How do you fit in the Water Parks?

[FlightlessDuck]

We spend the morning in a water park and the afternoon in a theme park. Generally we don't need more than one day in Animal Kingdom or Epcot. Eight to 12 days would be enough time for my family to hit all of the parks we want, including Universal, and still have time left over for a water park.

 

[Bullseye]

We usually do each water park and DQ one time each in ten days. Typhoon Lagoon is as fun as any ride in WDW.

 

[RalphinSC]

With FP+ now, doing a split waterpark/park day is even better. You hit a waterpark at rope drop, stay until mid-afternoon, and then go back and change and hit your park of choice for that evening. And with FP+, you have three rides on headliners with little wait so you can still have a pretty good touring experience and get it in. AK is at best a once per trip park for us. DHS would be too if not for Star Wars Weekends this trip. We tend to go 10+ days and always find time for multiple Waterpark/Disneyquest days. Disneyquest is great on arrival day and can be worked in even as the second half of a waterpark day with dinner at DTD.

 

[gilesmt]

We do one on our animal kingdom day, like yesterday. We did tusker house at 8, was in line for safari by 9, finished with the park by 1, because no lion king. The bus goes to blizzard beach, we brought our bathing suits in backpack. Spent 3 hours at the beach and went home, ate dinner, watched the movie on the lawn and went to bed at 10.

Up late this morning 8 am, for another beach day if it stays warm. We will go to dtd for lunch at 11, and depending on rain or not, hoping not, we will hit typhoon lagoon after lunch and, at 4:30 we have a BBB appt at dtd then dinner with Cinderella at park fare.

We always do 4 park days, one break day, four park days one break day, two park days and home. We fit in quest, both water parks and one round of mini golf if not more. Water parks and quest usually are no more than three hours for us, but you could stay longer if you like them, we get bored and need to move on. But we do several fun things in one day usually, like golf and blizzard, or quest and typhoon.

Have fun.

 

[ProudMommyof2]

We do the waterpark at RD and head out around 1:30 or 2pm. We head back to the room, shower and rest. We head to one of the major parks in the eve.

I agree that this is one of the times FP+ will be really beneficial. TO use this plan and have 3 FPs prebooked for the eve will be great.

 

[brennicksmom]

For the 10-14 day stay some are mentioning, that sounds about right to me I'd skip DHS and (gulp) MK before skipping either water park

My husband feels the same way. In fact, last year we didn't travel to wdw at all, for the first time since 2004. And we considered buying season passes for the water parks and taking a few smaller trips just to go to the water parks! We had one trip in Feb and it was too cold to go to them and it just wasn't the same.

The worst part if BB is all those steps!!! They are killer for me! I go to the gym just to do the stair climber to get ready for the trip!!! LOL.

 

[fitnessmouse]

We spend the whole day at the waterparks, open to close

 

[herb102211]

We usually go to the water parks on a day that we’ll be doing nighttime EMH at one of the other parks. We’ll eat breakfast, head to the waterpark for when it opens at 10am, stay until 2 or 3pm and then head back to the resort. We’ve found the water parks to be less busy when they first open.

 

[Carrie in AZ]

We make them a priority because we love them so much! BB is my favorite Disney park of all time! I absolutely love being there. Some of our very best days at DW have been the days in the water parks.

We normally do split stays and going to a water park on the day we move is perfect. We get there at RD but it seems like RD is a bit later than at the other parks, so we wake up, put on our suits, give our luggage to the bell station on our way out to the bus and off we go! Our favorite time to visit is in November and the hours are usually 10 - 5 and we stay there all day. We usually have the lazy river to ourselves from 4-5pm and that hour is pure magic!! When we're finished and the park is going to close, we catch the bus to our new resort and off we go. Our room is ready by the time we get there and we head on in!

ABSOLUTELY LOVE LOVE LOVE the water parks!!! Totally relaxing, don't need to worry about FP, ADR or anything, just have a ball and that is it! It's nice that we can grab an adult beverage there also. We totally feel like we are on vacation when we are at the water parks.

 

[tlh0726]

We do RD at one of the parks and stay until around noonish Head back to the room to get changed into bathing suits and grab a quick lunch either at the hotel restaurant or offsite on the way to/from. We then go to one of the waterparks for the remainder of the afternoon. Head back to the room grab showers and change, either do dinner offsite or once we go back into the park for the evening.

We always have a car so no waiting on Disney transportation.

 

[sethschroeder]

So easy to fit it in and not miss any theme park action.

Theme Park morning
Water Park Early Afternoon
Theme Park/ADR evening

If you can carry your swim suits with you and you can:
Ask the help desk at each park how to get to the Water Park of your choice
I know we did a bus straight from AK to Blizzard Beach on the Cornado bus last year, just had to ask the Bus Driver to stop at Blizzard Beach on the way (oh and we were staying at BWI, the help desk to do this)

I find that 2-4 hours is more than enough if you go a couple times on your trip. Also if you skip the early morning hours I feel you get a lot of people leaving when you arrive in the early afternoon.

 

[HMANSION LOVER]

We have been to WDW 4 times and generally stay 8-12 days. With 3 kids (11,7,&3), we either hit RD or have a pre-opening ADR and tour until at least lunchtime. We normally take an afternoon break and come back to the park in the evening. We take a day off in the middle of the trip to give the kids a break and rest and normally spend about 2 days in each park.

We've never done either water park, Disneyquest, or miniature golf but this year, the kids have asked to go to a water park. How do you fit it in? I can't imagine taking a park day away since there is so much we like to do at each park. I can't imagine adding an extra resort night because of the cost (WP&M option and resort night).

How do you fit it in? Do you give something up? Do you do half days?

Thanks!

We are very much like alot of the posters here. Plan on making it a lazy day with nothing more than a dinner reservation later in the day and just take it as it comes. We go to the water park when it opens, which is not until 10:00 so we can sleep a little later and don't have to rush. Grab a little breakfast and we are on our way. We usually leave the park no later than 2:30 - 3:00 so we can go back to the resort and rest because for some reason the water parks really tire us out. We all take showers and get ready for our dinner reservation. We really enjoy it because even though your getting up and going in the A.M., the break during the day is always longer and more relaxing than the break we take when stopping at the resort mid day during a park hop. It's nice to take a day or two like that during a 10 day stay. We also like Fantasia Gardens at some point for the same reason