December 2, 2001 - Blizzard Beach

It's Sunday, a day of rest.  We laze about the campground for most of the morning.  I snooze and watch the morning news shows.  Rick and Suzie take the kids to the playground and for pony rides.  There's some quiet play in the trailer.  Early in the afternoon we drive over to Blizzard Beach, one of the WDW water parks.  It's eighty degrees and sunny.  A good choice.  The story of Blizzard Beach is that one particularly cold winter in central Florida there was a huge snowstorm.  Someone decided to build a ski area. As soon as the lifts and ski trails were built a thaw melted all the snow, leaving nothing but running water.  The décor features ski lodges in chalet style.  The feature ride here is a 120-foot high water slide that looks like a ski jump.  A moving river of water runs around the entire circumference.

We set up at Tike's Peak, the area reserved for the youngest children.  In an unusual move, Disney has limited this area to children under forty inches tall.  The lifeguard almost doesn't let six-year old Alex play here.  The kids run into the water and begin enjoying the first real free play they've had since they arrived.  While Disney theme parks are filled with action and imagination, almost every attraction is fully programmed.  Kids can choose what they ride on.  After they choose, however, they follow Disney's script. Here they can run and splash and spray - play away to their heart's content.

Rick and I check out the rest of the park.  He decides to ride the Summit Plummet.  I wait at the bottom camera in hand.  Soon I see Rick poised at the top.  I point the camera and see his tiny figure plummet from the top and disappear.  He shoots out of a cave with a roar and skids to a stop at the end of the long runoff.  He stands and grins.

We go back to Tike's Peak to collect the kids and take them to Cross Country Creek for a trip around the park's perimeter.  We step into the water and grab tubes for each of us as they float past.  The water flows quietly around the park as we float along on tubes, lying back and looking at the sky.  Lifeguards stand at stations so we're never out of site of one. Later, Irene and I go back to do it again while the kids swim.  I find that floating without a tube is easier for me and more fun.  Irene says she could just float all day.  We get out of the Creek at a different landing and walk past Melt Away Bay, a one-acre wave pool, which the kids must get into.

Before allowing them into Melt Away Bay, we hop on the ski lift and ride it to the top of the mountain.  There's a measuring post where Alex discovers he's too short to ride the Summit Plummet but thinks this applies to Teamboat Springs also.  He says he's frightened, but Rick cajoles and reassures him.  We step onto a moving belt and into an eight foot in diameter blue tubes with handholds on the bottom and the rim.  We try to
distribute our weight equally and over the rim we go. This bobsled type ride takes us down in twists and turns and dives.  We climb the wall and then dive around curves.  It's lots of fun.  The kids are good scared.  We move back to Melt Away Bay where the kids jump into the water.  We watch for a while before returning for another circuit of Cross Country Creek.  We return to our stuff and soon the family returns.  They've done some more rides together.  While the kids play in Tike's Peak, Rick goes off and rides the other slides too intense for the kids.  It's nearing closing time as we head for the exit, happy and tired.  We eat dinner at Planet Hollywood and the kids go to sleep more easily than any previous day.