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Sunday, June 29, 2014

Visiting Branson with Toddlers: Grand Country Resort

Disclosure: In exchange for my post and to facilitate my honest review of this experience, my family received accommodations as part of a promotional blogger tour of Branson, MO through US Family Guide. No other compensation was received and all opinions expressed are my own.


Have you ever been to Branson? It's a tourist town, which means there are a lot of lodging options available. It can be overwhelming to know where to stay. If you're looking for a quiet place to crash after busy days of family fun, but want restaurant and shopping options nearby, I have just the place for you. Plus - there's a water park on site and it's included with your resort stay! We stayed at Grand Country Resort on our recent trip to explore Branson, and had a blast!

At the end of this post, I'll be sharing my Top 6 Tips for Staying at Grand Country Resort with Toddlers - so keep reading for that!


The Grand Country Resort has been a Branson destination for 40 years and is a total vacation experience on its own. There is enough to keep families entertained for hours - or days - right on the property!


There are multiple live shows every day, three miniature golf courses (indoor and outdoor), a family amusement center with bumper cars, laser tag and more. Resort guests can visit two outdoor pools, one indoor pool, plus the indoor/outdoor water park - for free! Brightly colored wristbands grant access to the water park.

There is even an extremely tempting sweet shop on site - and the sheer amount of fudge and taffy available for purchase is astounding.


Every time we go on vacation, we end up in a conundrum of where should we eat - usually when there is very little time left before our next planned activity. The convenience of having multiple food options within walking distance of our room is unmistakeable! We tried out the Grand Country Buffet and Papa Grand's Pizza during our trip.


Our favorite was Papa Grand's Pizza - it's a pizza and salad buffet that was relatively inexpensive and very low-key, which is super important when you are dining out with toddlers. It's housed in the Fun Spot building, which is pretty noisy - so no one cared when our kids decided to make tons of noise. Next time we stay, we will have to check out the Mining Company Grill and Glenn's Frozen Custard!


Grand Country Resort has recently upgraded many of their rooms to "Clubhouse Room" status - these rooms feature a super fun Amish-crafted kids clubhouse bunk bed for kids. These would be exciting enough for little ones, but the clubhouse even features a TV and built-in DVD player, plus AUX hookups. I know I would have loved something like this as a kid! We were in a standard room this time around, which was fine by me - Lincoln would probably have fallen out of the bunk bed or something.


Our room held two queen beds, a standard bathroom, and a microwave and mini fridge! Lincoln was extremely excited by the number of pillows and tossed them off the bed immediately, so I have no nice photos of the room before the toddler tsunami hit!



Having access to a fridge was so nice - and is definitely a plus for traveling families who need to keep things cold for their kids. I didn't realize we would have a fridge, or I would have planned to bring some snacks from home since the kids tend to turn to extremely picky eaters while vacationing.


It was a great place to just make ourselves at home during our time in Branson. We were busy with so many fun activities that we didn't spend much time in the room unless we were sleeping, but the kids happily climbed on the beds and threw toys in every corner of the room - just like home!


Tip for cloth diapering moms: did you know you can dry diapers on hotel hangers? This load of laundry was clean, but I didn't have time to dry them before we left home, so I brought them along and hung them up once we arrived.


The kids were so incredibly worn out from all of our adventures that they spent most of our time in the hotel room totally zonked. Free WIFI was included with our room, so I was able to work a little bit after the kids went to sleep each night.


Definitely one of the most appealing elements of the Grand Country Resort is the indoor and outdoor water park, Splash Country. Our itinerary was so packed that we only made it to the pool once and water park once, but Lincoln and Addie both loved every minute of it.

Indoors, you can find a three-level Treehouse play area with sprayers and a 1,000 gallon tipping bucket, slides, and more. There's a Basketball Pool, Toddler Splash Area, 250-foot Lazy River, and hot tubs with temperatures safe for kids or adults depending on which one you choose. We never even made it inside to play, though we did take a peek. I know we'll visit again because it looked like our kids would tear it up in there in a few years!


When we did visit the water park, we stopped by the Outdoor section, where Lincoln played joyously (in spite of what I thought was frigid water) in the cave and on the water slides. Addie got a kick out of the jumping water fountains and giant frog slide. They had just as much fun here as they did at White Water, to be honest!

Top 6 Tips for Staying at Grand Country Resort with Toddlers.

1. There are Laundry Facilities in the Indoor Pool Building. If you need to wash clothes while you're visiting Branson to save on luggage space, you'll be able to do so here! Bring quarters if you're planning to do laundry! I didn't realize this was an amenity or I might not have dragged along so many extra cloth diapers!

2. Don't Miss the Frog Slide. It's so cute. Look at the photo below. Seriously. So, so cute.

3. Kids 3 and Under Eat FREE at the Grand Country Buffet and Papa Grand's Pizza. I absolutely love that most places in Branson keep families in mind with their generous age 3- or 4-and under freebies.

4. There's a toddler-appropriate "Ballocity" play area in the Fun Spot. We never even saw it, but I know the kids would have loved it!

5. Bring a Mini DVD Player or iPad. The cable TV had Disney channel, but not Disney Jr. There were a few times we needed to distract the kids so that we could get ready for our next activity - but after mid-morning, we had to search for something our kids would watch on TV.

6. Elevators = Free Entertainment. I think Lincoln would have gone for elevator rides just to keep him busy for hours.


We had a fantastic experience staying at the Grand Country Resort, and it's at the top of my list for our family's accommodations the next time we plan a trip to Branson. Lincoln has asked to go to the water park every day since our vacation ended!

Disclosure: In exchange for my post and to facilitate my honest review of this experience, my family received accommodations as part of a promotional blogger tour of Branson, MO through US Family Guide. No other compensation was received and all opinions expressed are my own.For more info, you can view my Disclosure Policy.

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