A ski resort that melted
Blizzard Beach's whole joke is in the premise: a freak Florida snowstorm built a ski resort, it melted, and the ski jumps became water slides. The result is Disney's thrill water park — where Typhoon Lagoon leans tropical and relaxed, the guides agree Blizzard Beach leans big slides.
Mount Gushmore's big two
- Summit Plummet — 120 feet, near-vertical, one of the tallest and fastest body slides anywhere; the POV on this page puts you at the top looking down the ski jump
- Slush Gusher — the double-dip speed slide beside it, airtime included
- Teamboat Springs — the family raft ride, one of the longest anywhere, riding down in a big shared raft
- Toboggan Racers and Snow Stormers — the mat-racing middle tier
The comparison that matters
Disney Food Blog's head-to-head guide runs both parks slide by slide: Blizzard headlines with Summit Plummet and the thrill tier; Typhoon counters with the surf pool and tamer tube rides like Mayday Falls. Their other shared tip: a Disney resort perk — a free water park day on check-in day — has made both parks newly popular, so arrive at opening rather than drifting in at noon.
Know before you go
The family tour on this page ends the way many Florida water park days do — weather moving in and the park clearing early. Build the big slides into the morning, keep the lazy laps for later, and treat an afternoon thunderstorm as a scheduling fact, not bad luck.
Sources: the six videos on this page — Disney Food Blog's two water-park guides, two family tours, and two slide features — summarized from their entries in our catalog.