Day 7 - Blizzard Beach

Another down day at the waterpark and the family goes wild. The kids just love the waterparks, so we made time to hit them both while in the world. We had really been excited about and very happy with Typhoon Lagoon, but felt that Blizzard Beach deserved it's own day too. And now that the day is done, we're glad we did.

At first look, we were concerned that it just had too many thrill type rides (more for me, less for Julie and the kids). It turned out that the rides actually suited us better than the set over at Typhoon Lagoon. We were also a little worried that it would be much hotter than Typhoon because the theming wouldn't have as many trees (more trees in the south pacific than on an iceberg) and the white "ice" would act as huge reflectors. The worries turned out to be unfounded, but we were still willing to risk not getting there for rope drop to allow the kids a little more sleep. We had accumulated a few extra meal credits (because we have been so full), so Julie and I snuck over to the restaurant to grab waffles, pancakes and eggs for breakfast. It was a chore carrying it all back, but we survived.

Even with breakfast and a little more sleep, we still arrived before the park opened. Julie and I made our guesses to where we should head to get a good spot and when the park opened Julie, Connor and Mallory made their way to find a spot, Court and I headed for the park's headliner, Summit Plummet (the world's tallest and fastest free-fall body slide, 120ft tall). When a slide has a title like that, I can't pass it up and somehow, I talked Courtney into it. It was intimidating making the hike up, but once on the slide, it kind of all slinks away. From the top of the slide, we looked down at Animal Kingdom's Everest, Magic Kindom's Thunder and Splash Mountains, Epcot's giant golf ball and Hollywood Studios' Tower of Terror. So atleast the view was nice. The ride takes no time at all, but was fun.

Julie had found a great shady spot right next to the pre-teen area. So with that off our minds, we jumped on the ski lift up to the family raft ride. Teamboat springs was very cool, probably our favorite in the park. It's a super long ride (1400 ft, just looked it up) that we could all ride together and we didn't have to tote our raft. They load them up for you, nice. There are lots of turns and splashes without feeling like you are drowning, just enough to cool you down and be fun. We liked it so much, we went right back before the ski lift got too crowded.

We walked over to the tubes. The rides were fun, but you had to lug your own tube up the hill. Our second time up, I carried 3 tubes. That put an end to that set of rides. Next up was the racing area. The tube race was fun and it gave your times, but the line was too long. I got a little competitive on it and ended up flying off the tube at the end. I'm sure it was pretty funny to watch. The favorite race ride was the mat race. It was an eight lane slide, straight shot with three hills. Again, bringing out the competitive nature in me wasn't too hard and I showboated across the finish line.

After another filling lunch, Julie and I let the kids play in the ski patrol area (three tube rides, a T bar, a small obsticle course and pool. While the kids played, we enjoyed a nice nap. Can't tell you how much we enjoyed the nap. Great spot Julie, nicely done.

We jumped on the slalom rides, the other slides, the lazy river and the small wave pool after the nap. All in all, we actually liked Blizzard better than Typoon. Good thing we found time for both parks.

When we got back, we changed and headed over to downtown disney. We found our souvenier set of christmas ornaments at the Christmas shop, at dinner ate Wolfgang Puck's and saw the cool stores and clubs in Downtown Disney and Pleasure Island. The Lego Store and soon to be opened TRex Restaurant were big hits. We made our way back to Disney Quest to have another go. This time it was much less crowded andit made all the difference, that and knowing where to go. Virtual Pirates was very cool. We manned our own boat. Julie captained us and the kids and Ishot down the other pirate ships for booty. It was very fun. That was followed by virtual jungle cruise where you have to paddle your own raft, the Aladdin ride where you fly around on magic carpets and everyone turns into monkeys, Buzz Lightyear bumper cars where you shoot rubber balls at your opponents along with crashing into them, human pinball, Star Wars podracer, and an assortment of video games. Julie doesn't normally like video games, but even she had a good time. Could be because she killed me at everything we did, but I think she'd have had a good time either way. We had to drag the kids out. We had another busy day planned.