We are two weeks from our first trip of the year and I was curious if anyone has tried the new arrival day water park perk yet. We arrive on a Sunday and our passes are only good on weekdays so I wonder if we even qualify! We are staying onsite but won’t even get there until around 2pm. Do we just go to Blizzard Beach and say, “Hey, let us in?” Or should I skip it and spend our first evening resort hopping Easter Egg displays? So many questions!
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The benefit is tied to your reservation check-in day, NOT to your tickets to the parks, so you would definitely qualify for access to BB on your check-in day. The question really comes down to whether you want to utilize the benefit or not.
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We had access in February but it just wasn’t warm enough. We also would have had to hustle to get there and make it worth our while; we would have done that had it been warmer but we had no interest in going to a water park when it wasn’t hot. We opted instead to skip it that time.
I’m heading down in June and expect to make use of it. I should be landing a little earlier than in Feb and it will definitely be warmer. I plan to strongly consider it.
But, I have a split stay across three resorts during that visit, so even if I skip it that first day, I will have two other chances to go, and most definitely will! It will be a nice way to spend my “homeless” hours. I plan to Lyft to my new resort to drop my bags off personally, and then bus over to the waterpark.
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I should also add, though, that it sounds like the one park is turning out not to be enough for what they’ve offered. I read that they have begun to turn away non-resort guests for capacity. Which won’t be a problem for you as a resort guest, but it may speak to how busy it is there. And that’s only going to become more of an issue as the heat grows — but they have BB scheduled to go down for refurb (and TF scheduled to open) on May 1 
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That’s disappointing. I’m surprised they didn’t keep both open for the warmer months. I’m wondering and frankly hoping that the free water park day is a one done. We really enjoy doing a water park and it’s supposed to be a more relaxing day away from the crowds. I suppose they aren’t so crowded in the morning and get busier later in the days as more people arrive for their trip.
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Just saw this and looks like it reinforces @OBNurseNH’s point above:
I thought for sure they’d use this perk as an excuse to keep both parks operating year round! I can see closing one for winter but leaving one closed all summer with this level of demand is insane.
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Yikes
They planned poorly for this! I wonder if they could pull back on the BB refurb that is supposed to start 5/1 and leave both open
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DD22 and I used this perk in February in spite of the weather. We had no trouble tapping in with our magic band and magic mobile. The other nice perk is they were handing out free towels to resort guests. I don’t recall this happening when we visited TL a few years ago. In fact, on that trip we “borrowed” towels from the resort pool to use at TL.
The day we went was a chilly weekend and at RD (we had arrived on a red eye flight) there were maybe 30 people there. I can imagine it being much more crowded on nice days.
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I suspect staffing is the main reason they don’t have both open at the same time. But then why offer this perk? It’s confusing.
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I think they are getting more interest than they expected. I worry about the split stay being axed from it, because switch day is the perfect day to go to a free admission water park.
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This is all so disappointing.
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When are you going? It might not be so bad at a non spring break time of year.
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Could this just be spring break crowds? We’re planning a water park day in May (not part of the onsite perk). Wondering if I should switch gears. We could do mini golf instead…
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It’s definitely exacerbated by spring break crowds. But imagine it will remain busy when it’s hot. It only started in January so regular summer season is untested.
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When did they announce this perk? I’m hoping they don’t offer it next year. We really like a water park day bit if it’s going to be this bad we may need to change our plans. It sounds like crowds don’t pick up until afternoon though so if you arrive at open perhaps you get a few hours in?
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Yes, towels for resort guests has been a thing but you need to know to ask at the gift shop.
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That may be a good plan. Go early and leave by mid afternoon. Although that’s when I like hanging out in the lazy river…
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It was announced in February 2024.
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I think it’s too late for that since they’re already selling packages and rooms for next year. They’ll basically need to announce it’s ending at least 18 months in advance to make a clean break.
They’re selling 2026 packages with WP tickets included?
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