Walt Disney World has introduced that Hurricane Lagoon will open in time for Summer time 2025 and Blizzard Seaside will reopen after its annual refurbishment this spring, that means each water parks will function concurrently for the primary time in years. This put up covers dates & particulars about what to anticipate from anniversary celebration, what brought about the change, return of H2O Glow After Hours, and extra.
Let’s begin with the official information: Cool Child Summer time at Walt Disney World is about to get even cooler! In honor of the thirtieth anniversary of Blizzard Seaside, Walt Disney World is seas-ing the day and asserting that Blizzard Seaside water park will even be open for visitors this summer time along with Hurricane Lagoon. And that is no April Fools’ Day joke!
For the primary time since 2019, Walt Disney World may have all 6 parks—all 4 theme parks and a couple of water parks—open on the similar time. From Could 21 via September 7, 2025, Walt Disney World visitors can benefit from the tropical shipwreck oasis of Hurricane Lagoon and the frosty enjoyable of Blizzard Seaside water park.
Earlier than the summer time enjoyable can start, Blizzard Seaside will want a little bit soften away time and can quickly shut between Could 1 and Could 20, 2025. Blizzard Seaside will reopen on Could 21, 2025.
As beforehand introduced, Hurricane Lagoon will reopen on Could 1, 2025. That is over a full month later than it opened final yr, after the tip of Spring Break season, throughout the midst of shoulder season and proper earlier than summer time.
Beginning right this moment (April 1, 2025), Walt Disney World is celebrating three many years of Blizzard Seaside historical past of making enjoyable days and funky thrills for Walt Disney World visitors. The celebration will characteristic a high-energy DJ on the deck close to the Polar Pub. There’s snowman bowling and character-themed tubes for floating down Cross Nation Creek. Plus, enjoyable interactions with Mickey and Minnie decked out of their winter apparel.
Blizzard Seaside’s thirtieth Anniversary celebration will proceed all through April 2025 with dance events, particular anniversary meals & beverage gadgets and extra. There will even be some family-friendly video games with cool prizes comparable to snowflake tattoos, wintery-themed rubber geese and snowy bubbles.
No phrase but on whether or not the anniversary choices will resume as soon as Blizzard Seaside reopens on Could 21, 2025. We hope so, as summer time is peak season for water parks (however then again, perhaps it received’t be fairly as busy as the following month with crowds diluted between two water parks.)
Simply final week, Walt Disney World additionally introduced the return of H2O Glow After Hours. On choose nights between Could 23 and September 13, 2025, Hurricane Lagoon turns into an illuminated dance get together stuffed with splashy enjoyable, complimentary snacks, and beloved Toy Story buddies. Nighttime enjoyable additionally means you may beat the warmth and luxuriate in shorter wait occasions in comparison with sunlight hours.
See our Information to H2O Glow After Hours at Disney’s Hurricane Lagoon: 2025 Dates, Particulars, Ideas & Assessment for related particulars from final yr–count on ~90% of them to be correct for 2025. For these unfamiliar with it, H2O Glow After Hours permits households to spend time at Hurricane Lagoon for a number of hours after it closes, with brief waits at standard sights all through the illuminated park. This particular occasion additionally options an electrical DJ dance get together, complimentary ice cream treats, popcorn and choose drinks, a ‘glow’-rious ambiance and past.
The largest promoting level of H2O Glow in 2025 is, fairly actually, pricing. There are particular offers for younger households, together with children tickets for less than $42.50, which is half the worth of the $85 grownup ticket this yr! Annual Passholders and Disney Trip Membership members may also save on grownup tickets, however that’s nothing new.
Turning to commentary, that is what we anticipated to occur again over a yr in the past when Walt Disney World first introduced the free water park arrival day perk. Whereas we knew it was primarily motivated by different components, our hope and expectation was that it was additionally about establishing sufficient demand to justify working each Hurricane Lagoon and Blizzard Seaside.
When the preliminary announcement was made that Blizzard Seaside would shut on Could 1, it made us wonder if each Walt Disney World water parks would ever function concurrently throughout summers. If pent-up demand wasn’t sufficient and now this free water park day isn’t sufficient…will something will ever be sufficient? It looks as if Walt Disney World’s trajectory is decrease attendance, particularly throughout peak water park season.
Staffing each parks is dear and Walt Disney World did well-enough with just one water park even throughout the interval of pent-up demand and excessive warmth over the past couple of summers. It’s attainable that Volcano Bay at Common Orlando plus an assortment of accommodations with bona fide mini water parks have lower into Walt Disney World’s water park enterprise, and so they now not want each. One other chance is that the price of lifeguards and different labor has elevated to the purpose that it doesn’t make sense to run each. Possibly the water park perk didn’t transfer the needle as a lot as anticipated, and must be tweaked for 2026. It may very well be a mixture of the above concerns.
We have been skeptical of all of that. Our view was (and is) that each Blizzard Seaside and Hurricane Lagoon may very well be viable, particularly with a full assortment of Annual Passes and particular ticket promotions for Florida residents. That the massive concern was an inside urge for food to open each amongst management, particularly given the upper working bills incurred with two parks versus one. Walt Disney World seemingly deemed Hurricane Lagoon “ok” for the summer time and noticed nothing in early demand for the water parks perk to vary that perspective.
My cash was on that. Within the earlier commentary, I took {that a} step additional and predicted each water parks in all probability wouldn’t open till there’s new high-level management at Walt Disney World that’s extra motivated. Discovering a technique to function each water parks from April via September could be the good transfer, particularly after how brutally sizzling the previous few summers have been. Walt Disney World having the capability to push extra individuals in direction of the water parks could be a welcome reprieve from the excessive warmth and humidity–and possibly assist with visitor satisfaction.
Between the free water park perk and debut of Disney Starlight Night time Parade, we had hoped that Walt Disney World lastly had a profitable recipe for each Blizzard Seaside and Hurricane Lagoon working concurrently. The preliminary announcement was disappointing, and it was unlucky Walt Disney World wasn’t going greater for Summer time 2025.
Effectively effectively effectively…how the turntables. To be very clear, that is an about-face from Walt Disney World. The plan all alongside most undoubtedly was not to announce Blizzard Seaside was closing on Could 1, however then reopening on Could 21, 2025. The second tidbit would’ve been included within the announcement that occurred one month in the past. It is a new growth.
There are a few attainable explanations right here. The primary and extra apparent one is that Walt Disney World made the choice to shut Blizzard Seaside for summer time prematurely. That announcement got here on the finish of February, after two months of Florida’s coldest winter in so long as I can bear in mind. (Take into account, it snowed in Florida earlier this yr!)
There was a stretch throughout which Blizzard Seaside was closed extra typically than it was open this winter. Even throughout most of the days when it was open, it wasn’t precisely fascinating to go to as a result of the temperatures have been borderline. On prime of that, the water park retains a lot shorter hours throughout the winter (once more, because of demand), so the chance to make use of that arrival day water park perk was decrease.
By the point most visitors arrived at Walt Disney World from the airport, it was already too late to have any significant time on the water park. So it shouldn’t be in the slightest degree stunning {that a} excessive share of visitors have been forgoing use of the perk.
The final month has been hotter (though nonetheless fairly nice), and has seen the arrival of spring break crowds. It’s seemingly that Walt Disney World has all of a sudden seen an uptick in uptake on the free water park arrival day perk, which ought to come as shock to utterly nobody.
Walt Disney World hopefully would’ve projected as a lot, with nobody internally being caught flat-footed by the not-so-breaking information that water parks are extra standard when the climate is hotter. That’s the entire purpose for these longstanding seasonal refurbishments within the first place–demand dips from October via March!
A extra charitable clarification for this transformation is that one thing has lit a hearth below Disney.
The lazy evaluation could be Epic Universe at Common Orlando, and perhaps that’s the right one. However what has modified with that new park within the final month? Phrase of mouth from previews has been principally constructive, however that’s to be anticipated since they’re worker previews. Nothing we’ve seen suggests Common’s summer time bookings are sturdy or are hurting Disney. It’s our understanding that each are under expectations.
However, Disney’s Parks & Resorts division has appeared hungrier and is shifting with a larger sense of urgency within the final month-plus for some purpose. We’ve seen this within the bulletins for Disneyland, with the slates for each Star Wars Season of the Pressure and Disneyland’s seventieth Anniversary getting progressively higher and extra sturdy. (Epic Universe would have completely nothing to do with that.)
It’s additionally occurring at Walt Disney World with “Cool Child Summer time” and its related actions, leisure, and particular provides. A number of the specifics are nonetheless unknown or hazy, which suggests to me that this marketing campaign lately acquired greenlit and Walt Disney World continues to be scrambling to flesh out the main points. It’ll be attention-grabbing to see whether or not the entire character experiences find yourself being formidable, or if much more is introduced.
On each coasts, we’re additionally seeing an elevated emphasis on younger households, which seems to be a top-down initiative geared toward combating considerations about pricing out center class households. (Severely, search current press releases for the phrase younger households–it’s in lots of them.) I’ve no proof to help this, however my intestine is that the identical inside considerations that gave rise to that bombshell WSJ report additionally resulted within the pressing push for this younger households marketing campaign, and with a wholesome finances.
Whatever the causes, I’m actually happy that each Hurricane Lagoon and Blizzard Seaside will likely be open from Could 21 via September 7, 2025. This has been one of many final massive vestiges of the post-reopening period, and crossing this off “the listing” will likely be extremely satisfying. And as at all times, we extremely advocate a go to to 1–or each–of Walt Disney World’s water parks. Even in case you are “not a water parks particular person,” these are exemplars of themed design that anybody can take pleasure in.
Planning a Walt Disney World journey? Find out about accommodations on our Walt Disney World Resorts Evaluations web page. For the place to eat, learn our Walt Disney World Restaurant Evaluations. To save cash on tickets or decide which kind to purchase, learn our Ideas for Saving Cash on Walt Disney World Tickets put up. Our What to Pack for Disney Journeys put up takes a novel take a look at intelligent gadgets to take. For what to do and when to do it, our Walt Disney World Experience Guides will assist. For complete recommendation, the very best place to start out is our Walt Disney World Journey Planning Information for the whole lot it is advisable to know!
YOUR THOUGHTS
Are you excited that each Hurricane Lagoon and Blizzard Seaside will likely be open on the similar time this summer time, from Could 21 via September 7, 2025? Trying ahead to Blizzard Seaside’s thirtieth Anniversary celebration in April 2025? Wanting to return to Hurricane Lagoon, or are you not a water park particular person? Will you be doing H2O Glow After Hours at Hurricane Lagoon? Do you agree or disagree with our commentary? Any questions we might help you reply? Listening to your suggestions–even once you disagree with us–is each attention-grabbing to us and useful to different readers, so please share your ideas under within the feedback!
