Blizzard Beach is an amusement park located at the Walt Disney Resort in Lake Buena Vista, Florida.
The water park was the third water amusement park to be opened at the Walt Disney Resort back in 1995 to add to its Typhoon Lagoon and River Country. Like all of Disney’s other amusement parks, it had its own ‘theme’. Here, the initial idea was to create an amusement park based upon the Disney idea of replicating a freak snowstorm occurring in the state of Florida with the idea of creating Florida’s first ski resort. Nevertheless, snow and Florida does not sit easily together and so the amusement park eventually became a waterlogged mess which led to its rebirth as a water amusement park.
The amusement park attracted almost 1.9 million visitors in 2008, making it the world’s second most popular water park behind its ‘
sister’ park, Typhoon Lagoon.
Most of the amusement park’s major attractions are colour coded into three slopes – green, purple and red. These are all situated on top of an artificial hill which stands at 90 feet called Mount Gushmore.
The red slope only has the one attraction, the Runoff Rapids which is a 600 feet slide where riders travel down on inner tubes. Most of the amusement park’s main attractions are on the green and purple slopes. The main difference between the two being that the green slope slides are all single track whilst the purple slope slides have double identical tracks which make them ideal if you want to race down against others.
On the green slope, Summit Plummet is the flagship ride and at 120 feet, it’s the world’s fastest and second tallest free fall slide. Another record breaking ride can be found on the green slope at the amusement park with Teamboat Springs, at 1,430 feet, being the longest artificial whitewater raft ride in the world. Team Downhill Double Toboggan Racers is the flagship ride of the amusement park’s purple slope which involves racing on your stomach on a toboggan style mat through an artificial snow slope to the finishing line.
See also:
Amusement Parks: Aquatica - a Potted History
Amusement Parks: Adventure Landing and Shipwreck Island - a Potted History
Amusement Parks: Adventure Island - a Potted History
Amusement Parks: Busch Gardens - a Potted History