Life jackets

[poohsize]

We are going for 6 days the last week of August - myself, my 6 and 3 year old. Neither swim well. We are staying at Caribbean Beach and plan on at least one or two half days at Blizzard Beach or TL. Question: I heard that you cannot bring your own life jacket to BB or TL...is that true? Are jackets always available? How much are they?

How about at CBR? I would think I should bring the jackets anyway for the hotel, but if I can get them at Disney easily it would be great to not have to pack them!!

 

[BevS97]

they are available everywhere, at CBR they are free and you just collect them by the pool, at the water parks you need to leave a deposit of your room key, but they are also free there

I've no idea if you can use your own life jacket, but since they are there and free, we just used theres

Bev


PS - Just had a thought - I'm not sure if there are life jackets near the quiet pools at CBR, they were definitely near available near the big pool.

 

[DavidOH]

I don't know about bringing your own lifejackets to BB or TL. You are able to bring your own PFD to the hotel pools. This includes water wings which are easy to pack.

We were able to borrow life jackets for my 2 and 4y/o at BB last time we were at WDW. All you have to do is leave an ID. We left the kids room keys. I believe there was no charge. If there was it was minimal. The vests come in several sizes based on weight. Obviously there was a limited number of vests but I didn't hear of anyone not being able to get one.

We stayed at POR and were able to again borrow a life jacket for the entire stay. We just needed to leave our room number and return it when we left. I think all the hotels have this available.

 

[poohsize]

Thanks! Not having to bring the float jackets will save a lot of space for packing!

 

[BethC]

Hi Poohsize, looks like you already got your answer, but I just wanted to say welcome to the DIS, we're glad you're here!

 

[BibbidyBobbidyBoo]

On the same topic- obviously I don't want to have to pack/bring their life jackets on our upcoming trip- but considering our trips will be in Oct and Nov/Dec- the water parks (whichever one is open if both aren't) AND the hotel pool- will they allow you to use the swimsuits that have the floats inside them?
What about arm floats?

My middle child (son) can swim a little- but he isn't CONFIDENT about the swimming unless he has those arm floats. He's done it a few times but it just freaks him out to not have them on- will they allow him to wear those???

And our youngest we just like to have her in that swimsuit because it holds her whole body up. Her life jacket she wears when we go boating but it isn't something she likes at all. The swimsuit with float inside holds her torso up and then she can like float her body up on her stomach just holding our hands and kicking her feet and she thinks she's swimming.

Will they allow those things?

 

[DavidOH]

When we were there last in 2001 there seemed to be no rules regarding the use of any floatation devices. My 2y/o was wearing water wings(arm floats). My 4 y/o was willing to wear a life jacket. The were even allowed to go down the slide at POR with these on. Obviously we closely supervised them but no one said a thing.