What can a toddler do at Blizzard Beach without a life jacket?

[DisneyRegulars]

Hi! Just wanted to post part of my trip report here about our day at blizzard beach, the rest of the report is over in the DVC trip report section. Turns out there is a lot to do without a life jacket, just not for us. here was our day:

So we got ourselves up and out the door to Blizzard Beach with 15 minutes until park opening. I brought a backpack in with us. The backpack contained sunblock for us, sunblock for Tigger, peanut butter, ritz crackers, and changes of clothes for Tigger. I planned on renting a locker. I didn't plan on having to pay $15.00 to rent a locker!!!! Holy cow. I thought maybe $5.00, but $15.00? Yikes. I got one anyways even though I should have just walked by bag back to the car. So I ended up paying $15.00 to store about $20.00 worth of stuff. Grrr...Plus I also rented three towels so that was another $6.00. So before even riding any slides this day had cost us $131.00. We were going to have fun darn it.

Except we didn't really have fun. Next to the night we spent trying to get Tigger to use the potty this was day was just about as much fun. We started off our day with Teamboat Springs to avoid any long lines later. Big mistake. Other people reported that their young guys loved this ride. Tigger, not so much. I would say he tolerated it, but it scared him. The final icing on the cake was a waterfall that you have to go under at the end. Tigger hates getting water splashed on his head, so this waterfall really freaked him out. I did my best to lean over him and cover him but he still got wet. Poor guy. Not the best start to the day. We headed over to Tikes Peak hoping there would be things there that were more his speed.

The good news is, for anyone with a non-wuss toddler this place was really awesome. There are some larger slides at the base of the peak, one tube slide, one body slide, and a set of straight racer slides that you can slide down side by side or put a kid on your lap and take them down. Now if you have a wuss child like mine, this is what will happen:

You will start will the side by side racer slides. They look innocent enough, there are no scary turns or tunnels. They are just a long slide into about 8 inches of water at the bottom. You will put your kid on the middle slide, you'll sit in the next slide over and then your kid will freak out. You'll put him on your lap to go down with you instead. This will be your second biggest mistake of the day because when you hit the 8 inches of water it will become 36 inches of splash and make the boy who hates getting his head wet soaked and once again upset. The remainder of your day will then be spent wishing you had your $131 dollars back.

Okay, enough with the second person. So Tigger of course never went down the straight slides again, and the curvy body slide and the tube slide were completely out of the question. That left a series of tiny tiny slides at the top of the peak. These slides were really cute, but they didn't hold his attention for too long. He swam around like a crocodile in the pool area for a bit and then after maybe 25 minutes we had worn out Tikes Peak. I'm sure other kids could play here for hours. I was disappointed that Tigger didn't want to.

We then tried our first attempt at the lazy river (Runoff Rapids I think). Epic fail. Tigger wanted nothing to do with any of the tubes. They have giant pool noodle type things and he didn't like those either. Oh no! What were we going to do? We tried the wave pool but this really wasn't all that much fun. It's hard to keep an un-lifejacketed toddler above water in a pool full of waves. What's that? Just put a life jacket on him? Ha! We tried and tried to coax him into a life jacket. I even went so far as to put one on myself at the Kidani pool and go down the tiny kiddie slide with it on. No luck. It would have been easier to life jacket a wily squirrel.

At this point I decided that one of us was at least going to have fun, so I went and rode a tube slide. The only single rider tube slide you can go on is a dark tunnel one. It was fun and scary and I really wished I could go on the other two tube slides but they were only for double tubes and someone had to watch the beasty. Then it was Dad's turn to ride a slide and he chose the toboggan racers. We were hoping Tigger would want to try these, but he of course wanted nothing to do with the scary mats.

We tried the lazy river again and this time got Tigger into a tube by putting both of us (Mom and Tigger) in the center. He liked this. We went around until we got back to Tikes Peak area. We played at Tikes Peak for a bit, mostly crawling around in the pool area acting like a crocodile. We then ate lunch and I ran over to ride a mat slide while Dad was going to take Tigger back to the wave pool. Wait did I say we ate lunch? Sorry that was a lie because Tigger still wasn't really eating. I think he ate 1/2 a peanut butter cracker. Maybe.... Apparently Tigger started being a pain and when I got off my mat slide Dad and Tigger were waiting for me. We left the park and were home for naptime by 1:30. It was a such a disappointing trip, especially given the out of pocket cost, and there really was so much there that he should have loved. I will be giving it a couple of years before we try again.

Grrr...So far this was not the magical trip I had been so excited about...Will it shape up after naptime?

 

[SmallWorld71]

I'm so sorry things didn't go as you had hoped.

I remember the trip we took when DS13 was 2 1/2. While he loved Blizzard Beach, we had a different kind of disappointment - characters. On our first day, we met two of his favorites (Buzz and Woody). He was all excited until Woody (gently) reached out his hand and touched DS. He freaked! And, that was the end of that. All our character pictures from vacation have DS and I in them standing about 3 feet away. It's a funny story now, but it was very sad at the time.

I hope you enjoy the rest of your time.

 

[GrnMtnMan]

I'm so sorry things didn't go as you had hoped.

+1

The good news is, for anyone with a non-wuss toddler this place was really awesome.

I think TL is actually has the better place for babies or more timid toddlers. But having a dislike of getting splashed knocks TL out since a big part of the fun there is the water cannons.

 

[DisneyRegulars]

He was all excited until Woody (gently) reached out his hand and touched DS. He freaked! And, that was the end of that. All our character pictures from vacation have DS and I in them standing about 3 feet away. It's a funny story now, but it was very sad at the time.

Haha! We are still living that. He wants to wait in line to see every character he sees, but the when it's his turn he screams.

The rest of our trip was mostly very good. Especially our days at the MK.

 

[DisneyRegulars]

+1

Thanks! I wasn't really looking for sympathy, just wanted to let you guys know how it ended up. I often wonder on a lot of these threads what people end up doing.

Maybe we'll try Typhoon Lagoon next year...maybe. The water on his head was relatively new to us as he'll happily dump water onto his own head, just don't do it for him I guess.

 

[jcemom]

Sorry it wasn't your cup of tea. Happy to hear you gave it a shot though.

DD has always loved BB, and we go almost every trip. Well, this time we went expecting to have our usual great time, and it wasn't so great. DD got to do Summit Plummet for the first time and she liked it. We did Teamboat Springs and were paired up with a man and woman who were so much fun. We had a blast and laughed the whole way down. Then we hit the Ski Patrol Training Camp area that DD loves so much. That's where we had some issues.

Isn't it great when your kid gets into a line with 6 or 8 people in front of her, and then one of those people lets another 10 cut in front of them, all pretending not to speak english? Yeah, lovely. It happened over and over and over again. We reported it to a lifeguard who said there's nothing she can do about it, sorry. So, we packed up our stuff and we left.

I've read so much about the alleged South American line cutters, but I can honestly say in over a dozen trips we've never seen it happen more than once per trip. Not so this time. We experienced it repeatedly at MK also, but BB was just the pits. Absolutely ridiculous.

 

[Bonniec]

I'm not sure if any of the water parks are worth it if you have a shy toddler/baby if you are paying out of pocket unless there are a lot of you. When we first started going there, my youngest only liked the little kid area and the lazy river. I usually sent DH and our older kids off to do the other stuff. We alsp have the premium APs and it's part of the deal. I doubt I'd be happy paying full price for a ticket and then being stuck in the kiddie area.

BTW, when you return your locker key you get $5 back.

 

[justhat]

You do get part of that locker cost back though, right? I feel like we did get something back or had the option to get like a cup or something instead. We chose the cash back.

Sorry it didn't go well. Hard to predict toddlers, but at least now you know. You don't live in a warm weather area like us, so they might not have this near you, but we put our now 2yo in ISR swim lessons at 15 months and she was swimming, truly swimming alone, within 6 weeks. Made a world of difference in pools and waterparks between her and my oldest child, who likely would have enjoyed BB as much as your son did. So our trip to BB this summer, like I said, she could swim so no life jacket needed anyway, but because she can swim, dive to the bottom, etc., water in her face is nothing. Makes life way easier than it was with our first!

 

[MScott1851]

Thanks! I wasn't really looking for sympathy, just wanted to let you guys know how it ended up. I often wonder on a lot of these threads what people end up doing.

Maybe we'll try Typhoon Lagoon next year...maybe. The water on his head was relatively new to us as he'll happily dump water onto his own head, just don't do it for him I guess.

I laughed at your post til i ached, because I felt like I was writing it... My DD is a daredevil and has no fear of jumping/flying/climbing, etc. But you know what freaked her out? The Disney Jr. Stageshow, which has ALL her favorite characters and songs. It was LOUD and she cowered in terror under me while covering both ears. From then on, any sound above normal conversation decibels that she encountered on the trip terrified her. I had never noticed how LOUD stuff was. She spent 75% of the rest of the trip covering her ears like they were trying to fly away, just in case something MIGHT be too loud. So half the stuff I thought she would love, we fought through because i was trying to pry her hands off her head and trying to get her to just look and listen.