Magical Monday {Disney’s Blizzard Beach + Typhoon Lagoon}

We kicked off our summer with a little land and sea Disney week!  We headed down on a Friday afternoon, stayed at Disney’s Boardwalk Inn & Villas, hit up both water parks in one day, enjoyed a resort day and then met up with the rest of the family for a Disney Dream Cruise!!

Our annual passes expired last October and we won’t do them again until late this fall.  So, we opted for a one day water park ticket instead, which gives you admission to BOTH Blizzard Beach and Typhoon Lagoon in the same day.  These will run you significantly less than a one day peak theme park ticket but are just as much fun!

We let the littles choose how to spend the day and, after looking at pictures on the blog from our water park days back in 2014, they decided they love Blizzard Beach more … except for “the awesome wave pool” at Typhoon Lagoon.  So, we headed to Blizzard Beach to start the day.

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What was once a ski resort has now melted into the watery wonderland of Blizzard Beach. Christmas music plays all day, hot chocolate is a plenty, a ski lift carries you to the top of the biggest slides and pretty much everything is snow capped.  It’s Disney at its best.

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The water parks are open from 10AM – 5PM and I recommend arriving around 9:30AM.  You will have time to park, get through the gate, take some cute pics, later up with sunscreen and be ready to hit the slides running.

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First things first, you will want to head for the ski lift!  You can access three slides from the lift and there were no lines at 10AM.  If a line builds up for the lift, you can certainly take the stairs as well!

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There is a great mix of body slides, float slides and family raft slides.  It would be hard to not have a whole lot of fun!

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There were photo pass photographers scattered about the park this time!  We managed to snag a couple family pics.

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After a few hours of solid sliding, we parked it at the Ski Patrol Training Camp for another couple of hours!  This is a fantastic area for kids in the age ranges of mine (7 and 10).  Honey and I carried over a few chairs to a shady spot and they wore themselves out on the iceburg – ropes course thing and zip line.

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We were beyond starving by the time we stopped to eat, but I really wanted to try The Warming Hut the last time we came and it wasn’t open. So, by way of the lazy river, we made our way clear to the other side of the park.  The salad and rice bowls were GOOOD.  Was it that we were starving? Perhaps.  But I’d def eat this again.

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After lunch we did a few turns on the lazy river.  Of course, the littles were anything but lazy…

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We couldn’t hardly leave without the sand pail of ice cream!  This is a dessert we’ve talked about for two years, for crying out loud.  It was just as good as we remembered.  Soft serve loaded with toppings and fudge and whipped cream and Mickey sprinkles with a cherry on top.  Yes, please!

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At around 3PM we hoofed it back to the car and made the drive over to Typhoon Lagoon for the sole purpose of spending the rest of our day in their absolutely insane wave pool.

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Disney legend purports a tycoon wreaking havoc upon the formerly pristine tropical paradise that is now known as Typhoon Lagoon.  Boats, fishing gear and beach wear is strewn about and left in the sometimes odd places where the storm flung them.  From the “Miss Tilly” shrimp boat precariously perched atop Mount Mayday to the bells of watch sound, the park is done up in the magical way that only Disney can do.

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(This is an old pic but I wanted to you to see how CRAZY this wave pool is!)

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Here are a few tips and tricks for navigating Disney’s water parks:

  • At Blizzard Beach, start with the slides from the chairlift before that line gets too crazy. If your kids are bigger , there is a single rider line that moves very quickly.
  • Bring your own towels or plan to rent for $2 each. We brought towels from our resort pool and just dropped them on lounge chairs under an umbrella by the wave pool as soon as we got there.  We left our wallets and phones secured in the car and only brought in towels and a bag with sunscreen.
  • The sidewalks were almost all constantly sprayed with little sprinklers to keep them cool. This was such a nice touch as I have had my feet scorched many times at water parks and pools.  We saw no need for water shoes.
  • Thanks to the MagicBands, no money or key to the world cards had to be kept up with. It was perfect!! They can go in the water so that wasn’t an issue at all. This saved us from having to rent a locker too, which was nice.
  • At Blizzard Beach, Try the mini donuts and hot chocolate. SO fun and silly to do while in swim suits :-)  At either water park try the sand pail ice cream sundae!!!
  • Water parks are only open from 10-5 in the off season so get there early and know you’ll end your day pretty early too. We found the park to be nearly empty for most of the morning but it started to fill up after lunch. We were able to do all of the slides, many multiple times, from 10-12. And then the rest of our day was spent in the wave pool, lazy river and kid area where there really aren’t lines.
  • If possible, drive yourself to the water parks.  (This coming from the family that exclusively uses Disney transportation to the theme parks.)  Parking is easy if you arrive early.  Of course, when we drove over to Typhoon Lagoon at 3PM we also were able to park near the very front.
  • If you are buying a multi day park ticket, be aware of how to maximize your time… For example:  On an eight night stay a few years ago we did a three day ticket + water parks and more. This gave us entry into three theme parks (we chose Magic Kingdom, Animal Kingdom and Hollywood Studios) plus admission to three other smaller parks (we chose Blizzard Beach, Typhoon Lagoon and a combo of Disney Quest and Winter Summerland Mini Golf). It’s a great way to get more bang for your buck and still have SIX days of fun!!
  • A one day water park ticket allows you to hop between BOTH water parks!  It’s a relatively short day, but if you are driving yourself it’s easy to do.
  • We didn’t purchase our one day ticket until the morning of.  There’s no need to buy in advance and we wanted to be sure of nice weather.  I headed down a few minutes before the boys and bought from the resort concierge.  We skipped the line at the water park ticket booth and it all worked out perfectly.

Have a magical day, y’all!
xoxo

As an independent consultant with Glass Slipper Concierge, an Authorized Disney Vacation Planner, I offer concierge travel planning for Walt Disney World® Resort, Disney Cruise LineDisneyland® Resort, Adventures by Disney®, Aulani and other delightful destinations.
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14 thoughts on “Magical Monday {Disney’s Blizzard Beach + Typhoon Lagoon}

  1. The theming at these two water parks is incredible! What a super fun way to spend the day!

  2. You spent time at my favorite place at WDW, Typhoon Lagoon. I keep an annual pass to the Disney waterparks since it is a short drive for me. I pretend they are my local swimming pools! Have you been on a Disney cruise before? How did you like it? I LOVE Disney cruises, in fact for the first time in 36 years of marriage my husband and I are going to take 14 days of vacation – 2 weeks back to back on the Disney Fantasy!! August can’t get here soon enough!

    1. We LOVE the cruise!! We actually went earlier this month. We went down to WDW the weekend before (Disney Dream mon-friday) and did the waterpark!

  3. Looks like so much fun! Were all of your pics taken by the Disney paparazzi? You always do such a great job of documenting your experiences. I would love to read a post on how to document your travels with littles!

    1. Most were taken by me – we have an under water camera. But, the few of the 4 of us and the ones of the boys on the zip line were taken by the paparazzi :-)

  4. What ages do you recommend for the Disney water parks? My kids are 11,13, 16 and 18 Are they too old for what’s offered there? Also, what type of camera do you use ? Your photos are always so great! And did you use a locker to store it when not using?

    1. GREAT ages for the water parks!!!! In fact, I would feel comfortable doing a few slides with them in the morning and then parking in a shady spot and letting them roam. Lots of fun to be had! I have an old Fujifilm Fine Pix underwater camera from Costco. We’ve used it a ton!! I used the wrist strap and just took it with me. Honey also put it in the pocket of his swim suit a few times. They will allow it on all of the slides. I have not used a locker though – we leave wallets and phones in the car (with magic bands on) and just come in with towels and sunscreen.

  5. Thank you for sharing your Disney experience! My husband and I will be traveling to Disney in September, along with our 1 year old. Would a day at one of the water parks be a good idea in your opinion? It’s been years since I’ve been and I can’t remember if they have toddler friendly areas.
    Thanks Dixiedelights!

    1. Hi Erin – I’d skip the waterpark at age 1 :-) Give it a few years. You would have just as nice at time at your resort pool! Amanda

      1. Hi Amanda,
        Just wanted to write back to let you know we had an amazing time at Wilderness Lodge and went with your suggestion of spending a day exploring the resort pool instead of a water park. Excellent suggestion! Our little guy was tuckered out after 2 hrs. :) I look forward to reading more of your Disney posts and can’t wait for our next trip out there! Thanks again!

  6. I love all of your Disney posts! We are Disney kindred spirits! My family loves going to the Disney water parks! We recently returned from a wonderful trip as well. This time we chose a day to go to Blizzard Beach. I love the lazy river (although I prefer Typhoon Lagoon’s lazy river more because it makes you feel like you are on the Jungle Cruise without the animatronics and boat;)). The ski lift wasn’t running the day we were there so we had to take the stairs. Not such a big deal until you remember how much you love Team Boat Springs! We rode that thing 4 or 5 times. We would have done it more but the stairs wore us out! I must tell you what happened in the lazy river. We came across a SNAKE! Lord knows I hate a snake and while it was just a harmless black snake I couldn’t get out of that river fast enough!!!!!!!! Keep the wonderful Disney posts coming! We are looking into a trip to Disneyland for next summer so I’m loving all the DLR information from you as well. We are thinking about taking a train (we live in Aiken, SC) because we have a child who is anxious about flying! We shall see.

  7. Hi Amanda. I’m a Disney travel agent with Magical Vacations Travel and wanted to reach out to you as I see you frequently visit Disney! We offer great deals that can’t be beat {seriously} and included in our agency exclusive deals is a complimentary bonus ticket to one of the water parks! And as always our services are free of charge! Feel free to email me if you would like a free quote. [email protected]

  8. You have way too many cool pictures to look at LOL! The pictures are so interesting they detract from reading the text! One picture I like is the picture of the boy on top of the water slide. I downloaded the hi res shot, rotated it vertically and opened it life size on my 34″ monitor and OMG! It looked like I was standing right behind the boy and the view down the slide was just remarkable. Very cool!

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