Free Disney World Water Park Access For Hotel Guests Coming Soon

Disney has announced that there will be a new perk coming to the Walt Disney World Resort hotels in the future – select free water park access for hotel guests. This new perk will be in addition to the perks that Disney World Resort hotel guests can enjoy during their stay.

Disney hotel guests also get access to early theme park entry, early access to book Disney World Genie Plus slots, transportation including the monorail and Skyliner, and more.

Keep reading for more details on what Disney has shared so far on this new Disney World water park perk and our thoughts and commentary on the addition!

New Disney World Resort Hotel Water Park Perk

On their check-in day, Disney Resort hotel guests in 2025 can enjoy admission to one of the Disney World water parks, Typhoon Lagoon or Blizzard Beach, that is included in their stay. On the first day of their trip, guests can enjoy a day of water park fun with several offerings, including attractions and dining, that you can read about in our guides to Disney's Typhoon Lagoon and Disney's Blizzard Beach.

In Disney's announcement, it's suggested that the two parks might be open simultaneously next year, which hasn't been the case since COVID with one park closed for refurbishment while the other is open to guests. Currently, Disney's Blizzard Beach is open.

Disney World Resort stays and theme park tickets for 2025 are available for booking as of February 27, 2024.

This new water park perk is in addition to the other perks that are available to Disney World Resort Hotel guests. You can see our list of the pros and cons of every Disney World Resort hotel in our guide.

Is the Free Water Park Access A Good Perk?

This is an interesting move by Walt Disney World but an extremely positive one as we continue to see the perks for on-site hotel guests improve. This new offer has one extremely point of fine print that guests need to be aware of though! This perk is only available on the day you check-in at your hotel and not the duration of your stay.

This will limit the number of guests that will take advantage of this perk which keeps crowds far more reasonable at the water parks. For guests that book earlier flights into Walt Disney World or locals staying on-site, this is a great way to get access to the water parks at no additional cost. Those coming in with later flights will likely struggle to take advantage of this option especially since the water parks often close by 6PM or even earlier.

But what about split stays? It is very common for Walt Disney World guests to split their time between two different Walt Disney World hotels. Disney makes this especially easy as they will transport your luggage for you! This offer is also good for split stays that are back-to-back of each other meaning with NO downtime in between. In that case, guests will be given water park tickets that are good for the check in days for each of their hotel stays. This would be the best way to utilize this option! Use your free water park day on the check-in to your second hotel so that way you can enjoy the full day and not try to squeeze it in on a travel day.

The language in this offer also suggests that Walt Disney World may be planning on keeping both water parks open at the same time in 2025. Currently, Walt Disney World has only been operating one theme park at a time since 2020. Prior to 2020, both Blizzard Beach and Typhoon Lagoon were always open at the same time. I hope this means they will have the staff (rumor is there is a lifeguard shortage in Orlando!) to open both water parks as we will likely see some crowd level increases with this offer. Here’s to hoping we see this happen in 2025!

Either way you slice it, this is a great value for Walt Disney World hotel guests to take advantage of. Especially since it applies to all guests and is not just limited to the higher-tier deluxe resorts.

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• When to Visit Disney World 2024 Disney World Crowd Calendar
• Top 5 Disney World Hotels for Kids: Great Pools, Disney Themes, Easy Transportation