My big brother doesn’t get to come to Florida too often. He’s been here three times in the four years I’ve lived here, and the first two visits were each only about three days long. This time I was getting him for almost a whole week! He flew in on Monday and wasn’t flying out until Saturday. I was dying to take him to a water park since I missed spending our summers at Splash Country, a water park near our hometown in Tennessee; and our New Year’s Eve tradition had once been an indoor water park. I gave him the option of Aquatica, Typhoon Lagoon, or Blizzard Beach. I have an annual pass to Aquatica and go there frequently, but I hadn’t been to Typhoon Lagoon in about three years, and Blizzard Beach in two. Robby asked what I thought would be best and I told him I’d go wherever he wanted. He picked Typhoon Lagoon partially for the giant wave pool and partially because he wanted me to get to do something different.
Despite me telling him in advance we were doing a water park, and him responding he would bring swim trunks, guess what he forgot… Thankfully most his gym shorts can double as trunks. That’s okay, because despite searching through every pile of laundry in my house, I couldn’t find the bottoms to the swim suit I was wearing. I had an older pink bikini but the top had lost all its padding to the wash, so I paired the bottoms with the black top I wanted in the first place. Mismatching bikinis are in style, right? (Just let me live in denial.)
We arrived at the park around 10:30 in the morning. The forecast was calling for storms around 4 that afternoon, but we weren’t worried. We’d stay as long as we could and then go home for a Disney movie marathon. (He still hadn’t seen Moana!) Our first priorities were getting sunscreen (I couldn’t find mine), and getting a locker to throw our stuff in. Usually I just leave most valuables in the car, but I also rarely go to a water park for more than a few hours. We went to the gift shop where we ran into my friend Andrew working at the Sunglass Hut. I bought the sunscreen with my annual pass discount and it was almost the price we would have paid at a drug store. I’ve lived here for four years and I still forget sunscreen is a thing one should use. I keep forgetting I no longer have my Ultimate Frisbee tan to protect me.
Robby shoved our stuff in the locker and for the first time ever, I was at a loss for what to do. I know every inch of the four main parks backwards and forwards, but I do not know Typhoon Lagoon at all. We went looking for one of the maps posted around the park. My priority was knocking out the new Miss Adventure Falls early in the day in case the weather got bad sooner than anticipated. For some silly reason, when I looked at the map I thought it was #3 so we went wandering around the park looking for it and couldn’t find it anywhere. We found another map and realized it was #9. Apparently I need to wear my glasses for more than just driving. One of the many entrances to the lazy river was right there so we hopped in, deciding to float our way around instead of walk. This wound up being a really nice trick and we used it a lot throughout the day. I’m used to them only having one entrance and exit, maybe two. Typhoon Lagoon’s Castaway Creek has five. There was a bit of a wait at the entrance for inner tubes so we opted to swim, and found abandoned ones floating just ahead that we quickly commandeered.
It took us maybe ten minutes to make our way around to the exit we needed. Miss Adventure Falls was only posting a fifteen minute wait and I’m not sure it took even that long. I was fascinated watching their loading procedures. Most water slides I’ve been on in my life operate in one of two ways: the rafts are brought up via a conveyor belt, or are carried up by the riders. Miss Adventure Falls actually loads the guests onto the rafts and then loads both onto the conveyor belt to the top, essentially making it an omnimover. I was wondering what happened if they got backed up at the exit since you can’t exactly stop a water slide. Turns out they stop the belt, as we got stuck halfway to the top. Along the conveyor belt there’s Miss Adventure’s parrot squawking at you, an extremely cool looking animatronic, and a suspended crate that looks like it’s going to fall on you. As we sat there I wondered out loud what their weather procedures are like. If lightning moves in, do they let everyone on the belt ride or do they pull everyone off? I still don’t know but I’m dying to find out. The raft moved quickly down the slide, but I still was able to get a good look at most of the theming. There’s a statue that spills water on your head as you pass by, and an Island Head being lifted by nets. We splashed down into the pool and scrambled to get out. I have never found a graceful way to get out of a raft. There was a Photopass photographer at the bottom and they gave us a tiny card with our photos on a rubber band, which I was happy to wear because I felt empty without my Fitbit. Something about having my wrist bare is just wrong but I forgot my old watch.
Not the best photo, but at least there was one. Miss Adventure Falls.
Crush n’ Gusher, Typhoon Lagoon’s water coaster made of three separate slides, was right next door so we headed there next. All of the slides can take two riders, with only one for single riders. We jumped in line for Banana Blaster, the one on the right so we could work our way from right to left and remember where we were in case we came back later. I love two people slides because I rarely have to carry the raft. In between our discussions of we’ve been watching on TV lately, (You try not seeing your brother for two years, there’s a lot to catch up on. Apparently we’ve both given up on Doctor Who. Ironically a day at a water park with him is why I started watching it in the first place!), even Robby was commenting on Disney’s efficiency as we watched how they loaded the slides. They have you put the raft down and sit into it backwards, then they push the button to send it after you turn to face the front. It lets them load both people at the same time instead of the one after another you see at most waterparks and saves a lot of time. Soon enough it was our turn, and the attendant told us “lightest in the front”. Oh goodie.
I feel like this is the perfect photo of our relationship.
I’ve never heard that boy yell so much on a water slide in my life. If you’ve never been on a water coaster before, you go down, and then you go back up with tremendous force. It’s incredible, and fast, and fun. We reached the bottom in no time at all and I barely managed not to fall out as we hit the pool. We both flipped off and swam for the stairs, then I found it too heavy to try to pick up.
“Sis, there’s water in it.”
Robby tipped it over and suddenly it was much easier to pick up. Rather than a hollow inner tube the rafts are more like tiny boats. They gave us another Photopass card and we went around to get in line again, only to find the line had gotten much longer. Rather than wait, we decided to go visit the wave pool and come back later.
We were crossing in front of the gift shop we had stopped at earlier when I spotted Lilo posing for pictures. Until that very second I had forgotten Lilo and Stitch make appearances at Typhoon Lagoon and I was suddenly so incredibly happy Robby had picked it over the other water parks.
[lgc_column grid=”50″ tablet_grid=”50″ mobile_grid=”100″ last=”false”]Everyone has their Disney characters. They’re Rapunzel and their boyfriend is Flynn, or they’re Tiana and their best friend is Lotte. My mom is Kanga and I’m Roo, and my brother is the Stitch to my Lilo. I have a lot of Stitch merchandise I wouldn’t have necessarily bought except that it reminds me of Robby and makes me happy. [/lgc_column][lgc_column grid=”50″ tablet_grid=”50″ mobile_grid=”100″ last=”true”]
[/lgc_column]
For Christmas year before last he even got me a best friends necklace off Etsy with the two of them. It’s why we went to ‘Ohana the last time he visited, and now we were going to get to see them again! We jumped in line, and I was getting ready to ask the character attendant if Stitch would be out when I heard him explaining to another family there were no set times. No matter, we’d keep checking. We got big hugs from Lilo and then made our way to the wave pool.
When it was built, Typhoon Lagoon had the largest wave pool in the world and is still currently the largest one in North America. I told Robby about the six foot high waves that come roughly every ninety seconds, but really that doesn’t do it justice. For someone who hates putting their head underwater, (I never mastered keeping water out of my nose as a child and have never been a strong swimmer) I really don’t know why I like it so much. I can only describe it as a giant wall of death water coming at you. When they say six feet high, they mean the water goes from being six feet deep to twelve feet with the swell. Robby and I were standing two feet from each other when the wave hit, and wound up ten feet apart. He lost his brand new sunglasses he’d bought the day before at Disney Springs, and thankfully recovered them quickly. I had a much bigger problem. Remember the old pink swim suit bottoms that didn’t match? Well it’s elastic gave up on me, and I caught the bottoms around my thighs. I got them up before anyone could see and started trying to figure out how to prevent it happening again. Robby, in between fits of laughter, asked if I could tie them tighter, but they don’t tie. The tassels on the hips are just decorative. That gave me an idea, however, and I undid the little bows. I managed to reach two of them over my stomach to tie them together, it looked ridiculous, but functional. It survived the next few waves at least, until we decided to get out to do slides. Once I was out of the water, it just looked ridiculous.
Off to the gift shop!
I hate paying Disney prices for things I could get elsewhere. I hate paying for anything that doesn’t have a Mouse or a Duffy, but I was not going to let our day at Typhoon Lagoon get cut short by this. I went through the options they had, I didn’t want to buy a whole overpriced swim suit so I looked at shorts instead of bottoms. My options were really obnoxious pink, black, or white. I thought the black would be too hard to match and a white swim suit has never sounded like a good idea to me in the first place, so I got the pink ones. At least they were fairly cute if overly bright. Robby actually found a pair of trunks he loved too so while he was trying them on I talked with Andrew. Lilo was out in front of the store again, so I got him to find Stitch’s next appearance for me just in time for Robby to come back to pay. Then we both went to change. He tossed his gym shorts back in the locker and I just threw the bottoms away. No point in keeping them.
We had about forty-five minutes to kill. I remembered not being overly impressed with Typhoon Lagoon’s body slides and climbing Mount Mayday just seemed like a lot of work so we headed to the lazy river again to reach the tube slides. We started with Mayday Falls, a slide with a yellow tube with a hump on the back to help you spin as you go down. The line took almost no time at all, we actually had to wait longer to get tubes. They have you put your tube into a pool of water and sit down backwards into it, then the poor lifeguard up to their waist in water pushes you down the slide. My favorite thing about these slides is they are concrete instead of plastic, and it’s a very different feeling than marching up hundreds of stairs. I flipped out of my tube at the bottom and handed it off to someone who was waiting, and Robby was right behind me. We stopped for a photo with a nearby Photopass photographer and asked him the time, then went back to the lazy river to make our way to Stitch.
I would like to state again how much I love Typhoon Lagoon’s lazy river and the ability to use it for transportation instead of walking barefoot on hot pavement all day.
Stitch’s line was only a few families deep and I was bursting with excitement. The last time we had met Lilo and Stitch we hadn’t been able to easily get both of us in the picture since it was a character breakfast. I had one key pose I wanted desperately in addition to a normal photo, and Robby and I planned out everything carefully as we waited. When it was our turn, Stitch was more than happy to play along! I also hopped out of the photo so Robby could get a solo picture.
From there we made a stop to get water and made our way back towards Crush n’ Gusher to try Coconut Crusher, the only one that you can take a single rider tube on. We still wanted to ride together, however, and my brother graciously let me carry the tube this time. As many times as I accidentally hit him with it, I’m amazed he didn’t take it away, and it was an accident almost every time. Right when we got to the top, with maybe three or four groups in front of us, the slide shut off. I watched curiously as they stopped the line and looked at the console. I told Robby, “I think the water slide just auto-Eed. This is fascinating. I didn’t know a water slide could E-stop!”
An E-stop is the emergency stop to be used in, well an emergency, but also in any unusual condition. An auto-E is when the ride stops itself because it thinks there’s a problem. Having worked at one of the most temperamental rides at Disney, there’s not normally an actual a problem. There are different procedures for what it takes to come back from an E-stop depending on the ride system, and they’re usually lengthy and annoying.
I asked the attendant and the ride had auto-Eed all right. She explained the likely cause and I peered on my tiptoes as another attendant proceeded to walk down the slide to push anyone who had gotten stuck out. No one except me would probably find this exciting, but I thought it was awesome.
The single riders in front of us were stuck waiting for Coconut Crusher to come back up, but they let us go over to the Pineapple Plunger instead. It was every bit as much fun as Banana Blaster but there was no photo at the end, so we stopped on the beach and got one instead.
Robby wanted to head back to the wave pool so that was our next destination. This time I got better at diving under the waves instead of just getting blown away by them. It’s so much ridiculous fun and terrifying all at the same time. Robby wanted to head out to the deep end to experience it’s full strength and we were left treading water as we waited for the next one to come. I’m really glad they’re only ninety seconds apart, for a Waterbender I really stink at swimming.
When a wave is made it sounds like a clap of thunder, and my head whipped around as I heard it. The wave was already building towards us.
“I hate you.”
I tried to body surf it as best as I could, and managed to ride it part of the way before it left me behind. I still couldn’t touch the bottom and I playfully glared at Robby as I swam for the shallows. I had gotten water up my nose. We rode out another wave and then headed towards the tube slides again to do Keelhaul Falls. It has blue normal inner tubes and is a bit slower than Mayday but still lots of fun. We then took a break to reapply sunscreen and grab a snack to evaluate our plans for the rest of the day. I was amazed when I checked the time, it was already four and there wasn’t a rain cloud in sight.
We made another stop in the wave pool and knocked out Gangplank Falls, a big raft ride like Miss Adventure Falls first. You actually get to roll the raft up to the slide yourself on this one and I asked the cast members how many times a day they get hit. They said none, but I still don’t believe them. It’s got light theming like Miss Adventure as well, and you pass lots of crates of fireworks.
Then for our final attraction of the day we decided to do a lap and a half of the lazy river so we would do the whole thing once and get out at the front of the park. Except when we made it around to the front the second time we weren’t ready to get out yet, so we wound up doing two full laps so we could go back to the wave pool for one last wave. Except that turned into two too because it hit almost as soon as we were waist deep in the water. The very last wave took my sunglasses off my head and I found them floating behind me. We stopped for one final photo at the front of the wave pool before going to clean out our locker.
I always say Aquatica is my favorite water park, but I honestly cannot picture a more perfect day than the one I spent at Typhoon Lagoon with Robby. It has definitely moved up on the list, and I can’t wait to go back.
Cost: Water park tickets for a single day are $66 after tax. With the annual passholder special they were $45 each.
Duration: All day.
Value: Amazing. I want to go back!
Add Ons: Typhoon Lagoon sometimes has private surf lessons in the morning for $165, but they don’t include the park admission. The locker was $10.
Stay up to date on all things Twenty Something in Orlando by subscribing to our newsletter or supporting us on Patreon! You can also find us on Twitter and Instagram!
