When you fall off a horse (or a bike), they teach you to get right back on. So, as reigning Father of the Year, I assumed that the water-based corollary to that rule is that when you screw up in a swimming pool, you get right back in the water. Unless you drowned. Then it doesn't work.
We regrouped and headed for the Storm Slides, which are your standard body slides (i.e. no raft or tube) with a little Disney touch. This time, Julie wasn't feeling up to the slides and volunteered to stay at the bottom and take pictures while I went with the kids. Scotty was barely tall enough to do the slides (and, truth be told, he's not a real strong swimmer yet), but he was willing to try them. Dave apparently thought they looked a little scary, and decided to stay back with Mommy. So I rounded up the usual suspects and headed up the stairs. It's a fairly long climb, but there's a benefit--the slides themselves are fairly long rides. There are 3 to choose from, and they're all pretty much the same, but they move fast and duck in and out of caves and tunnels and bridges and all sorts of fun touches like that. The kids "volunteered" me to go first, and then they came down in short order. Here's my splashdown:
Next up was Scotty. He had never been on a waterslide this big before, and as he came down the final turn, he was screaming, "Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!" and running his hands along the sides to slow himself down. I waited at the bottom and caught him, and then walked him out of the pool.
Sarah came down immediately afterwards and joined us. I asked if they wanted to go up again, not sure if the slide had freaked Scotty out. He jumped up and down and shouted, "YES! Come on! Let's go!" and took off running up the stairs, not bothering to wait for the rest of us. So I guess he liked it. Sarah said, "That was fun!" and had a big smile. Talk about a huge relief. Dave, seeing how much his siblings enjoyed it, went with us this time.
We had a blast with these slides. We went quite a few times, trying them all out. Good speed and good long rides. Scotty did his "Daddy! Daddy!" routine at the bottom every time, but he must have been more exhilarated than scared, since he kept bolting back up the stairs for more.
I was just relieved that Sarah had bounced back quickly and was having a good time again.
We decided we needed to try all the tube slides out, so we crossed to the other side of the wave pool.
First up was the shortest one, Keelhaul Falls. This slide takes individual innertubes, so I helped the kids grab theirs and then we made the trip to the start. No sooner had I started, when I stopped. The tube was scraping the bottom of the slide, and I had to crab-walk a bit and push off the walls near the top to get moving. It seemed like they didn't have the water flowing down the slides at full force. Either that, or I've gotten really fat all of a sudden. Which could never happen on my diet.
The slide was very short and very slow. This is the vehicle's top speed? I could get out and run faster than this! But the kids liked it, so what do I care? We also tried Mayday Falls, which is the longest tube slide. Again, it felt slow at the start, but then it picked up speed. It also bumped us around quite a bit. Not bad, but it still didn't seem like a great ride. We liked the family raft ride (Gangplank Falls) for the bumps and surprises, but we felt like the Storm Slides overall were better slides.
By this time, we were ready for lunch. On the way, we checked out the wave pool.
Here you can see the start of a wave.
This was a lot of fun to watch. Every so often, you'd hear a loud WHUMP! as the wave mechanism rolled, followed by a huge scream from the people in the water as the 6-foot wave approached, like clockwork. So, if you're scoring at home (or even if you're alone), it went like this:
WHUMP!
"AAAAHHHHH!"
SPLASH
Lunch was at Leaning Palms. I had the chicken tenders. Secret Disney Counter-Service Hint: Generally speaking, Disney's chicken tenders are really good. Finger-lickin' good, even.
By this time, the clouds had rolled in and it was starting to drizzle. Nothing bad yet, but we made sure we had the good camera covered well.
Sarah had one wish left for the day--she wanted an Official Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model Air Rifle!
No, wait, that wasn't it. She was dying to try the Crush 'n Gusher. Given the morning's events, this made it my solemn duty to ensure that she got to ride it. The boys wanted nothing to do with it, so Julie took them back to do more slides while I went with Sarah to try and redeem myself.
Neither of us had ever been on a "water coaster" before, but the idea of huge jets of water shooting us uphill was intriguing. We made our way to the entrance, picked up our tube, and started climbing.
This picture is actually from later in the day after the rain started, but it's the only one we got of the ride itself.
The theming of this ride is excellent, perfectly maintaining the illusion of the aftermath of a typhoon. I remember Barry pointing this sign out in an earlier TR and made sure to get a picture.
Some people will do anything to avoid parking fees.
One picture I didn't get and wish I had: at the top of the structure, they actually had a piece of the truss that was completely sheared off and dangling. How they engineered that, I don't know, but it was a great piece of Imagineering.
Edit: I found it on
this webpage. Check out the 2nd picture on the right-hand column. Near the bottom of the picture, you can see where the truss has been made to look like something blasted it pretty hard. Great piece of work.
There are 3 slides here: the Coconut Crusher, Pineapple Plunger, and Banana Blaster. For some reason, everyone ahead of us went for the Coconut Crusher. We saw a longer line at the Banana Blaster. So we chose the Pineapple Plunger, and basically walked up with minimal wait. As we mounted the tube on the conveyor belt, Sarah confessed to me that she was nervous. I just told her it would be fun. And then...we were off!
Let me explain how we felt. No, there is too much. Let me sum up:
It. was. AWESOME!
Easily our favorite ride in Typhoon Lagoon. We laughed the whole way down. Being dropped on the slide and then shot back up the hill was exhilarating. If we'd started on this early in the morning, I don't know if we'd ever have gotten off.
We laughed and high-fived and immediately got back in line for another go. You know what was extra-awesome? My daughter was smiling and laughing again. Everything was right with the world.
This time, we did the Banana Blaster, which had a couple of longer turns that made it even more fun than the Pineapple Plunger. Once we finished, we raced back to meet up with the rest of the crew and gloat about the sheer awesomeness they missed out on.
On the way, we noticed this bridge over the lazy river again, and decided we needed to find out where it went.
We met up with Julie and the boys, gloated about our fantasticness, and then found the hiking trail for the bridge. Basically, it leads to a hiking trail around the "mountain" and not much else, but we still enjoyed it. One of the things Disney does best is create that sense of "Hey, what's over here?" It always feels like there's something new to discover just around the corner.
The view from the bridge:
Back on the ground, we jumped into the lazy river. I have a love-hate relationship with lazy rivers. In theory, they're wonderful. A chance to rest in the water on a hot day and float your cares away. And if you get in there first thing with no one around, you might just be able to do that. But later in the day, when it gets crowded, it becomes a mess. You run into all sorts of people who should never be allowed into a lazy river.
There's Klutzy Ken. The guy who simply cannot figure out how to get into an innertube, and has 3-4 empty tubes gathered around him while he stands in the middle of the flow path futilely trying to climb in.
Then there's Panicky Patty, the lady who can't figure out how to steer and ends up flailing wildly as she spins out of control, splashing and ramming everyone in sight.
And there's Overprotective Olga and the rest of her family, who she doesn't want to lose and therefore has 4 people in tubes, all holding hands and blocking all traffic behind them.
Finally, there's the Idiot Teens (sorry, couldn't come up with an alliterative name for them) who decide it's too slow, so they need to climb down and race-walk around the track, shoving everybody else rudely aside. Youth is wasted on the wrong people.
We found all of these characters during our float. Occasionally, Dave would get caught behind Panicky Patty and lose touch with us, and then start to turn in to Panicky Dave. So I would try and grab the wall and wait for him, and then try to catch up with the rest of the crew. It was a little more stressful than a lazy river needs to be.
At the end of the trip, it started raining harder. We ran to grab our stuff (mostly worried about the camera) and move it under one of the picnic pavilion roofs.
Do they shut down the park for rain? Absolutely not! While many people were heading out at that point, we held to the philosophy that we were already wet, so bring on more slides!
Back to the Storm Slides we went, for several more trips. Then we got into the wave pool.
I couldn't convince anyone to get out deeper in the big waves with me, but Sarah was game for a bit more adventure.
I really, really like this next picture:
The rain started coming down harder. Sarah really wanted to do the Crush 'n Gusher again. I couldn't blame her. Somehow, we convinced Scotty to try it with us. So we headed over there and got in line. At the entrance, Scotty had to get measured against the 48" height requirement. The CM there really tried. He had Scotty stand up straight. Put his feet together. Get his chin up. Straighten his back...and when he put his hand up on Scotty's head, there was still half an inch of space. Missed it by that much. So he couldn't let Scotty on.
Luckily Scotty didn't seem too bummed. He went back with Julie while Sarah and I went on. We grabbed our raft and quickly climbed the stairs for the Coconut Crusher, getting to the end when...
...the P.A. system announced that lightning had been spotted and the park would be closing.
We looked over at the CM to see if she'd let us go down the slide or make us walk back. She said to go ahead down the slide and then head straight out of the pool. So we completed our Crush 'n Gusher trifecta, giggling the whole way down. Sarah and I high-fived again on the way out. Our favorite of the 3? The Banana Blaster.
It was mid-afternoon and we needed to head back to the room to change and get ready for dinner. We grabbed our stuff from the locker, and got our deposit back...only to spend it on the mini-donuts near the entrance.
Let me tell ya: totally worth the $6. They give you chocolate sauce to dip them in, and they're served warm out of the fryer. Don't pass them up.
All in all, we thought Typhoon Lagoon was terrific. I'd definitely go back for more. And probably spend most of my time riding the Crush 'n Gusher.
I leave you with this public service announcement from Typhoon Lagoon:
Coming Up Next: More animal pictures! And dinner in one of our new favorite places. And stupid Tiki photos.
I might have to start using that one myself.
rolleyes2) and Crush 'n Gusher all held great appeal for us.
