BB & TL, best times to go?

[Mercy]

We'll be at WDW arriving 8/8/04 till 8/15/04.

Would it be better to go early in the morning or later in the afternoon, crowd wise?

 

[luvabargain]

I haven't been yet but from what I read it's better to get there early in the morning. I guess sometimes by late morning to early afternoon it gets so crowded they have to turn people away. It sounds like later in the afternoon the crowds diminish too but these parks are only open until 6 so that wouldn't give you a lot of time to spend there.

Again, this is just what I've read in different books and sources of info.

 

[JustHolly]

First thing in the morning is best, or after a thunderstorm.

They have to shut down all the water attractions and pools during a thunderstorm. During summer here in Florida, there is a thunderstorm almost every afternoon. At the first sign of thunder, the water parks clear out....FAST! If you go after the thunderstorm, you can walk right onto everything. We arrived at TL during a thunderstorm a couple weeks ago and everyone was pouring out of the park. When the park reopened 20 minutes, later, there were probably no more than 100 guests in the entire park. It was walk right onto everything, the lazy river had nobody in it, and we could snorkel to our hearts' content at the shark pool.....we were the only ones there for at least 15-20 minutes.

Going for a couple hours in the afternoon works for us because we have AP's and live 10 minutes away. If you are doing it as part of a vacation and are paying full price to do the park, get there no later than 8:30 for the 9am opening.....stake out a good spot in the shade, and hit the slides right away before the lines get too long. You can do the wave pool and the lazy river later in the day.... they don't have lines.

The park usually fills to capacity by 10-11am, so get there super early. You have to walk from the parking lot, and the earlier you get there, the shorter the walk.

 

[Barbmouse63]

Hi! I was just there!!! We did BB on Monday and TL on Wed. We arrived early both days and did all the big rides we wanted too. It was not too terribly crowded in the afternoons but we could tell a big difference from the morning! We enjoyed the lazy rivers, wave pools, etc in the afternoon. It was a blast!

 

[Lovetherodent]

We much prefer TL, but all my kids want to do there is play in the wave pool. There's never a line for that, so it really doesn't matter when we go. For BB, where the wave pool isn't much fun, and they want to do slides, definitely go in the early morning. We were there for the rope drop, grabbed a shady place to sit, and ran for Summit Plummit (aka, the Atomic Wedgie).

No matter how early you get there, though, don't plan on keeping your good seats. We were "moved" at BB by someone who evidently felt they needed the seats under the umbrella more than we did. How nice.