The beauty of Disney's water parks is that you can make the experience fit your mood. Like crowds? Head for the lounge chairs along the Surf Pool at Typhoon Lagoon or Melt-Away Bay at Blizzard Beach. Prefer peace? Walk past lush foliage along each park's circular path until you spot a secluded lean-to or tree-shaded patch of sand.
According to Disney legend, Typhoon Lagoon was created when the lush Placid Palms Resort was struck by a cataclysmic storm. It left a different world in its wake: surfboard-sundered trees, once-upright palms imitating the Leaning Tower of Pisa, and a lagoon cut off from the sea, trapping thousands of tropical fish. Nothing, however, topped the fate of Miss Tilly, a shrimp boat from "Safen Sound, Florida," which was hurled high in the air and became impaled on Mount Mayday, a magical volcano that periodically tries to dislodge Miss Tilly with huge geysers.
Ordinary folks, the legend continues, would have been crushed by such devastation. But the resourceful residents of Placid Palms were made of heartier stuff—and from the wreckage they created 56-acre Typhoon Lagoon, the self-proclaimed "world's ultimate water park."
