Typhoon Lagoon Questions

[kbmartin]

I have a couple of questions about Typhoon Lagoon after doing some research. Some of these answers were in a very old article I read, so I am afraid that they might be outdated.

1. Towel rental - is it actually FREE to resort guests? We are staying at CSR. Do they check that you are at a Disney resort by scanning your Magic Band? Where is the towel rental?

2. Can you wear flip flops or water shoes on the slides? I keep seeing the same advice - to bring water shoes - because the pavement is so hot in summer. But if they are not allowed on the rides, where do you stash them?

3. Is there any particular area near the wave pool that gets a good amount of shade? I understand it's a bit of a crazy rush to get seats once the park opens.

I appreciate any help!

 

[disny_luvr]

I have a couple of questions about Typhoon Lagoon after doing some research. Some of these answers were in a very old article I read, so I am afraid that they might be outdated.

1. Towel rental - is it actually FREE to resort guests? We are staying at CSR. Do they check that you are at a Disney resort by scanning your Magic Band? Where is the towel rental?

2. Can you wear flip flops or water shoes on the slides? I keep seeing the same advice - to bring water shoes - because the pavement is so hot in summer. But if they are not allowed on the rides, where do you stash them?

3. Is there any particular area near the wave pool that gets a good amount of shade? I understand it's a bit of a crazy rush to get seats once the park opens.

I appreciate any help!

I am sure others will have better answers than me, but I’ll try.

1. I do not believe towels are free for resort guests. We always grab towels to take with us before we leave the resort.

2. I wear water shoes and take them off and hold them on my lap. I don’t think I take them off on every slide; only when I’m asked. At my local water park, they have bins at slide exits for shoes; I can’t remember if TL has anything like that.

3. Yes, there is lots of shade, but if you don’t arrive at park opening, it maybe difficult to find a shady spot. You can rent umbrellas for a small fee of $60. With that rental, you get the umbrella, two loungers, two chairs, and towels.

Have fun!

 

[brockash]

I believe they made towels free to resort guests in the last year or two.

Just hold your shoes while going down slides.

Good amount of shade, but depending on how busy, you may need to get there early.

 

[CeruleanMoon]

We were just at TL in April. I was able to get free towels for everyone in our party just by telling them at the counter where I was staying. (I was also wearing a magic band if they had asked to check.) I wore water shoes on all the slides I went on, but I did not do any of the body slides, only the tube slides. I think they may let you hold your flip flops in your lap if you are going down in a tube.

 

[GADisneyDad14]

Yes, as @brockash noted, free towels for resort guests. Can’t remember exactly when they made that switch, but it was relatively recent (like last few years).

 

[disny_luvr]

Yes, as @brockash noted, free towels for resort guests. Can’t remember exactly when they made that switch, but it was relatively recent (like last few years).

Awesome! Great to know!

 

[kbmartin]

I believe they made towels free to resort guests in the last year or two.

Just hold your shoes while going down slides.

Good amount of shade, but depending on how busy, you may need to get there early.

I'm honestly pretty terrified of water slides and will want to be holding on to anything I can (like the tube handles) with all my might. Having to worry about holding on to water shoes would be an issue for me. Does anyone else know if there are cubby areas around the slides like another poster mentioned?

 

[Klayfish]

I have a couple of questions about Typhoon Lagoon after doing some research. Some of these answers were in a very old article I read, so I am afraid that they might be outdated.

1. Towel rental - is it actually FREE to resort guests? We are staying at CSR. Do they check that you are at a Disney resort by scanning your Magic Band? Where is the towel rental?

2. Can you wear flip flops or water shoes on the slides? I keep seeing the same advice - to bring water shoes - because the pavement is so hot in summer. But if they are not allowed on the rides, where do you stash them?

3. Is there any particular area near the wave pool that gets a good amount of shade? I understand it's a bit of a crazy rush to get seats once the park opens.

I appreciate any help!

1. Yes, as others said, towels are free. We're offsite, so we don't use it, but I believe you'll walk by towel rental as you enter the park. I think it's in a gift shop that is on your left.

2. If you don't want to wear water shoes you don't have to. We wear flip flops simply because we don't want to walk across the blacktop parking lot, which of course can get insanely hot. But once we're in the park, we take them off and leave them at our chairs. I despise water shoes, . Yes, in limited spots, the pavement can get pretty hot. But you won't burn your feet if you're walking through. Some of the pavement is actually sprayed with water all day to help keep it cool. Other spots are shaded, other spots are kept wet by people walking through soaking wet. You'll only find the really hot areas in small patchy spots where the pavement stays dry and is in the sun. We have no problems going barefoot. But if you want to wear water shoes, you must take them off for any body slide, it's a safety issue. You can hold them in your hands.

3. Many, if not most, of the spots right at the wave pool itself are in the sun. You'll find a lot of shaded areas closer to Crush Gusher and Miss Adventure Falls. There is not a crazy rush once the park opens. Sure, those that are there do rush to get a spot...however the size of the crowd is nothing remotely close to the 4 main parks. We show up at 9:55am for a 10:00am park open, even in mid-summer, and have absolutely no trouble finding a great shaded spot.

 

[Shanti]

I have a couple of questions about Typhoon Lagoon after doing some research. Some of these answers were in a very old article I read, so I am afraid that they might be outdated.

1. Towel rental - is it actually FREE to resort guests? We are staying at CSR. Do they check that you are at a Disney resort by scanning your Magic Band? Where is the towel rental?

2. Can you wear flip flops or water shoes on the slides? I keep seeing the same advice - to bring water shoes - because the pavement is so hot in summer. But if they are not allowed on the rides, where do you stash them?

3. Is there any particular area near the wave pool that gets a good amount of shade? I understand it's a bit of a crazy rush to get seats once the park opens.

I appreciate any help!

1. My last visit to TL was 2 years ago before they changed this policy, so I don't know.
2. You can wear water shoes on tube rides but must take them off and hold them on body slides. The pavement was actually never very hot there in my experience during either of our July trips. I think that issue is overblown.
3. Any shady seating area is going to be hard to get and maintain throughout the day unless you pay for chairs with umbrellas. It is possible to do without paying: you have to arrive early and hustle, and then hope your stuff doesn't get moved. I can't remember if there are shady seats specifically by the wave pool, though.

 

[Klayfish]

1. My last visit to TL was 2 years ago before they changed this policy, so I don't know.
2. You can wear water shoes on tube rides but must take them off and hold them on body slides. The pavement was actually never very hot there in my experience during either of our July trips. I think that issue is overblown.
3. Any shady seating area is going to be hard to get and maintain throughout the day unless you pay for chairs with umbrellas. It is possible to do without paying: you have to arrive early and hustle, and then hope your stuff doesn't get moved. I can't remember if there are shady seats specifically by the wave pool, though.

I'd have to disagree with #3 above. We never have any trouble finding a spot, especially if we show up right at park open (as I said 5 minutes early is more than enough). We've never had anyone touch our stuff. I'm not saying it never happens, because I'm sure it does on occasion, but we go to the water parks a lot and have yet to experience that.

I'm honestly pretty terrified of water slides and will want to be holding on to anything I can (like the tube handles) with all my might. Having to worry about holding on to water shoes would be an issue for me. Does anyone else know if there are cubby areas around the slides like another poster mentioned?

I can't promise it, as I don't use water shoes, but I'm pretty sure there are no cubby areas near the slides. If you wear them, you're expected to just hold onto them as you go down the slide.

 

[Albertan mom]

1. We just brought towels from our room, and then left them there when we were done with them.
2. I agree with above posters, it is not that big of a deal. We wear our flipflops there, then leave them at our chairs. Yes, there are a few hot spots but really not a big deal. When I went to get food and had to walk to the other side of TL, I put my flip flops on. When going to slides, there are lots of water sprayers on pavement to cool it and lots of dripping people!
3. We arrived last week about 1/2 hour after park opening and found a good spot by WavePool, Miss Adventure Falls. I wanted shade and my son wanted sun and we found a spot. Until the sun moved and then we were both in the sun lol. There are spots with big open shacks with roofs that would be good if you want shade all day. Nobody touched our stuff. Throughout the day people leave and by 2pm there were lots of open spots again.

 

[pd1138]

We did a water parks trip last summer bouncing back and forth between TL and BB spending four days at TL. Every day we arrived at opening and found PLENTY of shady free spots at TL, but none were near the wave pool, those spots were mostly in the sun. The spots we had were near miss adventure falls and a secluded spot that used to be the shark adventure attraction. For the towels I just walked up to the towel counter near the lockers and asked for towels. It is well marked. Had a magic band on, but they only asked if I was a Resort guest which I was and that was that. The first morning we had brought towels from our hotel pool and left them in the bins with the ones from the water park (they looked and were sized exactly the same). After the first day we just waited until we arrived at the water park and asked for towels. We packed lunches and left all of our stuff at our spot mostly unattended, but we did rent a locker for our smart phones just to be safe. As for water shoes we did bring them, but ended up not using them. I didn’t see any place to stash them near the rides. I did see several people hold on to them as they went down summit plummet at B.B. though and that’s a pretty extreme body slide. Hope you enjoy your trip!!

 

[brockash]

I'm honestly pretty terrified of water slides and will want to be holding on to anything I can (like the tube handles) with all my might. Having to worry about holding on to water shoes would be an issue for me. Does anyone else know if there are cubby areas around the slides like another poster mentioned?

I don't think they have hubbies, but for the ones where you exit close to where you enter, you could leave them there...nobody is going to walk off with someone else's swim shoes.

 

[Cinderella94]

There is not a cubby or anywhere else to leave your shoes at each slide.

 

[kbmartin]

A huge thank you to everyone for the feedback! I think we'll just bring our flip flops and leave them by our chair - sounds like we really don't need them to walk from place to place. I'm so glad I don't need to pack towels, too! I guess my only concern now is with phones - I didn't even think about that. We were planning to use Uber to get there and back to CSR (we would need a phone for that), but I don't want to worry about my phone being stolen. I don't know that I'd want to rent a locker just for a phone... Hmmm.... I'll have to think on that!

 

[Cinderella94]

A huge thank you to everyone for the feedback! I think we'll just bring our flip flops and leave them by our chair - sounds like we really don't need them to walk from place to place. I'm so glad I don't need to pack towels, too! I guess my only concern now is with phones - I didn't even think about that. We were planning to use Uber to get there and back to CSR (we would need a phone for that), but I don't want to worry about my phone being stolen. I don't know that I'd want to rent a locker just for a phone... Hmmm.... I'll have to think on that!

I definitely would. Once we had a buzz lightyear toy and something like some swim goggles taken from our lounge chair- people will take anything if they want it and the opportunity is there. I wouldn’t enjoy myself all day if I was worried about my phone being unsecured.

 

[cgattis]

I personally disagree with the “it’s not that bad” and I have pretty tough feet. It can get really hot in some areas and the wave pool can be very sharp on the bottom if it’s freshly resurfaced.

WRT wanting to have hands free to hang on while going down the slide, I wear water sandals with straps (not the mesh shoes) so I can slide them over my wrist and have my hands free.

 

[GADisneyDad14]

A huge thank you to everyone for the feedback! I think we'll just bring our flip flops and leave them by our chair - sounds like we really don't need them to walk from place to place. I'm so glad I don't need to pack towels, too! I guess my only concern now is with phones - I didn't even think about that. We were planning to use Uber to get there and back to CSR (we would need a phone for that), but I don't want to worry about my phone being stolen. I don't know that I'd want to rent a locker just for a phone... Hmmm.... I'll have to think on that!

FWIW, I bought a waterproof phone pouch last year. I was very hesitant to put an expensive piece of electronics in the water like that, but it works great (and I've made some great water pics/videos too). It's kind of annoying to carry around on your neck or in your pocket all day, but not the end of the world.

 

[Klayfish]

A huge thank you to everyone for the feedback! I think we'll just bring our flip flops and leave them by our chair - sounds like we really don't need them to walk from place to place. I'm so glad I don't need to pack towels, too! I guess my only concern now is with phones - I didn't even think about that. We were planning to use Uber to get there and back to CSR (we would need a phone for that), but I don't want to worry about my phone being stolen. I don't know that I'd want to rent a locker just for a phone... Hmmm.... I'll have to think on that!

That's up to you. My phone is $25, it's the cheapest Android you can buy because I'm not into tech. Even though we've never had anyone touch our stuff, it can happen on rare occasion. However, if they want my worthless phone, my sweaty, smelly t-shirt and flip flops they're welcome to have them.

 

[DisLiss]

There are no shoe cubbies, but as others have said, on rides where you can hold on to something...like a raft ride, you can keep the shoes on. On the body slides, where you need to remove your shoes, there is nothing else for you to hold onto. You're just crossing your arms over your chest, so you just cross them with shoes in hand.