didn’t have to go far.  After we were done we received our room keys and drove over to our golf villa which is located right off the 18-hole course, across the street from the main building.  There are shuttles that will take you all over the property but we walked as really its not that far to everything.

Accommodations at Chula Vista include standard rooms, condos, suites, villas and even a Chalet for up to 12 adults!  We stayed in a Fairway Loft Golf Villa which was perfect for the five of us.  Up in the loft was a set of bunk beds and down below was two Queen beds, a sitting area and a kitchenette.  I think our villa was one of the few that didn’t have a balcony, which my kids were bummed over, so if you want one make sure to have the reservation desk make a note of it since most of the other villas come with one!

Here are some pics of the room (before of course my kids made a mess):

Once we were settled into our room, we headed into town for the night and watched the Tommy Bartlett show, golfed at Pirates Cove and rode the Original Wisconsin Ducks.  We had a blast but were fortunate to head back to our room for rest.  Staying in the Villa was nice because it was quiet, set back from the main property and we felt like we had more room rather than being crammed in a small room.

The new few days flew by so fast.  While we did a few more things in town, we mainly stayed on the Chula Vista property.  We ate almost all of our meals at all the different restaurants and other than some hiccups with our waiters, we have no complaints about the food quality.  Don’t forget to look for coupons too because we found some of course later on that were for the Chula Vista restaurants.  We were bummed we didn’t get to check out Kaminski’s Chop House, as they are rated one of America’s Top 10 Chop Houses, but it does give us something to look forward to for our next trip out there!

We spent almost a whole day outside in the water and then a whole day at the inside waterpark.  There really is a lot to do in both and I love that there is a great indoor one because you never know what the weather will be like with our crazy Midwest weather.

First I’ll start with outside.  The outside waterpark features tons of waterslides, a kiddie lazy river, a beach area with sand, kiddie water area and a pool.  We were all over the place!  The kiddie lazy river is actually in a seperate area and across the parking lot by the condos, kinda hidden but that made it not so crowded!  This is also where I dropped my phone in the water thinking it was harmless to take pics in 1 foot of water!  That was frustrating but I was not going to let it get down about our vacation.

PIC KIDDIE LAZY RIVER

My boys (5 and 6) were able to go on all the waterslides except 1 or 2, which was nice and they actually tried all they could!  We actually saw some more slides later that we completely missed somehow!

We even played in the sand later which my boys didn’t want to leave.  It is amazing how fun sand can be for kids!

We finished up our outside day having dinner at Margarita’s Mexican Grill & Cantina.  Now we thought we were done swimming but we had stayed in our suits and coverups and walked over.  This restaurant is somewhat hidden behind the main property and condos and along the Riverwalk and what did we find there?  A wave pool!  Yes another pool!  This was probably our favorite restaurant because my husband and I could enjoy chips, salsa, and margaritas, while our boys swam in the wave pool right there.  It was so relaxing and the perfect setting for a Mexican restaurant!  We ended up eating dinner here two nights in a row!

The day we saved for the indoor water park was perfect.  It was a little chilly that day and while we could have done outside, we decided it was perfect to stay inside.  The indoor waterpark is just as good as the outside one.  It features a regular lazy river, sports pool, kiddie water area, Croc Walk Water Crossing and more waterslides!  My boys had a blast all over and their favorite was probably the kiddie water area.  It was the perfect size for all three of our kids (6, 5, and 2.)  Unfortunately the Zip Coaster waterslide wasn’t operating as it sounded pretty cool, its the world’s fastest and longest indoor water coaster, but again it gives us something to hope for next time.  We didn’t do as much of the indoor water slides as outside, but rather spent more time in the pools themselves inside.

After our days in the waterpark we were more than exhausted and again grateful for our cozy spacious room.  Since we were celebrating my son’s 5th birthday, they had even decorated our door and room for my son.  Again a hiccup with his age but nonetheless a very special treat for him.  They would have gave us a cake too but Gavin has a peanut and egg allergy so they left plates and suckers instead.  There are a variety of services you can add to your reservation, just ask!

For breakfast all the mornings we were there we ate at the Market Fresh Buffet.  It is a huge buffet that even my picky eaters found food on.  They also serve Lunch and Dinner, but we ended up only having breakfast there for some reason.  We obviously liked it as we ate there three times!

Overall, we had a blast (literally) at Chula Vista Resort & Waterpark.  While we did have a few hiccups I wasn’t going to let them ruin our vacation and they were things that could happen anywhere.  We did encounter many helpful and nice associates which made up for it.  Oh and just to show you how helpful and honest the associates are, we actually left our iPad in our room and our maid turned it in.  Lost & Found called me back and shipped it back to me!  I was so so grateful for that!

Would we go back? Absolutely!  I like how Chula Vista is set back in the trees along the river.  It is very relaxing and not full of the hustle and bustle like the downtown Dells hotels.  The waterparks are included too in your room cost and we really didn’t have any issues with our accommodations.  Having a balcony would have made it complete, but now we know for next time to ask.  Oh and Chula Vista is only about 10-15 minutes from all the Wisconsin Dells attractions and its very easy to come and go to them, even for the directionally-challenged people like me!