Honey Creek Resort at Rathbun Lake

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We heard about Honey Creek Resort from friends in Iowa who touted it as one of the best weekend destinations for families with kids. It's located on Rathbun Lake, and so there are a lot of outdoorsy activities to keep people occupied during the warmer months (fishing, boating, swimming, hiking, etc).

In the winter, they offer amazing deals to attract people during the off-season. They have a small water park in the hotel, so you can sang a cheap getaway for a long weekend and let the kids go wild at the water park. That's actually why we went. We thought we'd get a weekend with the kids at a water park, which sounded fun enough. In actuality, we lucked out. Spring arrived this week, and temperatures jumped from the teens and 20s to the 50s and 60s just in time for our trip! The resort offered hikes for families, crafts, and even story time around a campfire. We enjoyed it all!

I also discovered what all they offer to guests to help entertain when the weather isn't so ideal. Inside, they have ping-pong and foosball. They have board games, cards, and even a Nintendo Wii set up (Oliver loved playing Super Smash brothers with other kids in the hotel). Also, they have sleds for the winter months and, apparently, also offer snowman building contests on occasion.

On the west side of the resort lodge, the rooms on the main floor have doors that also open up to the outside. So, you can walk in from the lobby or walk in from the parking lot. The bottom floor has rooms that open up to the east side and over look the lake. So, you can step out of your room, sit at your patio table, and enjoy the sunrise in the morning. There are trails right there, so you can easily go for a morning walk or run. There were a lot of people smoking outside on their patios, which didn't bother me but might bother some other guests.

The kids' favorite part of our stay was definitely the water park. When you enter from the bottom level, there is a walk-in pool for little kids to the right. There are ride-on floating toys, a raining umbrella, and a pirate ship with two small-ish slides that even toddlers enjoyed. To the left, there's a lazy river that was never more than 3 feet deep. Our six year old could go around the lazy river himself, with us just keeping an eye on him. In the back is a large water slide like you'd expect to see at a water park. Neither of our kids even wanted to try going down it, which was OK with me! They're not strong enough swimmers yet. In the back right area, there's an enormous hot tub that usually housed about 20 adults at a time. We didn't go back there at all, but it looked nice from a distance. In front of that was another pool that was busy with bigger kids. It was still just about 3 feet deep, and it had a basketball hoop that was always busy with players, plus an obstacle-type course. So, really, none of the pools were deep enough for jumping or diving, but it's perfect for people with kids about 10 and under.

Upstairs from the water park is a concession stand. As part of our weekend deal, we not only got water park passes but also some vouchers for the concession stand. They have mostly kid-friendly food, like hot dogs, nachos, and pizza. For the most part, it was reasonably priced ($15 for a whole pizza, $2.50 for hot dogs). We didn't have as much luck with the grill and room service. Unfortunately, there's no continental breakfast offered at the resort. We ordered to our room in the morning. They must have lost or forgotten our order, but when I sheepishly called about 20 minutes after delivery time, they apologized and got our food delivered in about 15 minutes. It wasn't very good. Either the pancake mix had gone bad, or they used too much vinegar creating buttermilk. The kids wouldn't eat any pancakes, and they wouldn't try the bagels because they had blueberries in them. They ended up just snacking a little on some fruit and complained they were hungry afterwards. We had a better dinner experience, as they had good black bean burgers (we got hot dogs for the kids from the concession stand).

At the nature center, we found out that the resort and grounds are maintained by the state, but it's a private company out of Minnesota that runs the hotel. That might explain the contrast between the amazing location, activities, and facilities versus the service and food. The second morning, Andrew woke up early and drove 20 minutes to the nearest fast-food place to pick up breakfast and drove it back to us. What a guy! If we ever go back, which we'd like to, I'd probably bring a cooler with milk and some cereal to avoid their breakfast since it was both expensive and not very good.



(More photos below of the lodge & activities)

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Photos

Entrance to the Lodge at Honey Creek
Honey Creek State Park in Iowa

Lobby at Honey Creek Resort
Perfect for rainy or snowy days, the lodge has ping-pong, foosball, a Nintendo Wii, board games, and cards.

Buccaneer Bay at Honey Creek Resort
There's a small water park in Honey Creek Resort. The kids had so much fun there.

Nintendo Wii in the Lodge
Oliver had fun playing Smash Brothers and Mario Kart against the other kids. Andrew showed him some tricks to use! Jo cheered them on enthusiastically.

Patios attached to the rooms
The lower level lodge rooms have doors to the back with patio tables. The sidewalks there lead down to the lake.

Sand Art Time!
Honey Creek offers free activities for the kids. We signed up for a few, including sand art at the activities building.

Listening to "The Lorax"
This was another free activity offered by Honey Creek. The kids ate smores and listened to a story.