By Undercover Diva
It’s a common thing around Walt Disney World, you are in line for your favorite ride and all the sudden you hear a great big CRACK! Depending on where you are you might be fine, or you might have to get out of line and find a new place to wait out the storm. But the worst place for this to happen is when you are at one of Walt Disney World’s two water parks. The rules are, that the rides will be closed down for 30 minutes after the last strike this is at least 6 miles away. This could mean many things for you and how you will spend the rest of your day.
The first thing to think about is GET UNDER SHELTER. Thunder storms can be dangerous, especially around water. Second, see if you can’t just wait it out. This is often one of the best things to do. So many people go home because they don’t want to wait or because they are too worried about the storm. But if there are only one or two lightning strikes, you only have to wait a short amount of time. And guess what? All those people when home, so now the lines are even shorter! This is time time to hop on some of the popular rides, and maybe do them multiple times. Some people may come back once the storm clears, but you will have been their way longer.
If you don’t think it’s going to be a short storm, just get out of there. It happened to me the other day at Blizzard Beach. I was in line with a friend for a slide when the wind picked up and the dark clouds started to roll in, we immediately jumped out of line and got our stuff to leave. As soon as we hit the little roof where we would meet our bus, the rain came pouring down and the thunder and lighting was right on top of us. We were glad to beat the crowds out, especially since I later heard from a Cast Member that they shut the whole park down for the rest of the day, except for the food and shops. So what now? Your day was cut short and in weather like this, you don’t want to go to another park either. So what are your options?
- Head to your hotel for a warm shower and go check out the arcade. Many of the hotels have arcades and the token cards are good at all Disney Resorts. Race each other on motorcycles or in cars or shoot some hoops and see who gets the best score.
- Play a card game. You can buy a deck of cards from the gift stores within the resorts and then you can hold your own family game night (plus you pick up a fun souvenir!). Depending on the age level of your group and the number of people you have, there are many different games you can play. You could even attempt to make up your own game!
- Once the storm passes you can hit up Downtown Disney or if you have park hopper tickets try to catch a show at one of the parks. Nothing saves the day like a good firework show!
- Go bowling! Grab your poncho and head to Downtown Disney while it is still raining and go
bowling at the Splitsville Luxury Lanes. Not only do they have 30 lanes, but they also have great food, entertainment, billiard tables and merchandise! Sounds like you could spend enough time in there for the storm to pass.
- You could also use the Disney Transportation and go resort hoping and look at all the other resorts in the area. Disney puts a lot of details into their parks, but you might be amazed at how much detail they put into their resorts as well! I’ve found them to be amazing both inside and out!
Most of all, don’t let the bad weather get you in a bad mood. Remember that most the time, the rain doesn’t stick around very long, so don’t run away too fast. Sometimes all you have to do is pop into a store or have some lunch and it will pass.
