When planning a vacation to the Walt Disney World Resort, you begin making dinner reservations, fast pass+ selections, planning which characters you’re going to meet and probably mixed in there is some downtime away from the parks. When planning some down time, or new experiences, you’ll find the Disney resorts and Disney Springs offer some interesting options; like watercraft rentals, new dining choices, dinner shows, and even mini-golf courses. But would you ever expect to find bowling at Walt Disney World? Me neither! Enter, Splitsville. This multi-purpose two story restaurant, bar, bowling alley and gift shop, houses one of the coolest experiences I have ever encountered during my 20+ trips to Disney World and the Orlando area.
On my most recent mother/daughter trip with my mom, we encountered some delays from the airport, making our arrival to Port Orleans Riverside so late that we missed our reservations we had previously made. Our resort manager was kind enough to comp us a cab to Disney Springs for our troubles. When we got there the first thing we saw after getting out of the cab at Disney Springs was the sign for Splitsville. We looked at each other and said lets give it a shot!
We got in line and realized we were both wearing sandals, but no worries, they had socks for sale at the counter for about $6.00 a pair. We each got a pair and they are by far the plushest, comfiest socks I’ve EVER owned. Extremely good quality and very comfortable! Well worth our $6.00. We paid for our 1 hour round of bowling and received a buzzer for our twenty minute wait for a table since we did not have reservations. Wait times vary, after we got through the line a large group of teens came in and the wait time instantly went up another thirty minutes. When our buzzer went off, we selected our shoe sizes and we were led up an escalator to our own personal lane upstairs. Our hostess explained how the timer worked and that it started when we bowled our first frame. We quickly put on our socks and shoes at our own high table booth and selected our bowling balls. Before we rolled our first frame our very attentive server came over to start us off with something to drink and to take our order. We decided to play it safe and stick with a pepperoni pizza, even though every single person we encountered said the sushi is to die for. (Maybe next trip!)
After ordering, we entered our names into the system and got the ball rolling! (Pardon the pun.) Each lane is in a cluster of around two or three lanes; our section had three individual lanes. The atmosphere is a cross between a nostalgic retro/fifties era blowing alley and just enough of a modern vibe to bring it into 2016. The alleys are lit up with multi colored LED lights and there was always great music playing from the classics to current hits. The Major League Baseball All-Star Game was playing that night and our server was more than glad to change the channel to the t.v. in our lane so I could watch my favorite players!
At first I was skeptical that one hour would be long enough to get our moneys worth. It was really the perfect amount of time for us, although our server said that on occasion if the wait isn’t too long they would let you stay over a bit to finish up a game if you happened to be in the middle of one. In our one-hour session, we bowled two and a half games and had plenty of time to enjoy our DELICIOUS pizza and drinks.
Pricing and time allowed on the lanes is based on how many people are in your party and what time you arrive. My parents are DVC members and we also received 20% off our bowling and socks and since we are also annual passholders, we received 20% off of our food! I loved the fact you could come in and just eat or just get a drink in the bar, or you could just bowl. You don’t have to do both but it is way more fun if you do!
Overall we had a FANTASTIC experience at Splitsville! I would highly recommend it to families who are looking for something new to do on their Disney vacation that’s slightly out of the ordinary, but that’s not so extreme you are scared to try it. It is great fun for every member of the family because in addition to the various seating options for different age groups, they also provide bumper guards for the lanes and bowling track guides for some of your younger (or older) bowlers who have trouble throwing the ball down the lanes. Try it out during early bird pricing for an early lunch, maybe after an early morning rope drop at one of the parks to have a midday break as a refreshing way to relax and unwind before hitting up the parks for more rides and fun! Whatever time of day you go, you are sure to have a swell time at Splitsville at Disney Springs! I can’t wait to go back and try it again!
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