Blizzard Beach and Winter Summerland Mini Golf
It wouldn’t be a Disney vacation in my book without at least one visit to a water park. This vacation we bought our tickets with the water parks and more option so we would be able to do the water parks more than once. Water parks are actually the only thing that my dad really enjoys at Disney! This year with the kids being almost 3 and 4-1/2 I knew that they would really enjoy them as well.
We went to Blizzard Beach twice and Winter Summerland Mini Golf once on this trip. The first day we packed a picnic lunch to eat – the second time we ate there. You don’t need to bring a lot when you go into the water parks but you can find a list of my essentials below.
Things to Pack:
- SUNSCREEN!! (this is a mandatory item- the Florida sun will bake you faster than you would think)
- Towels (you can rent them if you need to)
- Bathing Suits
- Clothes to change back into
- Sandals or water shoes – the concrete gets really hot sometimes
I told you it was a short list! We brought in a few more things since we brought a cooler with a picnic one day and just a cooler with the drinks the second day. If you have small kids make sure you bring swim diapers – I’m sure you can buy them if you forget though.
The water parks do provide life jackets – they are on a first come first serve basis though so if it is the busy season they may run out quickly. When we were there in September we had no problems getting life jackets.
We spent most of our time in the kids section (Tike’s Peak). We also did a few of the bigger slides, the wave pool, the lazy river and the family raft ride. One of the bigger slides we went on had a height restriction that let the kids go but it turned out to be a bad idea as you ended up flipping over when you hit the end! That turned Buddy off to any and all slides that weren’t in the kids area.
The waterparks are a more relaxing way to spend the day. I would highly recommend you visit if you have time in your schedule and you enjoy water.
After our second visit to Blizzard Beach we decided to try our luck at mini golf. This was my first visit to Winter Summerland Mini Golf. It is located right next to the entrance to Blizzard Beach which makes it convenient to do both in one day if you wanted to.
Mini golf counts as one of your “more” visits – so you definitely get more bang for your buck to use one of your visits at the waterparks but we were leaving the next day and decided to try out mini golf. The kids had a blast – I wish we had gone more than once! We may not have had any record scores but we had a great family adventure.
You walk up to the entrance, either pay or scan your passes, and they give you a tee time. In our case it was for a minute later (slow season!). After you check in, they give you your club and let you pick your ball. We chose the winter course and headed right out. Luckily we didn’t have anyone start directly after us as we were pretty slow!
The theming of the course is phenomenal – but you wouldn’t expect any less from Disney. The kids loved seeing what would happen at each hole as some had animated features. I would recommend this course for families with small children- we had a great time! If you are looking for a break from the parks while still enjoying all that Disney has to offer look no further than their waterparks or mini golf courses.
