Disney's Blizzard Beach
| Disney's Blizzard Beach | |
|---|---|
| Park | Walt Disney World Resort |
| Type | Water park |
| Opened | April 1, 1995 |
| Designer | Walt Disney Imagineering
|
| Status | Operating |
Disney's Blizzard Beach is a water park at the Walt Disney World Resort in Bay Lake, Florida. Opened on April 1, 1995, it was the resort's third water park, after Disney's River Country and Disney's Typhoon Lagoon, and it is themed as a ski resort built after a freak snowstorm and now melting in the Florida sun. The park covers about 66 acres and is organised around Mount Gushmore, an artificial mountain from which most of its slides descend.
Theme and design
The park's backstory holds that a rare snowstorm blanketed this part of Florida and that developers quickly built the state's first ski resort, only for warm weather to return and begin melting the slopes. Rather than abandon the site, its operators are presented as having converted the melting ski runs into water slides, leaving chairlifts, ski jumps and alpine lodges in place among the pools. The concept is credited to Imagineer Marshall Monroe. The park's mascot is Ice Gator, a sunglasses-wearing alligator shown enjoying the melting resort.
Mount Gushmore rises about 90 feet (27 m) and is frequently described as one of the highest points in Florida. Its slopes are colour-coded, in the manner of ski trail maps, to help guests navigate: the Green Slope at the summit holds the longest slides, the Purple Slope the racing and raft rides, and the Red Slope a single slide at the rear. A working chairlift carries guests, one way, to the summit. The park's water is heated to roughly 75–80 °F (24–27 °C) outside the summer months.
History
Blizzard Beach opened on April 1, 1995, between what are now Disney's Coronado Springs Resort and the All-Star resorts, near Disney's Animal Kingdom. It drew strongly in its early years; in 2008 it hosted approximately 1.89 million guests, ranking it among the most visited water parks in the world, second only to its sister park Typhoon Lagoon.
The park closed with the rest of Walt Disney World in March 2020 at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and reopened in March 2021, at first without Typhoon Lagoon operating alongside it. From 2020 to 2025 the two water parks largely alternated, with only one open at a time; both operated simultaneously again from the 2025 season. Each park continues to take an annual refurbishment closure.
Attractions
Summit Plummet, the park's signature attraction, is a free-fall body slide presented as a ski jump. Riders drop from a platform 120 feet (37 m) high, reaching speeds reported up to 60 mph (97 km/h); a minimum height of 48 inches (122 cm) applies. Beside it on the Green Slope, Slush Gusher is a 90-foot (27 m) body slide whose two dips briefly level out, and Teamboat Springs is a family raft ride of about 1,400 feet (430 m), among the longest of its kind, carrying rafts of up to six riders down a winding course of switchbacks.
The Purple Slope holds Downhill Double Dipper, a side-by-side enclosed racing slide in which riders pass through starting gates in the manner of a ski race, and the mat slides Snow Stormers and Toboggan Racers, the latter running eight parallel lanes. The Red Slope's Runoff Rapids offers three intertwining tube slides.
At the mountain's base, Melt-Away Bay is a one-acre wave pool with gentle bobbing waves, deliberately calmer than the surf pool at Typhoon Lagoon. Cross Country Creek is a lazy river of about 3,000 feet (910 m) that circles the park, passing through an ice cave where meltwater drips from above. Areas for younger guests include Tike's Peak, with small slides and a shallow pool for children, and the Ski Patrol Training Camp, aimed at older children, with nets, a zip line and iceberg walk.