Renting a home or a lake house on Cedar Creek Lake is a great way to spend a weekend away, together with family without a super far drive.
At only 1-1.5 hours from the Dallas/Plano area, it’s an easy drive for a long weekend. You can take a few routes, via US-75, I-635 or US-80 to the I-175. The drive was a piece of cake.
As anyone with small children knows: the shorter the drive, the better!
We are so lucky to have some great lakes close by, and Cedar Creek is just one. It’s a large lake with a number of great communities circling the coastline, with some great mom-and-pop eatery businesses for you to enjoy. Gun Barrel City is probably the largest and has the area’s local Walmart.
Cedar Creek Lake is like a hidden gem; we didn’t know much about it at all until our trip, and now we can’t wait to go back!
Cedar Creek Lake has a handful of surrounding towns: Mabank, Gun Barrel City, Seven Points, and Malakoff (just to name a few!) with little restaurants and cute shops.
Each is around a 15-20 minute drive from the lake house, making it super easy to find somewhere to eat out or visit for a change of scenery.
This post is sponsored by Triple H Retreat, but all our opinions are our own.
This post may contain Affiliate Links. Our Full Disclosure is available.
This post is written by Gwendolyn Williams, who was hosted and stayed at the Triple H Retreat with her family.
Places to Eat & Things to do around Cedar Creek Lake
These are all places that we loved and tried and were recommended by the owners of Triple H Retreat:
Places to eat in Mabank
Places to eat or check out in Gun Barrel City
Jalopy Joes Candy Shop
Mistletoe Mania Christmas Shop
Places to eat and things to do in Malakoff
Little Hector’s Mexican Restaurant
Malakoff Junktion Antique Mall
Jake’s Skate Park
Places to eat and things to do in Seven Points
Whatz-Up (go-karts, laser tag, rock wall, mini golf, arcade)
Our Favorite Day trip ideas from Cedar Creek Lake
Head to Athens, made famous for being the headquarters campus of Trinity Valley Community College (featured in Netflix’s Cheer) and is known as the Black-Eyed Pea Capitol of the World for some great Wine Tasting options at local wineries.
If you time your trip well, you should also stay for the Canton First Monday Trade Day to pick up tons of Texan home decor items and a wide array of great handmade and market items. This is a perfect fit to complement a Girls Trip!
And most importantly, you need to take a Boat Tour on the Lake! Reach out to George Spann Boat Cruises (817-455-6082) to book yours.
Rent a House on Cedar Creek Lake
If you’re like me, you’ll hit a point where you just need to get away. You want some time to reconnect with your family and be somewhere new (and beautiful!) – but not have it be a huge ordeal to get there.
Not to mention that you need this place to be well suited for families so it’s not a huge ordeal once you’re there. If any of thing is ringing true for you, you’ve got to check out Triple H Retreat on Cedar Creek Lake in Mabank, Texas!
Our family got the opportunity to spend a few days at this beautiful house and we had a blast!
We have 4 kiddos, ages 6 and under, so finding a vacation rental that works for us can be challenging! Triple H Retreat checked all our boxes – and it had a gorgeous lake view to boot.
The house itself is absolutely darling, and the owners, Jen and Dan, have thought of every detail to make the home incredibly comfortable for a family to visit and spend time together.
The Cedar Creek lake house has 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, and sleeps 11. It’s pet-friendly, too.
The kitchen is well-equipped with everything we needed to cook meals for our crew. And the coffee bar was my first stop each morning.
The living room is a great central place to gather to play games or watch movies. And this mama loved the little lending library of books
Our kiddos fell in love with the big bunkroom, and squealed with delight when they discovered the separate garage game room with a foosball table and an air hockey table.
The game room also has a fun bar, and the parents loved that the game room was a separate place for the kids to play inside the house.
The house also has a boat dock (if you wanted to bring your boat), and kayaks for use (we had to skip those this time around with so many small kiddos but I could totally see using them in the future).
The absolute highlight of the lake house is that it sits on a corner lot, so the back patio has the most amazing views of the lake in every direction.
We spent the majority of our time here, and it was the perfect spot for the kids to play while mom and dad got to see and enjoy the view. From sunrise to sunset it was absolutely gorgeous!
Halfway through our trip, we added in a few more kids: our two nephews and niece (what’s a few more kids, right!?).
The dock was the perfect place for the big kids to jump into the lake to swim, and the little kiddos loved a sloping sandy entrance to the water on the side of the house. We brought life jackets with us, but the house does provide a few!
We explored the little neighborhood one morning and even met a few friendly neighbors!
One evening we drove to Cedar Creek Brewery in Seven Points for dinner.
The brewery has a yummy menu, but we happened to be there on a night when they had food trucks so we got to try food by The Dream Kitchen – so good!
The brewery has so many fun things for kids outside – games and even a sand playground.
We got to meet Cedar Creek Brewery’s owner, Jim Elliott, as well as the head brewer (Hatch) and his wife who manages the Brewery (Amber). They were all so kind and friendly.
Triple H Retreat’s owner Jen provided us with a long list of restaurants and shops to try and there were so many we wish we could have visited!
Two high up on our list for our next visit: Vernons Lakeside & LouLou’s at Cedar Creek Lake (both weren’t open on the days we visited sadly!).
After dinner, we headed back to the house to put the fire pit to use – smores night!
We sat on the lawn, looked out at the gorgeous lake view, ate our sweet treats, and laughed and talked until bedtime!
What fun memories we made on our trip.
Sometimes a weekend getaway is just what you need to reconnect with your family – to put aside all the “to-dos” daily busyness and just spend time together, have fun, and enjoy each other’s company.
Here are other Places to Stay around Cedar Creek Lake
We had an absolute blast at Triple H Retreat at Cedar Creek Lake and can’t wait for our next visit!