How Much Time at the Water Park?

When we go, we usually go early in the morning when they open and go back to our resort around 2 or 3. That seems to be plenty of time for both. I've eaten at both and they are really good! They only have QS options, but the launching pad at BB is excellent!

We've also taken our food in as well if we aren't on the dining plan.

We've never spent an entire day at a waterpark. I love doing several laps around the lazy river, but I can't handle many of the water slides/rides due to motion sickness issues, and sitting out in the sun is also a problem since I'm quite pale and burn easily. I imagine people without those concerns could easily spend a whole day at a waterpark.

We've eaten at both water parks. The food's okay, just typical amusement park food. If you're there, you're hungry, and you aren't planning on leaving anytime soon, it'll fill the space in your belly without disrupting your day. On our last trip we had a nice big Cape May Cafe breakfast before heading for Blizzard Beach and were just as happy we did. I think for the future, I'd try to make a point of eating a large breakfast or early lunch someplace nicer before going to the water park and getting at most a snack while there. (The donuts are awesome.)

Hi Kristen K - our family does not spend an entire day at the water park, but we also try to make it to a water park 3 or 4 times during a 5-6 day trip. Depending on the time of year, we typically enjoy doing the following:

Spring/Summer hours when water parks open at 8am: Get on the first bus to the water park and enjoy all the rides right when the park opens. We are back to our hotel by 11/12 for lunch and getting ready to go to a theme park.

Fall/winter hours when the water parks open at 10am: Go to the early open theme park and then go to the water parks for/after lunch.

Quick Efficiency Tip: Any bus departing Animal Kingdom (except the AKL bus) goes to Blizzard Beach for pickup before heading to the resort. We take advantage of the AK early open (wearing our suits under our clothes) and then hop on the first bus out of AK to get to BB in a timely manner.

We don't spend any time in the waterparks and I think we have only used the hotel pools a handfull of times in all our trips.
I think this is largely down to living on an island where a good beach is never more than 5 minutes away so the whole swimming thing seems kind of redundant .

We did two water park days on our last trip. We arrived around 2:00 and thought that three hours would be plenty of time, but I was very disappointed when 5:00 rolled around and I definitely could have spent twice as much time at each park. Benn was pretty good with the 3 hours. He was having fun, but the lazy river made him a little bit motion sick and he tired quickly of walking up many, many stairs to do each slide. I think that I could spend a whole day at either water park easily.

We did not have any food. We arrived after lunch and the park closed before dinner. In fact, by the time we arrived around 2:00, I saw very little dining activity and it seemed that many places were not serving anymore?

My preference for theming was definitely Typhoon Lagoon, but I much preferred the Toboggan style slides at Blizzard Beach to anything that TL had. The lazy river seemed mostly the same at both. In the large wave pool area, I liked the big waves at TL, but I felt a little bit unsafe because instead of crashing on sand you crash on concrete if you miss-judge the wave. I would have liked to have a boogie board or something at TL. I liked that BB had floatation devices in the big pool, but the waves were boring and that motion actually made me a little bit queasy.

I lasted about 4 hours, it was fun but I then changed plan and did not do my other 2 water park days. I guess I'm just not a water park person, I did the big slides and lazy river. Also did the little shark swim.

I would only go back if I really needed a rest day, but even then I would probably find something else to do.

Thanks that will be a big help when deciding what type of tickets to get!

We usually only go when we have the kiddies with us. We are usually good for three or four hours. I love the TL wave pool. Slides are better at BB. Mini Donuts are awesome. We did a cabana at TL once- it was nothing great. Overall I prefer TL to BB. But SAB is good enough on a hot day.