Posted in Florida 2016

27th December (Day 10)-Blizzard Beach

Rosemary’s favourite thing today, a visit to a waterpark!

Seems strange to be going to an outdoor water park just a couple of days after Christmas! But it was a beautiful day with bright blue skies, so it seemed like a really good idea and out first water park of our trip.

Blizzard Beach
Blizzard Beach

We whizzed into the park really quick with our Magicbands.

Blizzard Beach
Blizzard Beach

We got changed and went to find a locker for our stuff.  The system for lockers had changed since our last visit and it is now done on a touchscreen.  Bit confusing and took us a couple of goes to get it right but got sorted in the end.  So grabbed the GoPro and we headed for to the beach area.  Blizzard Beach allows inflatable rings into the main beach, Melt Away Bay, and there is a wave machine running quite a bit of the time.

Melt Away Bay
Melt Away Bay
Melt Away Bay
Melt Away Bay

After bobbing around for a bit on the rafts Rosemary decided to grab a life jacket and do some swimming about.  We headed into the deeper area closer to the cliffs so we could really get hit by the wave machine.

Melt Away Bay
Melt Away Bay

After a good while swimming about we went exploring around the park and spent a little time in Tikes Peak, where there are some kid friendly stuff and Rosemary tested out some of the rides.

Tikes Peak
Tikes Peak

The ring ride was quite popular with her and she had a good few goes on that, but the waterslide was a complete failure and apparently the slowest, most boring slide she’d ever been on.  She had to shuffle off the end of it just to make it all the way down….

Tikes Peak
Tikes Peak

There was also some cargo nets which you use to cross over some “ice bergs” which was quite challenging.

Tikes Peak
Tikes Peak

The lazy river at Blizzard Beach is called the Cross Country Creek and we spent some time in that as well.  As the theme of the park is that it snowed in Florida and melted quickly there are water falls round the river, which are really cold.  Rosemary did find a way of avoiding them though.

Cross Country Creek
Cross Country Creek

We had a very chilled (no pun intended) day although unfortunately towards the end of the day we had got changed and were just getting some drinks and doughnuts when I checked my phone only to see that Carrie Fisher had died.  Rosemary was very upset by this as she had dressed as Princess Leia at a recent Star Wars show.  Took the shine off our day a bit.

Princess Leia
Princess Leia

We had dinner at Perkin’s Diner that night and treated ourselves to deserts.

Dinner
Dinner

 

 

 

Posted in Florida 2015

5th August 2015 (Day 13)-Blizzard Beach

blizzard-beach-logoOff to Blizzard Beach today, which we’ve never been to before so not sure quite what to expect.  Time to unpack the GoPro and get it into the waterproof housing!

On arrival we found out where you get changed and headed into the main pool, which is called Melt-Away Bay.  There are rubber rings in this area which you can grab and then ride the waves.  These are way more gentle than the tidal waves you get at Typhoon Lagoon but very fun when you’re in the rings.

Blizzard Beach
Blizzard Beach

Rosemary used the gentle waves for a good bit of swimming practice and had loads of fun swimming around.  She had a life jacket on the whole time so was enjoying the freedom to swim but in complete safety.

Swimming
Swimming

After spending quite a while in the pool we had a little go round the lazy river, which is called Cross Country Creek.

Cross Country Creek
Cross Country Creek

But we didn’t stay in long as we headed out to get something to eat as we came round to the main area.  We had something in Lottawatta Lodge.  One thing we did was to reactivate the mug we got at Typhoon Lagoon so we could use the filling stations around the park.  Once again though there was very little in the way of still drinks (Rosemary doesn’t like fizzy drinks) and the only option was Powerade.

After lunch and a bit of a play in the kids area we went back into Cross Country Creek for a few more trips around the park.

Tikes Peak
Tikes Peak
Tikes Peak
Tikes Peak
Ice Gator
Ice Gator

We didn’t go on any of the rides, the queues were just too long and we didn’t want to waste time waiting around when we could be in the water.

And finally for the day we had a little extra time back in the wave pool.

Melt Away Bay
Melt Away Bay

After this we got changed and took some photos around the park.

Blizzard Beach
Blizzard Beach

Finally, Rosemary had an ice lolly, which melted so fast because of the heat that she couldn’t keep up.

Lolly Time
Lolly Time

Wasn’t surprising as the car was roasting when we got back to it.

100oF
100oF

There is a video I put together from the day which is on YouTube:

Great day out at a park we’d not been to before, which was great as well.  Not sure which I prefer between Blizzard Beach and Typhoon Lagoon, as each have their own merits.  For us the wave pool at Blizzard Beach was probably better for Rosemary but I think the lazy river and the rides available at Typhoon Lagoon had the edge.  So, easy really….just do both!