H2O Glow After Hours at Typhoon Lagoon Water Park is a hard ticket event with limited attendance and short wait times for Walt Disney World’s most popular aquatic attractions. This post shares our experience, info about the event, 2023 dates & details, and whether it’s worth the money.

Previously known as H2O Glow Nights, this After Hours event returns to the tropical oasis of Typhoon Lagoon for Summer 2023. H2O Glow After Hours at Typhoon Lagoon Water Park will offer unique, vibrant décor, high-energy DJ dance parties, exclusive glow-themed menu offerings, and more.

During the 2023 H2O Glow After Hours, popular water rides and slides at Disney’s Typhoon Lagoon Water Park have significantly shorter wait times. Whether you’re shooting down Crush N’ Gusher, making a splash in the Surf Pool, or bustin’ a move on the dance floor, you’ll experience this storm-strewn paradise in a whole new light. Here’s everything you need to know about the return of H2O Glow After Hours at Typhoon Lagoon Water Park…

Disney H2O Glow After Hours at Disney’s Typhoon Lagoon is held on takes place select nights May 20, 2023 to September 2, 2023, from 8:00 pm to 11:00 pm. You can get a head start on the exclusive event by entering the water park at 6:00 pm, giving you a total of 5 hours to enjoy the water park.

Here are 2023 dates for H2O Glow After Hours at Disney’s Typhoon Lagoon Water Park:

Prices for H2O Glow After Hours at Typhoon Lagoon

Discounts for H2O Glow After Hours

What’s Included during H2O Glow After Hours at Typhoon Lagoon?

All of the attractions at Disney’s Typhoon Lagoon water park will be available during H2O Glow After Hours (subject to change due to inclement weather or other reasons), including the following highlights:

Disney H2O Glow After Hours at Typhoon Lagoon will also feature entertainment. In particular, there will be a dance party with a DJ spinning hot beats all night. This spirited celebration is sure to dazzle—with glowing accessories and décor adding to the party atmosphere.

Additionally, you can enjoy unlimited ice cream novelties, popcorn, and select bottled beverages—all included in the cost of this ticketed event—available at carts stationed throughout Typhoon Lagoon water park.

You can also purchase items at select locations throughout the park. Per Walt Disney World, there will be special “glow-themed” menu items available for purchase at select locations in Typhoon Lagoon, too.

As with any upcharge offering at Walt Disney World, the answer is: it depends. 

The threshold question is whether you’d otherwise be visiting a water park during the course of your Walt Disney World vacation. If so, then possibly. If not…why would you suddenly consider attending one? Even though it’s an ‘After Hours’ branded event, this is totally dissimilar from its counterparts at Magic Kingdom, Disney’s Hollywood Studios, and EPCOT. If you wouldn’t visit a water park during the day, the move to nighttime and a hard ticket event doesn’t really change the equation. The highlights here are all still in the water or water-adjacent.

The next question is whether you prefer daytime or nighttime pool time. This is also a matter of personal preference, based on how you feel about heat, humidity, hot pavement, sunshine, and so forth.

From my perspective, nighttime is the best time at Typhoon Lagoon. Without question, sunset and beyond is our favorite time to visit the water parks. We’ve done Typhoon Lagoon in the evening several times, from Glow Nights to After Hours to Moonlight Magic to the now-extinct evening Extra Magic Hours way back in the day.

What we love about nighttime at Typhoon Lagoon is that the show lighting is unique, temperatures are more comfortable, the pavement isn’t so scalding hot it burns your feet, nor does sunscreen need to be constantly reapplied. Like every theme park in Central Florida, it’s simply more pleasant at night during the summer time. Although Typhoon Lagoon features lush vegetation in places, much of Typhoon Lagoon is exposed and the sun can be brutal when you’re standing around in line, in the wave pool, or wandering around the park.

With that said, we are not sunbathers. We actively seek out lounging spots in the shade and do everything we can to avoid getting too much sun. (The dorky bucket hat I regularly wear in the parks and Sarah’s sun hats and umbrellas can attest to that!) So if you’re the type who visits Florida to get a tan and enjoys lounge in the sunlight, obviously you’re going to have a different perspective than us. Accordingly, you should take these opinions with a grain of salt–or ignore them entirely because our goals are different.

Our goal is enjoying the theme and atmosphere of Typhoon Lagoon, and experiencing its water slides and rides with minimal waits. Personally, I think the first part of that–soaking up the ambiance but not the sunlight–is best accomplished in the evening. That’s for me true at every Walt Disney World theme park.

The details just stand out more, the design is more vivid under the artificial show lighting, and the background music is clearer. I can’t fully articulate the why of this, but it’s how I feel about pretty much everywhere in every park at Walt Disney World, from Tomorrowland to World Showcase. Being that this is subjective, reasonable minds may also differ about when the atmosphere at Typhoon Lagoon is the “best.”

The other component of that is experiencing attractions at Typhoon Lagoon with shorter lines and wait times. This is more objective, and the practical reality is that H2O Glow After Hours at Typhoon Lagoon is not necessarily best for avoiding the crowds. It’s true that wait times are shorter, on average, throughout this hard ticket event.

However, you can beat the crowds–and even come out ahead–by rope dropping Typhoon Lagoon. If you arrive right at park opening, have a savvy strategy, and are diligent about hitting the headliners, your wait times will likely be shorter than during H2O Glow After Hours at Typhoon Lagoon.

So long as you ride the wave of crowds, so to speak, wait times for most attractions at Typhoon Lagoon are shortest in the first two hours of the day. In our experience, these have been even lower around park opening than during H2O Glow After Hours and other nighttime events at Typhoon Lagoon. To be sure, wait times are lower than average during H2O Glow After Hours, but they’re more consistent. By contrast, everything is a walk-on first thing in the morning.

Of course, the caveat here is that this is during the first 2 hours of the day. Wait times can get considerably longer during the midday hours, and if you’re planning on staying the entire day at Typhoon Lagoon and doing water rides that entire time, you’re going to experience higher wait times along with the lower ones. In that case, you will still come out ahead doing H2O Glow After Hours at Typhoon Lagoon. For lower wait times, your window really is that first 2 hours (give or take, depending upon crowd levels and weather).

The final question or consideration is whether you would otherwise be purchasing a single day water park ticket as opposed to Park Hopper Plus tickets–or if you otherwise would be able to get discount admission to Typhoon Lagoon.

If you’re comparing the cost of one-day water park tickets to the cost of H2O Glow After Hours at Typhoon Lagoon, it’s easier to justify the slight premium pricing (the event ticket only costs a bit more than regular water park tickets). If you already have access to Typhoon Lagoon or could add it your admission for only a slight surcharge, it’s tough to justify.

We absolutely love nighttime at Typhoon Lagoon, but I’m not sure I’d pay $60 to $75 per person extra for this experience above the baseline cost of visiting a water park. There are a lot of other things at Walt Disney World I’d first prioritize with that money.

Ultimately, we love all of Walt Disney World at night and prefer water parks after the sun goes down. As such, we love the idea of H2O Glow After Hours at Typhoon Lagoon and would recommend the hard ticket event to anyone with water park priorities that align with ours. That comes with the caveat that we’d only recommend this upcharge offering to those who don’t already have free or deeply-discounted access to one of the water parks. (Or to those who have unlimited budgets and would rather visit at night.)

However, if H2O Glow After Hours at Typhoon Lagoon would be one of your few splurges at Walt Disney World or you have alternative admission options, we would not recommend this. From our perspective, After Hours at Disney’s Hollywood Studios and After Hours at Magic Kingdom are the superior splurges (in that order). Obviously, that’s like comparing apples to orangutans, but that’s how I’d allocate my limited ‘TREAT YO SELF’ funds if I had to rank these special events.

Yes, nighttime at Typhoon Lagoon is awesome, but, as noted above, evening is excellent everywhere at Walt Disney World. So spending the night here comes with the opportunity cost of losing a night somewhere else at Walt Disney World.

Equally as important, there’s another good way to beat the crowds at Typhoon Lagoon, and that’s simply by showing up early. You can knock out pretty much all of the high-demand attractions with an efficient itinerary, at which point you can relax in the sun or shade, enjoy a leisurely day at the water park, or leave early and do evening elsewhere.

Planning a Walt Disney World trip? Learn about hotels on our Walt Disney World Hotels Reviews page. For where to eat, read our Walt Disney World Restaurant Reviews. To save money on tickets or determine which type to buy, read our Tips for Saving Money on Walt Disney World Tickets post. Our What to Pack for Disney Trips post takes a unique look at clever items to take. For what to do and when to do it, our Walt Disney World Ride Guides will help. For comprehensive advice, the best place to start is our Walt Disney World Trip Planning Guide for everything you need to know!

Will you be attending the 2023 H2O Glow After Hours at Typhoon Lagoon? If not, what’s keeping you away? Prices? Lack of interest in water parks? Some combination of the above? Or, would you not attend regardless? How does this rank for you as a Walt Disney World splurge? Do you agree or disagree with our assessment of daytime v. evening at Typhoon Lagoon? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing your feedback–even when you disagree with us–is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!

We went to this event last August and we were disappointed. We have gone to both water parks several times during the past 10 years and we waited longer in lines during this event than any of our previous trips during regular hours. We’ve done After Hours at Magic Kingdom twice and had a good experience each time so we assumed this would be similar, but found it to be a let down. We definitely wouldn’t go again. There was plenty of the included ice cream snacks and popcorn available, if anyone wonders about that.

We attempted to go last summer and it was a mess. No sooner had the party started than the clouds swept in and we were dealing with lightning and torrential rain. There is little covered area to escape to when this happens. We were all sardined into a gift shop, standing for an hour waiting to hear some news.

Finally, they announced the event was cancelled. People were offered a free waterpark day adding automatically to their accounts. Not a fair trade as the party costed more. (I was told I could ask for a cash refund instead but would have to go to Guest Relations anywhere at WDW the next day. I did so and got my $ back.)

When we all departed the park, it was even worse than earlier. There was little shelter and the lightning and rain were super intense. There were few Disney busses and it was a chaotic mess. They should have sent more buses to help get people out of TL. Here we were waiting for a bus, standing outside and under trees. Exactly where you shouldn’t be during a lightning storm.

I am a Floridian, so I know this weather is possible especially in summer. I just feel Disney ought to built more shelters so people can be safer in these situations.

You had me at sunscreen! Despite our best efforts everyone comes home from a day at a water park with some obvious “missed a spot” sunburn. And I agree. There’s just something about all the parks after dark.

Dang it! It ends the week before our visit. Looks like a lot of fun. Thank you for taking the time to post your thoughts, always appreciated

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

Notify me of follow-up comments by email.

Notify me of new posts by email.

This site is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or in any other way associated with The Walt Disney Company. For official information concerning Disney, visit Disney.com.