For Abby's 7th birthday we planned a fun day full of water park fun! It was a Thursday so it would be less crowded than a weekend and Gigi and Pops could join us (extra baby sitters so we could head down more slides ha!)
We arrived at the park shortly after it opened. Parking was a breeze (free!) and they had parking attendants to guide you into a spot. We unloaded, sunscreened up and headed to the gates. Thanks to the US Family Guide bloggers and Schlitterbahn we already had tickets for us and just needed two more since we brought Gigi and Pops along. There were plenty of lines opened and we barley had any wait at all to get our wristbands to get into the park.
We were able to get all set up at a picnic table with our ice chest. It was handy to have a couple strong guys with us because the park is not totally stroller friendly. We asked the best way to get down to the picnic tables and was told the way to the least amount of stairs or a life guard could guide us out and back in to the ramp. Not totally easy to find or navigate with a stroller but they were happy to direct us.
Have the ice chest filled with lunch, snacks and drinks was awesome because the kids though it was a great time for a snack once we got set up. So a snack it was before heading to ride some rides. We went and rounded up our tubes (fyi the ones with the mesh to create a bottom for the little guys can be found at guest services) We found them little tubes but I didn't realize you had to go and ask for the ones with the bottoms in the Original Schlitterbahn West section of the park until we were leaving.
After this park I put the camera in the locker and we were off to have some fun.
We started off at the Hillside ride while Gigi and Lexie explored some kids areas. While there was no height requirement she would have had to have been in her own tube which she wasn't big enough to do that.
We then headed to the Cliffhanger another tube ride. This one was another river like tube slide. Micah was done with this ride about half way through - my little guy doesn't have any meat on his bones so the river water that feels nice and cool when you are in the sun chilled him while we went through shady areas and he was getting cold! (Hard to believe on a 100 degree day!)
After a picnic lunch we headed to Surfenburg and Blastenoff. The tram/bus between Schlitterbahn East and West was easy peasy to get on - it was waiting when we went out, we got right on and headed over. (It was the same when we headed back as well)
The first thing the kids wanted to do was the Kiddie Cove with the Pirate Ship and the Kristal River with the alligators (go figure with my kids and their love of alligators!) The Kristal River was nice and one of the best 'lazy' rivers I've been on. This one had the kids tubes right in and waiting. Lexie loved being able to sit in her own tube.
At this point Beau and I headed off to ride the Dragon Blaster. I was afraid it might be too much for Abby (and Micah wasn't tall enough) but after the ride I think she could have handle it if she would have been patient enough to wait because their was a bit of a wait for this ride.
We tried to go to the Wolfpack but the line was again long (the sign said it would have been a 90 minute wait - while I don't think it would have been that long it was still longer than they wanted to wait since they saw the Han's Hideout slides down below) So we hung out at the Han's Hideout and went around the wave pool river The Torrent which was one of Beau's favorites. (And Han's Hideout was high on the list of the kids favorite as well.)
Then it was back to pack up our stuff and head home. The littles made it from opening at 10 am until after 4 pm. It helped that Lexie snuck in a nap on our way there because since she stroller was hard to navigate with the stairs in the Schlitterbahn West we did not bring it over to Schlitterbahn East. She almost feel asleep twice but woke back up.
There were tons of places for the littles to play with slide their size and Schlitterbahn made it easy to find tubes for them. Every area of the park we went to had at least one little kid area that they could play in so they were not excluded from the fun in any way. We did learn we would have needed another day (or two!) to see and ride all the rides. Beau and I already want to go back sans kids one day just so to go down all the bigger rides that they wouldn't want to wait in line to ride.
It was an awesome day and a fun way to spend Abby's birthday. Thank you Schlitterbahn!
Disclosure: I received 4 tickets for my family to visit Schlitterbahn through a partnership between Schlitterbahn and the US Family Guide bloggers. All opinions are my own.
