From waterparks to restaurants...

[Albertan mom]

The days that we are going to the waterparks, I made ts meal reservations at these places:
*Typhoon Lagoon-DTD Planet Hollywood
*Blizzard Beach-Coronado Resort, Maya Grill
*Parasailing-Contemporary Resort, Chef Mickeys

I was thinking that they were the closest places to have a good table service meal, and also that then we wouldn't have to go into a park to eat with our swimwear and stuff.

Am I correct? Does that look like it will work?

How do we get from each waterpark to each place we are eating? The shuttle? How long should we expect the shuttle to take to get us from each waterpark to each restaurant? 1/2 hour?

Do the waterparks provide towels, or should we bring some?

Thanks!!

 

[Albertan mom]

Help me.....please someone....???

 

[kaytieeldr]

Bus from Typhoon Lagoon to Downtown Disney (check with bus driver or bus coordinator so you get on a bus going the right way)
Bus from Blizzard Beach to Coronado Springs (bus will be labeled "Coronado Springs", so no problem with direction )
Walk from Contemporary dock into hotel; take elevator up to fourth floor
Half hour sounds good; 45 minutes sounds better.
The water parks rent towels for $2 each, they're regular bath towel size.

 

[Albertan mom]

Bus from Typhoon Lagoon to Downtown Disney (check with bus driver or bus coordinator so you get on a bus going the right way)
Bus from Blizzard Beach to Coronado Springs (bus will be labeled "Coronado Springs", so no problem with direction )
Walk from Contemporary dock into hotel; take elevator up to fourth floor
Half hour sounds good; 45 minutes sounds better.
The water parks rent towels for $2 each, they're regular bath towel size.

$2.00 each, sick. I was hoping they would be free!! That is $8! Can you bring ones from the hotel for free, or is that frowned upon?

 

[2angelsinheaven]

I would think no one would even know that you were using a hotel towel, HOWEVER, if you were to lose it or it was stolen you would owe the hotel for that towel. You may want to try wal-mart or target for some cheap towels for the trip.

 

[Albertan mom]

Do you have to pay to use tubes or floatie things?

I just assumed towels would be free--that is one thing I love about Disneyland, they don't 'nickle and dime' you to death once you get in the gates....

Maybe I am wrong about Disneyworld?

I mean besides the obvious of paying for food and souveneirs, you don't have to pay for extra for every little thing.

 

[Miniefan]

Here are some of the things I noted on our trip last week. We visited both Bb and TL. We brought beach towels from home so the towel rental was not a problem. They rent towels and lockers, they also sell large cups for $10 that are good for drink the whole day long. They take your picture on some of the water rides and even the lazy rivers and sell it to you for $12.95 in the gift shop. We had the most fun at BB, it was also the least crowded. The Shark Reef experience at TL is highly overrated. I couldn't hardly even see any of the fish in the reef, as you are not allowed to dive down, you must stay on the surface, and swim straight across, the water is also pretty cold. The Crush n gusher ride at TL is fun but the ride is very short. Have a great time.
Kim

 

[ReallyFunMom]

We'll be driving from waterparks to DTD for lunch but I've read parking is a nightmare. Somehow I didn't expect parking issues until nighttime. Anyone have problems parking around lunchtime near Planet Hollywood?

 

[Albertan mom]

Here are some of the things I noted on our trip last week. We visited both Bb and TL. We brought beach towels from home so the towel rental was not a problem. They rent towels and lockers, they also sell large cups for $10 that are good for drink the whole day long. They take your picture on some of the water rides and even the lazy rivers and sell it to you for $12.95 in the gift shop. We had the most fun at BB, it was also the least crowded. The Shark Reef experience at TL is highly overrated. I couldn't hardly even see any of the fish in the reef, as you are not allowed to dive down, you must stay on the surface, and swim straight across, the water is also pretty cold. The Crush n gusher ride at TL is fun but the ride is very short. Have a great time.
Kim

If you buy the pictures, can you get them sent to your resort room? (so they don't get wet and wrinkled etc...)

You buy a large cup and get non-stop pop all day? Is there ice-tea, lemonade too?

 

[Miniefan]

I am not sure about the photos being sent to the room, but seing as you can send most of your in park purchases to the resort hotel, It is definitely a possibility, we never had this problem because they give you a waterproof wristband to wear, and it has the photo pickup number on it, and we just checked ours as we were leaving. As for the cup, it is $10 and it has a little sticker with a barcode on it, the cup is only good for refills that day at the waterpark, I have also heard that you could pay extra to use it another day, but we didn't do this so again I am not sure. The drinks are all coke products- coke, diet coke, sprite, orange, and they do have tea, but it is Nestea. Hope that helps you.

 

[sameyeyam]

We have always taken our hotel towels with us and leave them behind. They seem to be the identical towels at the parks. We have never been charged extra at the hotel for doing this. We stayed at Pop Century in April and they had huge carts of extra towels by the elevators in the evening for swimmers, etc... We just always grab extra ones from the cart in the evening for swimming or water parks the next day. You can also call housekeeping the night before and ask for extra swimming towels (ours took about 1 hour to arrive). I believe that the moderate & deluxe hotels have towels stocked right next to the pool, so I would just grab a few of them before you go.

Also, we always allow 1 hour when travelling to our dinner destination on the WDW transportation. Sometimes the buses take longer, 1 time we got stuck for about 20 minutes near DTD because of a wreck on the road. If our bus arrives early, then we have time to look around the gift shop or resort, etc... Also, we have found that most times if you arrive early, you will probably get seated earlier than your reservation time.

 

[Albertan mom]

We have always taken our hotel towels with us and leave them behind. They seem to be the identical towels at the parks. We have never been charged extra at the hotel for doing this. We stayed at Pop Century in April and they had huge carts of extra towels by the elevators in the evening for swimmers, etc... We just always grab extra ones from the cart in the evening for swimming or water parks the next day. You can also call housekeeping the night before and ask for extra swimming towels (ours took about 1 hour to arrive). I believe that the moderate & deluxe hotels have towels stocked right next to the pool, so I would just grab a few of them before you go.

Also, we always allow 1 hour when travelling to our dinner destination on the WDW transportation. Sometimes the buses take longer, 1 time we got stuck for about 20 minutes near DTD because of a wreck on the road. If our bus arrives early, then we have time to look around the gift shop or resort, etc... Also, we have found that most times if you arrive early, you will probably get seated earlier than your reservation time.

Good advice. I think I will do just that, use resort towels. I don't want to pay $16 for towel rental, nor do I want to waste valuable souvenier space by packing towels from home!

One hour sounds reasonable. Our ressie at Maya Grill is for 5:45, so if we are there early, we can look around the Coronado resort.
Our ressie for Planet Hollywood is 5:15, but would like to spend some time looking in the stores in DTD too!
Thanks!