When the weather is hot there is nothing more appealing than a day in a water park, and of the two Disney water parks , we have found the best for families to be Blizzard Beach as it does seem to have more that children can enjoy and is a little less crowded than Typhoon Lagoon.
On first arriving at the park we found it a good idea to rent a large locker to store your clothes and shoes and it is usually easier and relatively inexpensive to hire towels than to take your own.
It is also worth considering buying a special mug which can be filled up without limit throughout the day, this usually works out cheaper than buying individual drinks plus you can bring the mug with you if you come again and just buy a barcode to stick on to get drinks all day again (and you can take it to Typhoon Lagoon). If you have them then it is worth wearing beach shoes which you keep on all day to make it more comfortable walking.
As with most parks, the earlier you arrive the more you get to do before the queues build up and it is nice to have an easy start by riding up to the top of Mount Gushmore on the chairlift which gives you a good view of the park (and tends to get very busy as the day goes on).
A good ride to start on is the Teamboat Springs where you ride down in a large raft which carries up to 6 people, this is the longest ride of the two Disney water parks without being too rough and really is a lot of fun. Due to large raft size this seems to be the ride which takes longest for big queues to build up so is worth a few more goes when the queues for the other rides are starting to get too long.
Also starting from Mount Gushmore are the major two rides Summit Plummet and Slush Gusher. On Summit Plummet you slide down from 120 feet up starting with an almost vertical drop and reaching up to 55mph. Slush Gusher is a little lower at 90 feet but no less scary, it also makes up for it’s loss of height by putting you over two humps on the way down.
If you fancy a race then two good rides are Snow Stormers and Toboggan racers where you lie on you stomach on a mat and race to the end, unfortunately the drawback of these rides is that smaller children tend to be a lot slower – probably because they are much lighter – so they often come last.
Another race is on Downhill Double Dipper which is a one on one race on an inflatable ring, this seems a lot quicker and is very exhilarating.
When you want a more relaxing time then you can enjoy floating around Cross Country Creek which is a lazy river where you have a giant inflatable ring. Also you can enjoy the gentle waves in Melt away bay where you can also bob around on an inflatable.
Kids will enjoy Ski Patrol Training camp where there is much smaller slide with little in the way of queues, there is also a fun floating ice-berg walk – this area is aimed at pre-teens and also has a small cove for swimming around.
For smaller kids (under 4 foot) there is another special area called Tike’s Peak which is a mini Mount Gushmore.
Without doubt Blizzard Beach is well worth a visit.
On first arriving at the park we found it a good idea to rent a large locker to store your clothes and shoes and it is usually easier and relatively inexpensive to hire towels than to take your own.
It is also worth considering buying a special mug which can be filled up without limit throughout the day, this usually works out cheaper than buying individual drinks plus you can bring the mug with you if you come again and just buy a barcode to stick on to get drinks all day again (and you can take it to Typhoon Lagoon). If you have them then it is worth wearing beach shoes which you keep on all day to make it more comfortable walking.
As with most parks, the earlier you arrive the more you get to do before the queues build up and it is nice to have an easy start by riding up to the top of Mount Gushmore on the chairlift which gives you a good view of the park (and tends to get very busy as the day goes on).
A good ride to start on is the Teamboat Springs where you ride down in a large raft which carries up to 6 people, this is the longest ride of the two Disney water parks without being too rough and really is a lot of fun. Due to large raft size this seems to be the ride which takes longest for big queues to build up so is worth a few more goes when the queues for the other rides are starting to get too long.
Also starting from Mount Gushmore are the major two rides Summit Plummet and Slush Gusher. On Summit Plummet you slide down from 120 feet up starting with an almost vertical drop and reaching up to 55mph. Slush Gusher is a little lower at 90 feet but no less scary, it also makes up for it’s loss of height by putting you over two humps on the way down.
If you fancy a race then two good rides are Snow Stormers and Toboggan racers where you lie on you stomach on a mat and race to the end, unfortunately the drawback of these rides is that smaller children tend to be a lot slower – probably because they are much lighter – so they often come last.
Another race is on Downhill Double Dipper which is a one on one race on an inflatable ring, this seems a lot quicker and is very exhilarating.
When you want a more relaxing time then you can enjoy floating around Cross Country Creek which is a lazy river where you have a giant inflatable ring. Also you can enjoy the gentle waves in Melt away bay where you can also bob around on an inflatable.
Kids will enjoy Ski Patrol Training camp where there is much smaller slide with little in the way of queues, there is also a fun floating ice-berg walk – this area is aimed at pre-teens and also has a small cove for swimming around.
For smaller kids (under 4 foot) there is another special area called Tike’s Peak which is a mini Mount Gushmore.
Without doubt Blizzard Beach is well worth a visit.