Oglebay Resort, Wheeling, West Virginia
Written: Oct 11 '01
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Lots to do for people of all ages
Cons: Two breakfast coupons and wristbands per room, no matter how many stay in the room
The Bottom Line: Oglebay Resort would be a great place for a long weekend getaway for just about any group of people.
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| jenninca's Full Review: West Virginia |
This past summer, Ihad the opportunity to spend a few days at the Oglebay Resort in Wheeling, West Virginia with nine of my relatives. It was a unique experience as their ages spanned the whole spectrum, from my grandmother in her 70s to my four-year-old cousin. I got the chance to see how the resort appealed to senion citizens (my grandma), adults with grown children (my parents), adults with younger children (my aunt, my uncle, and my aunt’s brother), twentysomethings (me), pre-teens (my thirteen-year-old cousin), elementary-aged kids (my nine-year-old cousin), and preschoolers (my four-year-old cousin). Oglebay managed to keep all of us busy and happy for three days.
Accomodations
Overnight visitors to Oglebay can stay in the main lodge or in cabins. The cabins are designed for large groups, though our large group didn’t stay in one. There’s about 40 cabins. We stayed in four of the lodge’s rooms. Three of them were basically standard hotel rooms: two double beds, TV, desk, regular bathroom, etc. The fourth room was larger, with one queen-sized bed, a pull-out couch and larger TV, and a little more room for the kids to play.
The lodge is pretty picky about security. I arrived a day later than everyone else and didn’t know where they were staying. Even though my name was on the reservation, they wouldn’t give me the room number. I had to call my parents and they had to come get me. They even dialed the phone for me! It’s a good thing they were in the room, or I would have been in for a long afternoon of hanging around in the lobby.
Food
There are several restaurants on the Oglebay property. We ate at two of them—the Ihlenfeld Dining Room and the Glass Works Grill. Each night you stay gets you two complimentary passes for the breakfast buffet, so we ate at the buffet in the Ihlenfeld Dining Room each morning. I suggest the made-to-order omelets.
The Glass Works Grill features basic foods such as hamburgers and sandwiches as well as appetizer-type food like potato skins, mozzarella sticks, and quesadillas. Prices were reasonable (nothing over $10) and the food was tasty.
Snack bars are located throughout the property, serving foods like popcorn and chips at the zoo and fudge and ice cream at Carriage House Glass.
Entertainment Aimed at Adults
There are plenty of things for adults to do around the Oglebay property. For the golfer, there are three courses, including one designed by Arnold Palmer. There’s also a driving range and a Par III course, whatever that is. The males in our group spent a morning here.
You can also tour the mansion of the guy (I assume his name was Oglebay) who donated his estate for Oglebay Park. I didn’t tour the mansion, but all of the adults who did found it to be really interesting, though I don’t think my cousins had the same reaction.
The Oglebay property has several shops, in which my mother, grandmother, and I poked around for quite a while. We particularly enjoyed the Carriage House Glass shop (anything you could possibly want made of glass, in just about any color you could want), the Christmas store (an entire store dedicated to Christmas, where my four-year-old cousin apparently fell in love with a nutcracker statue just her height), and a shop whose name I couldn’t figure out, which sells things such as fake flowers, candles, and knick-knacks, and can only be classified as “girly.”
Found in the downstairs part of Carriage House Glass was a glass museum. It shows many pieces of glass from famous glass makers and traces Wheeling’s place in the glass industry. I didn’t find the museum particularly interesting, although my mother did.
Entertainment Aimed at Children
Oglebay is home to the Good Zoo, Good being the name of the zoo and not an arbitrarily-placed adjective. The zoo is pretty small. My parents and I took my three cousins and saw all there was to see in about an hour and a half. I think everyone’s favorite area was the interactive amphibian/reptile room. My 13-year-old and nine-year-old cousins went around snapping pictures of everything, the 13-year-old and I paged through some of the animal books on a well-loaded bookshelf, the four-year-old was enchanted by the animal puzzles and puppets, and my dad and the nine-year-old searched out all the different types of snakes in the snake hallway. My mother and I were fascinated by the dart frogs—they were so tiny and so colorful!
Other animals we enjoyed seeing were farm animals in a petting zoo, white tigers (there for a limited time only), bison, meerkats, and otters. There were only about half a dozen other types of animals to see—it’s a small zoo.
The zoo is also home to a model railroad, which absolutely fascinated my four-year-old, train-obsessed cousin. Different areas included a mining area, a carnival, mountains, a river, and a residential area. All were content to spend a good chunk of time here.
My cousins visited the Schrader Environmental Education Center, which they said was so-so. They came back sporting badges they earned by answering “quiz” questions correctly as they toured the center.
I saw two pools while there. One was a very sizable one away from the lodge; the other was a standard hotel-type pool within the lodge. My cousins enjoyed the indoor pool (even the four-year-old, who splashed happily in the one foot kiddie section), though it had so much chlorine that my eyes hurt just by walking by!
The zoo and the area just downhill from the lodge had playgrounds.
Entertainment For the Whole Family
The area just downhill from the lodge was home to miniature golf (a very basic course) and pedal boats. The lake where you do the pedal boats is also home to the “Cascading Water” show, which combined colored lights and the changing sprays of a fountain. We saw three shows with different themes—motown, country, and patriotic songs.
Tennis and horseback riding are available. We didn’t try tennis, but my 13-year-old cousin did sign up to go on a horseback riding trail. If you’re interested in doing this, you should sign up upon arrival. They didn’t, and the only spot they could get was after they had checked out.
Getting Around
The Oglebay property actually covers several miles. To help visitors get from place to place, there is a trolley that runs to each destination once an hour. It is possible to take a long walk to most of the places, but it was sure nice to have the trolley available.
Wristbands
Most of the activities have some sort of admission charge, most of which range from one to five dollars. However, guests at the lodge receive two wristbands per room, per day. The wristbands allow you to do almost anything on the property free of charge. If you’re staying in the lodge and need another wristband (such as if there are more than two people in a room), the charge is $8.00. Visitors to the property who aren’t staying overnight can purchase wristbands for $12.00. It is very easy to get more than your money’s worth with the bands, and it saves having to carry around a lot of cash.
Christmas at Oglebay
Oglebay is somewhat famous in the surrounding area for its displays of Christmas lights. Having visited in July, I can’t comment on them, though I’ve heard they’re so popular that cars get backed up nearly to the highway (several miles away) waiting to get in.
Overall
There was enough for my multi-generational family to do at Oglebay to keep us occupied for three days. If we had stayed too much longer, I think we may have started to get bored, so the length of our trip was just right. It would be a great place for a long weekend getaway from just about any group of people.
Recommended:
Yes
Best Suited For: Families
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jenninca
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Member: Cindy
Location: Dallas, TX
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