Polar Plunge Winter Festival

Have done this awesome event in snow, wind, rain even the best sunlight during the winter time… can’t wait to do it next year… come on out and join the crowd

Awesome experience again this year. New location but just as much fun. Thanks to all the volunteers. Love to watch the Special Olympians and their families and friends. Incredible costumes again this year. My favorite was the Winnie the Pooh team.

This was my first time to this event and it was a great time. I was surprised at the variety of costumes and swim suits. There was a large festival tent with vendors and giveaways. Outside — ice carving and food trucks. Worth attending next year.

Polar Plunge is such an incredible event. You will definitely get caught up in the craziness, but the best part is the cause! My sister and I plunged today for our local area so that our local Special Olympics programs will get the needed funds to keep everything free for the athletes! Considering joining in next year to help make a bigger splash!

My daughter, friends, and I all loved this event! It was cold but they had a tent with vendors to warm up in before and after the run. Plus it is all for a good cause. :)

Today was my third polar plunge in VA Beach, and I am coming back!!! I work at a Special Olympics as an office assistant, and it’s the BEST job I’ve experienced. I enjoyed the costume contest so much. My friend accompanied me too!!! We’re plungers 4 life!!! ;-)

What a great cause. This was my second straight Polar Plunge and definitely a great time. The cold water is an afterthought. Spending time with friends on a chilly February afternoon in VB is a great time and when you can raise money for an important charity that is icing on the cake.

The 2013 Polar Plunge Winter Festival was a blast, with a pre-​plunge party on Friday night and lots of activities on Saturday.
Although it was pretty cold Friday night, the Deloreans rocked the tent with their 80’s Retro, bringing back everything that made that era a complete fashion fail. Many of those attending dressed up (I hope) in their best mullets and had fun with it. It was great to see many of the Special Olympians up on stage with the band — good time. I did feel a lit sympathy for the food vendors suffering outside while the rest stayed warm inside.
MettleEvents put on a pretty good 5K the next morning, and even though the air temp at 8:30am was 23 °F, everybody seemed to have a great time. Lots of photographers and a one company with a drone cam that took some good video.
We left to grab breakfast at a nearby restaurant while the 5K wrapped up and the other events including a costume contest and apparently a flash mob. I’m neither a costume guy or flash mob fan, so we were scarce before the arriving again for the plunge at 2:30pm. The tent was full of crazy idiots wearing everything from bikini’s to full vintage swashbuckling pirate wear, plunger heads, oompa-​loompas or whatever. A funny favorite was the 80-​yr-​old (I think) woman wearing long underwear underneath her tiki hula skirt and grass bra.
The tent emptied out about 2:10 and the first wave of plungers actually took off into the water at 2:15. Thousands of idiots. I’m not sure how long the event actually lasted, but after the first couple of waves hit me, I was done. The air warmed up to 36 °F, but that wind chill was pretty cold. Looking at the video, I think it would have been a lot more fun to do this with a group, because it looked like a bunch of them just hung out on the shore and went in and out of the water a couple of times. Hindsight.
I look forward to doing this again next year, but only with a large group of people that like to have fun. From my view, it was well-​executed.