Our kids got sick from the Epcot splash pad

[caselaw3]

Crypto is just another name of a stomach virus.

The splash pads are those padded areas where the water comes out of a fountain. My kids play in the splash pad at SW all the time. We have AP and the littles have been known to put water in their mouths and no one has ever gotten sick.

And there is nothing to worry about. You will be fine. So a kid gets sick. It happens all the time. You can't control when or where a child will get sick. Just go and enjoy your vacation. Like PP have said you get germs just from going on the rides. If you spend your life worrying about germs you will never enjoy life.

very true! crypto just sounded so SERIOUS

 

[Granny square]

Yep. I'm also a believer of free range parenting, so I accept that my kids are going to get some bumps and bruises along the way while they grow up. Like Calvin's dad always says. It builds character.

Free ranger here too

Lol, and my boys all learned to read, reading Calvin.

 

[mm1971]

We just returned from WDW, it was our 19 month old twins first trip to the world. The first park we went was epcot and my kids spent a good time playing on the splash pad. When we went back to the hotel in the afternoon and my DD started throwing up, at first I thought it was the strawberries she had earlier but then my son started throwing up in the middle of the night and he had not eaten any fruit. They didn't eat anything in common so that rules out food poisoning. I'm pretty sure they got crypto from the splash pad.

It's unlikely from the splash pad. Illnesses have a gustation period and a few hours seems a little short, but who really knows. There are so many ways to get sick while there due to the large crowds. You have the railing, anything touched in the stores, doors, tables, chairs.....Just about anything that is in contact with a million people per day. Not to mention the recycled air on the plane. I'm not saying it wasn't the splash pad, but that water is chlorinated and is less likely to get you sick than the germs that are all over the place.

I hope they are feeling better and you were able to enjoy the rest of your trip.

 

[ParrotBill]

My daughter and I got crypto from a splash playground at a NY State Park once. The only way we knew was a local outbreak happened and many reports were traced back to everyone having been there in the last weeks. But other posters are correct, 2-10 days after. Splashpads are especially susceptible because

*listen up parents*

too many parents think that it's OK to let a diapered child play in a splashpad even though they know it's not OK to put them ina pool.

A splashpad *is* a pool. Don't do it. And we've never been in a splashpad every again.


Sudden onset of those symptoms can also be Norovirus - common if you've been served food by a food worker who did not follow all food safety rules and comes on within 24 hours.

I got that on a cruise ship once. The cruise lines want you to think it's transmitted guest to guest but that's rare. It is more commonly caused by improper food safety. Two days later when I felt better, and went to the buffet line, I watched an employee setting maraschino cherries into grapefruit halves with bare hands, mashing them down with their thumb. Pass. Where is the food that has been boiled, please?

 

[NotUrsula]

And just for the opposite-type report, both my kids are total splash pad junkies; even the teen will go stand in one every time he gets a chance. They have both played on the splash pads at Disney literally dozens of times, and have never gotten the slightest bit sick.

My DS *did* badly cut the sole of his foot on one of the jet nozzles at the STL Children's Zoo pad when he was two (though I believe that they have replaced the nozzles since then), still, our family rule is no playing in splash pads barefoot. As my kids (DH & I as well) now always wear water-sport sandals at parks, zoos, etc., that isn't any kind of deterrent.

 

[caselaw3]

Should it be our goal in life to never ever let our kids get sick or have bumps and bruises? One of the reasons "superbugs" have been able to take hold is because of our over use of all things "antibacterial". You realize that your immune system needs to be exposed to all different types of pathogens in order to produce the appropriate immune response. Parents are so freaked out about their babies being germ free, they never stop to think about the fact that they're not allowing their child's immune system to do it's intended job. We don't use antibacterial anything in my home. My kids are allowed to dig in the sand at the beach and the dirt in my yard. They are allowed to roll around with our 3 labradors. My kids are hardly ever sick.

I have to agree - we are doing ourselves a dis-service by being overly phobic about germs - we hardly ever use hand sanitizers or stuff like that - just wash our hands at the appropriate times....kids have to get germs in order for their bodies to be able to fight them -

 

[GoldieLocks5]

I could NOT believe none of my kids got sick on our last trip... At one point we were standing in line to meet Sulley & Mikey and I look over to see one of my 4yo twins LICKING the chain link "rope" that roped off the lines...

I was SOOOO grossed out - thinking how many hands touched it that day!!!

and yeah, i'm in the thinking that you can never blame one thing or another- germs are everywhere. Especially at Disney.

 

[Help Please!]

It's kind of funny to me to think that, without medical proof, you can determine where your kids got sick. There are, literally, probably hundreds of things they touch per day. For a 19-month-old, I might think off a stroller, sippy cup, binky, lower railings, benches, curbs, etc...ALL of which could have germs. One kid could have touched something, and then touched the sibling's hand. I'm pretty sure that the incubation period for most stomach illnesses is not just a few hours....so I highly doubt that it was the splash pad. More likely, something a day or 2 before that one twin touched, and then shared with a sibling.

 

[jtowntoflorida]

I could NOT believe none of my kids got sick on our last trip... At one point we were standing in line to meet Sulley & Mikey and I look over to see one of my 4yo twins LICKING the chain link "rope" that roped off the lines...

I was SOOOO grossed out - thinking how many hands touched it that day!!!

and yeah, i'm in the thinking that you can never blame one thing or another- germs are everywhere. Especially at Disney.

The last time I took my 3 year old on a plane (which was in August on a non-Disney trip), first he licked the plane window, THEN he stuck the seatbelt in his mouth! I wanted to hurl. As usual, I was the one who got sick on the trip, not him. That's what always happens. On our first Disney trip, he kept picking stuff off the ground and eating it (wasn't quite 2 at the time). I thought FOR SURE he would get one of those infamous Disney stomach bugs you always hear about on here. Nope. But I came back with a raging cold. Of course.

I agree that the OP has no way of knowing whether it was the splash pad or something else.

 

[cruisingtwins]

Lol why are people so insistent on telling me that my kids did no get sick form drinking from the splash pad? Anyways my kids did not touch any railings or lick any windows. They are exremely shy and in new situations hang on to us like little monkeys. They are not the kind of toddlers who run around exploring and putting everything in their mouths. The only thing that entices them enough to get off from us is water.

 

[Granny square]

Lol why are people so insistent on telling me that my kids did no get sick form drinking from the splash pad? Anyways my kids did not touch any railings or lick any windows. They are exremely shy and in new situations hang on to us like little monkeys. They are not the kind of toddlers who run around exploring and putting everything in their mouths. The only thing that entices them enough to get off from us is water.

They never touch things and use their fingers to put food in their mouths or wipe their faces? Or you never touch them, their cups their food? THe world is full of germs all over the place.

People are insistent because posts like yours might convince some parent from letting their little guys have tons of fun because of phantom fears.

 

[LilyWDW]

Lol why are people so insistent on telling me that my kids did no get sick form drinking from the splash pad? Anyways my kids did not touch any railings or lick any windows. They are exremely shy and in new situations hang on to us like little monkeys. They are not the kind of toddlers who run around exploring and putting everything in their mouths. The only thing that entices them enough to get off from us is water.

Because you have no proof. It is the same thing as saying you have food poisoning from X restaurant but you never go to the doctor to actually have testing done. It does a disservice to everyone to claim something like that when you can not back it up. It also is not fair to the company that you are blaming when there may not be any blame.

And I highly doubt your kids never touched a rail or another else someone ill could have touched. That is just about impossible.

 

[cruisingtwins]

Obviously your toddlers have not been shy, I may be only 99% sure that my kids got sick form the splash pad but I'm 100% sure they did not any of the railings, for the entire trip my kids sinked their little hands on us and would not let go for anything. The only time they were running around was on the splash pad.

But anyways all of that it's beside the point. It's a known fact that people can and have gotten sick from splash pads. If you think about it it's a very small amount of water geared towards a diaper wearing crowd. I cannot imagine the amount of fecal matter that is in that water. But sure let's pretend that Disney has a magic pixie dust that turns fecal matter into more pixie dust and my kids got sick from a railing they did not touch.

 

[cheer25mom]

Lol why are people so insistent on telling me that my kids did no get sick form drinking from the splash pad? Anyways my kids did not touch any railings or lick any windows. They are exremely shy and in new situations hang on to us like little monkeys. They are not the kind of toddlers who run around exploring and putting everything in their mouths. The only thing that entices them enough to get off from us is water.

Obviously your toddlers have not been shy, I may be only 99% sure that my kids got sick form the splash pad but I'm 100% sure they did not any of the railings, for the entire trip my kids sinked their little hands on us and would not let go for anything. The only time they were running around was on the splash pad.

But anyways all of that it's beside the point. It's a known fact that people can and have gotten sick from splash pads. If you think about it it's a very small amount of water geared towards a diaper wearing crowd. I cannot imagine the amount of fecal matter that is in that water. But sure let's pretend that Disney has a magic pixie dust that turns fecal matter into more pixie dust and my kids got sick from a railing they did not touch.

So, they never, ever touched anything but you the whole trip? I just don't think that it is possible that they never put their hands on anything else. Not a chair in your room, a table top at dinner, a ride seat to steady themselves, nothing the whole trip, not even the bed? You never touched any of these things without sanitizing before touching them? Any of these could be the source.

We are saying they didn't get sick from the splash pad because the incubation period isn't right. They got sick way too soon after being in the water to have possibly contracted it there. Sorry it that's not what you want to hear, but it is true. There is virtually nothing they could have contracted in that water, including crypto, that would manifest less than 12 hours later. They simply couldn't have gotten it there unless it is some new superbug we don't know about.

 

[cruisingtwins]

We played in the spalsh pads in DTD both days before we went to epcot. Either way there are other things besides crypto that have shorter incubation periods that are found in splash pads and are resistant to chlorine.

And yes our kids touched the things in our room. It just seems that people were very insisting on the railing thing.

 

[crisi]

Lol why are people so insistent on telling me that my kids did no get sick form drinking from the splash pad? Anyways my kids did not touch any railings or lick any windows. They are exremely shy and in new situations hang on to us like little monkeys. They are not the kind of toddlers who run around exploring and putting everything in their mouths. The only thing that entices them enough to get off from us is water.

They didn't touch the grab bar on any ride? They didn't climb into seats at restaurants and on attractions putting their little hands all over it to get in. They didn't breathe on the plane? Before the trip, they didn't ever touch anyone else's toys - at a friends or at daycare?

People are being insistent because the incubation period for the infection you think you got does not match the circumstances in which you think you got it under. That's a pretty big clue that what you think happened is not the most likely scenario.

 

[cruisingtwins]

This is gettin ridicoulos. We did not went into any of the rides at Epcot which was our first park of the trip. They sat on our laps at restaurants. They don't go to daycare or have any friends. They did breath on the plane though so I guess getting a stomach bug from breathing the air in a plane 10 days before is more likely than them getting sick from drinking water from a splash pad.

Like I said they played on a splash pad in Dtd the days before so it could have from there or something different than crypto with a shorter incubation period.

 

[Granny square]

Lucky they didn't touch anything at Dtd either. Or the hotel room!

 

[maxiesmom]

This is gettin ridicoulos. We did not went into any of the rides at Epcot which was our first park of the trip. They sat on our laps at restaurants. They don't go to daycare or have any friends. They did breath on the plane though so I guess getting a stomach bug from breathing the air in a plane 10 days before is more likely than them getting sick from drinking water from a splash pad.

Like I said they played on a splash pad in Dtd the days before so it could have from there or something different than crypto with a shorter incubation period.

Insisting it is one specific thing, without any proof, is ridiculous. There is no way your children touched nothing before they used the splash pad. No way.

It is a shame your children became sick, but insisting it is one specific thing, and insisting it could be NOTHING else, is not realistic.

 

[disneymom3]

Well going by the symptoms that my kids are presenting and the fact that no one else got sick even when our kids were throwing up on top of us constantly I believe my kids got sick by drinking recreational water. If it had been a random bug me and DH would have caught it for sure we always do. The only thing that my kids did that we didn't was drink out of the splash pads. Really it's not that uncommon to get sick from a splash pad look it up online. There are a bunch of illnesses that are resistant to chlorine and thrive in splash pads. Maybe my kids were too young to play in those and I won't allow them back in until I can trust them not to drink the water.

But anyways my kids are feeling better and that's what matters.

I'm glad to hear they are feeling better! Not a nice way to end a vacation, that's for sure! I am hoping you didn't have any more park days planned after they got sick.