We stayed at the Drury Inn & Suites in Dublin (northwest Columbus); this was our first time staying in a Drury and we were quite impressed with the staff, accommodations, and the extras. Our room included a mini fridge, free wifi internet, and cable television (nice to occupy the kids). The free hot breakfast featured a fantastic variety including scrambled eggs, sausage, biscuits and gravy, muffins, bagels, toast, doughnuts, fruit, and make-your-own waffles. Peter enjoyed pouring batter into a waffle iron and cooking up his very own waffle:
Overall, I would say that the Drury Inn is the biggest selling point for buying this package - you might be able to spend less than the package by getting a low-budget motel but then you'd have more food expenses and be staying in a place that isn't nearly as nice.
We visited COSI on our first day and explored the new dinosaur exhibit as well as several other exhibits and watched the 3-D "Waking the T-Rex" movie. COSI allows packed lunches so we were able to bring a cooler in and eat in the group lunch room (a cafeteria is also available).
The "Waking the T-Rex" movie was fascinating but ultimately a little too intense for my tender-hearted Peter. He was so distraught to see the T-rex eating other dinosaurs that we had to leave the theater without finishing the movie. I really wish I had been able watch the whole thing because it was quite interesting and the 3-D was great!
The Little Kidspace was our favorite exhibit since it was specially geared toward toddlers and preschoolers. Wow, I think the kids could have spent all day in there! There were a ton of different things to do. They started off playing on the indoor playground, and them moved on to balls suspended by air (Liberty was so fascinated by these) and excavating "fossils" in sand.
Then they played in the "Splish Splash" water table area and thoroughly drenched themselves, but at least they didn't get into trouble for it like they do at home when they play in the sink! Finally, we headed over to a pretend play area. Okay, I may be an adult but I've got to say, this part was awesome! I always loved pretend play as a child, and still do.
There was a pretend kitchen, pretend doctor's office, pretend ambulance, and more, plus tons of cute aprons for the kids to wear to help play the part! Finally we had to tear them away to visit the DINOSAURS exhibit.
The Dinosaurs exhibit was our second favorite area. There were several different animatronic dinosaur displays which were amazing. We went through an interactive dinosaur maze and got to build dinosaurs with Create-a-Dino magnets.
We also played the "Be a Dinosaur" game and learned how to hunt, eat, and live like a dinosaur. I wasn't very good at though because my dinosaur couldn't find water and died of dehydration. Oh well!
We spent a total of nearly 5 hours at COSI even though their website recommends 2 hours for children in the 3-5 age range. They were just having so much fun that they wanted to stay! I imagine that older children would appreciate COSI even more, so it's a great place for kids of all ages.
Our second day was spent at the Zoombezi Bay Water Park and was a total blast! My kids love the water, so they had fun spending the day in the Wild Tides wave pool, Roaring Rapids tube river, Katoomba Lagoon toddler play area, and Barracuda Bay interactive slide area. I didn't take many pictures because I get nervous having the camera near the water, but here a few cute ones of the kids having a spectacular time splashing around:
The Barracuda Bay area had some really nice water slides that kids of any age could go down accompanied by an adult. The slides were big enough to be enjoyable for an adult, so that was a lot of fun, and of course the kids thought it was the greatest thing ever. Zoombezi Bay also has several large waterslides for older children and adults. We did not try any of them since we had Peter and Liberty with us who really need one parent per kid, but the big slides sure looked fun!
Our final day was spent at the Columbus Zoo & Aquarium. Both of my kids love animals so they thoroughly enjoyed this and they had never been to an aquarium before so that was an entirely new experience for them. The Columbus Zoo is much larger than Evansville's local zoo - you could really spend an entire day exploring it. Sadly our day was cut short when our double stroller's wheel fell off (who would have thought?!) but we still got to visit many animals. The very first animals we saw were flamingos that were in a petting area. Peter was able to touch his first flamingo, but Liberty was too shy to try it.
We spent a lot of time in Asia because that is where some of our favorite animals were including the lions and tigers.
Also in Asia we saw sun bears, a reticulated python, flying fox bats (fascinatingly creepy), a rhinoceros, an elephant, and more. The kids loved the elephant!
After Asia, we headed to Shores to visit the aquarium. There Peter got to touch some sea creatures! Here you can see him petting a sea star:
He also was able to touch a sea urchin and a hermit crab. Then we went on to see many colorful fish, some small hammerhead sharks (which wouldn't cooperate for a photo), manatees, penguins, and alligators. It was at this time that the stroller wheel fell off and refused to stay on, but we were very happy with the wildlife we did get to see and can't wait to go back someday to see more!
The entire Roar and Explore Adventure Getaway Package was a huge hit with our family! Both of my kids love talking about "the Columus trip" and how much fun they had. You can view more of our fun vacation photos in our Roar and Explore Adventure Getaway album. For more details about the Roar and Explore Adventure Getaway or to book your own package, visit the Columbus Family Fun website.
Thanks to Weirick Communications for providing us with a Roar & Explore Adventure Getaway Package! No other compensation was received and all views expressed are my honest opinions.
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