Be blown away at Typhoon Lagoon by Tamela Hansen

     As the summer warms up everybody wants to cool down on their Walt Disney World vacations!  The parks offer several areas with cooling mists and water rides, but my favorite thing to do in the summer is going to the water parks at Walt Disney World!  We love Typhoon Lagoon!

     Typhoon Lagoon offers so many fun activities for the entire family just like Blizzard Beach but with a different twist.  A typhoon hit Walt Disney World and left this awesome water park behind!  This is the only place you can swim in one of the largest wave pools, ride water slides, float down the lazy river, and swim with shark!  Yes, I said swim with sharks and Wow what an experience!                                                                                             For the Shark Reef experience, you may know how to swim, but I recommend grabbing a life vest to make the experience even more enjoyable.  Through this adventure you will find yourself in chilly and very deep water. To keep the fish from being spooked you can not kick your feet to swim.  You are only allowed to use your arms to guide you over stingray, tropical fish, and of course Shark!  Brace yourself they are real!

     Of course a family favorite is always Castaway Creek!  This lazy river will meander through misty rain forests, a hidden grotto, and a few more surprises along the way.  With leaves falling everywhere you get the feeling of floating down a creek back home!

     You have to go and ride Crush 'n' Gusher. This has the best variety of water slide roller coasters I've ever experienced.  You have three slide options Banana Blaster, Coconut Crusher, and Pineapple Plunger.  So to get the full experience you have to ride them all!

     Gangplank Falls is a must do for all families.  This is a ride we have done with our children since they were toddlers.  It is so much fun to slide down and get wet with the little ones. Now that my children are getting bigger I think it may be even more fun with teenagers.

     Humunga Kowabunga are three water slides that reach 30 miles per hour!  All three are identical and you can even race to the bottom.  To all girls "beware of the bathing suit"!  These are very exhilarating slides and just a complete blast!

     Of course you're at Walt Disney World so the toddlers are never left out. There is a very special place just for children ages 2 to 5 to enjoy their own water adventures. This area is called Ketchakiddee Creek and your toddlers will love it.

     Now, while walking around Typhoon Lagoon you may hear some roaring and crashing but no it's not dinosaurs it,s just a massive wave pool!  As one of the world's largest wave pools this pool holds 3 million gallons of water! When the roar of the waves come hold on tight, your either riding the wave or get knocked down!  Either way you're gonna love it!

     Typhoon Lagoon is a must do summer adventure at Walt Disney World!  It offers all the conveniences you need such as lockers, refillable cups, tasty food, souvenir stores, in case you forgot something, and a few surprises around every corner.

     The dining at Typhoon Lagoon does not disappoint!  Just like all of the Walt Disney World Resort the food is scrumpdiddlyumptious!  If you are on the Disney Dinning Plan you can always use it at the water parks.  Don't forget to stop and satisfy your sweet tooth with an ice cream pail or a Mickey bar and for the adults maybe a frozen cocktail or draft beer.  It's all part of the Disney experience!

     So if you're visiting the Walt Disney World Resort this summer make sure you put Typhoon Lagoon on your list of must do's!  You won't regret it, but you're Gonna Get Wet!

Great America-Best In Northern California Family Fun!

California's Great America

If you’re a resident of Northern California, then you already know how lucky we are to live in a place rich in culture, art and family fun.  With today’s tough economic times and rising gas costs, it can be almost impossible to find an affordable place close to home where the entire family can laugh and play together. 

Nestled an hour south of San Francisco, in the heart of Silicon Valley is the perfect place for a day of family entertainment and fun- California’s Great America part of the Northern California Bay Area since 1976. My family and I were treated to a fulfilled day last weekend at California’s Great America which is now part of the Cedar Fair Entertainment Group and are in total agreement when we say that this is Northern California’s biggest and best choice for world-class family fun and thrills.

 Being coaster fanatics, of course our first stop was the new Gold Striker, the tallest and fastest wooden roller coaster in Northern California. Throughout the day, we were kept busy by the plethora of thrill rides the park had to offer but as a grandma and kindergarten teacher, I was even more delighted in the Peanut’s themed KidZville and Planet Snoopy area that featured Snoopy and his friends in a well laid out and fun self contained area of it’s own that ensured that even the smallest of visitors has just as great a time as the teens and adults while visiting the park. 

You never have to ride a single ride to enjoy the day at Great America. With a full range of entertainment scheduled throughout the summer and the return of Snoopy and the gang in the summer ice spectacular Happiness Is Snoopy! California’s there truly is something for everyone. Food choices were plentiful with such fares from Subway and Panda Express to amazing and delicious eating choices throughout the park.  

Did you know that Great America is home to the most rides and most water rides in Northern California? Plus, it is the only theme park in California to offer a complete water park inside – free with park admission. For not much more than the cost of a one day ticket, you can enjoy Great America all summer long with a Season Pass which includes extra benefits such a payment plan, bring a friend, discounts, admission to Boomerang Bay Water Park not to mention the ability to play all summer long.

The new free interactive app made navigation of Great America a breeze. In the Fall, the park also features Halloween Haunt, the ultimate Halloween extravaganza featuring walk-through mazes, scare zones, and Halloween themed rides and shows. What are you waiting for? Great America is the Northern California destination for family fun. The 100-acre theme park is located on Great America Parkway between highways 101 and 237 in Santa Clara, Calif. Open March through October. For more information or discount tickets, call 408-988-1776 or visit www.cagreatamerica.com.  We can’t wait to return to Great America, Northern California’s best in family fun.

Disclaimer: My family and I received admission for review purposes for this promotion however the opinions expressed here are entirely my own.

Gayle is a lifelong educator by day and avid blogger by night and is the owner and cofounder of the Disney Gals, one of the most popular Disney blogs around! Proud mommy to 5, Grammy to 4 she is blessed to share her life with amazing family and friends who encourage her to chase her dreams no matter where they may lead.  When not in the classroom, she can be found following her son as he dances his way through life, or working with young performers in free nationally recognized after school children’s theater program that she founded 13 years ago. On any given day you will find Gayle skipping her way through life with a giggle and a smile knowing that today is meant to be lived and enjoyed. To learn more about Gayle, click here.

When Is a Ride Not a Ride-When It's at Disneyland and Walt Disney World of Course!

A Look At How A Grown Man Came to Love Disney Rides

Back in the Stone Age before I discovered Disneyland, theme parks meant rides and rides meant roller coasters, the bigger and faster the better or so I thought. Giant roller coasters were few and far between on the east coast in the 60’s but I went on a few and the actual ride though fun was always less than the expectation and there was a nagging feeling that this just wasn’t all that great.

A while back I spent a fun day of frantically chasing a much younger and much smaller Zack around Six Flags Discovery Kingdom in Vallejo, CA. Six Flags has a large

compliment of exciting roller coasters, both steel and wood, that go straight up into the air with inverted loops aplenty, or straight down and bone jarring and everything in between. Zack had to go on every roller coaster multiple times and of course if he wanted to go on a coaster multiple times so did I. I did my best, honest I did. I kept up with him but after the fourth or fifth time on Roar, a giant old school wooden coaster, my kidneys were rattling, my spleen was ready to come up my throat and I felt sure I must be hemoraging internally. I realized at that moment roller coasters really weren’t my thing. And I realized another thing. There are roller coasters at Disneyland but not very many and there’s a reason for that. At Disneyland every ride tells a story.

A roller coaster anywhere else is a huge mass of wood or steel that can be incredibly thrilling for the moment and if the adrenaline rush is enough for you than that’s just fine and dandy. But at Disney parks the story is the thing and everything about the ride is in service to the story. Some stories are journeys through exotic places like the Jungle Cruise. Some rides put you in a movie scene like Star Tours or Peter Pan’s Flight. Others want to take you to really scary places like Tower of Terror or the Haunted Mansion. Some rides have a very specific message presented in an extremely entertaining way like It’s A Small World. The common denominator is that every ride has a story. Even the gentlest rides like Storybook Land Boat Canals, which I happen to like quite a bit, serves as a great travelogue through Disneyized fairy tale lands.

What about the coasters at Disneyland and Disney World? They’re all about great stories. Like all Disney rides there’s a prequel, that wait in the Queue that at any other park is a boring prelude to a ride but at Disney sets the stage for the ride with all manner of story telling techniques. Take Expedition Everest at Disney’s Animal Kingdom for example. You start at a travel agency, progress through a tearoom, equipment room and a Yeti Museum all of which advance the story of the Yeti on Mt. Everest and all building excitement for the coaster expedition. Then you get into a rickety steam powered car and go on an exciting expedition through the Himalayas through dangerous appearing mountain passes with tracks that seemingly end abruptly evading very scary Yetis before emerging hopefully unscathed. Not only have you been on a great coaster ride but also you’ve just been through a great story.

How about some of the other Disney coasters? Rock ’n’ Roller Coaster Starring Aerosmith takes you on a journey through Los Angeles’ convoluted freeway system in order to make it to the big show on time. Big Thunder Mountain Railroad takes us on a trip through an abandonad mining camp on haunted trains.

Even California Screamin’ which doesn’t seem to have a story is meant to be a coaster in an idealized version of a beach boardwalk amusement park like the one in Santa Cruz but to me really harkens back to Coney Island or Atlantic City in the 50’s or 60’s.

I like all the Disney coasters but as I said earlier I discovered that coasters really aren’t my thing. So what is my thing? I like the dark rides and the journeys at Disney best. My favorite rides in no particular order are Haunted Mansion, Soarin’ Over California, Pirates Of The Caribbean, Tower of Terror, and Jungle Cruise. Over the next few weeks I’ll be writing about each of these rides but first I’m going to need to do some extra research. Luckily I’ll be going as a family member to the Disney Social Media Moms Celebration at Disneyland this week and  I intend to spend some quality time on my favorite rides. I’ll see you with more soon.