H2O Glow Nights at Typhoon Lagoon

It’s officially summer in Orlando and Walt Disney World kicked it off with a new summer event hosted at Typhoon Lagoon. The H2O Glow Nights Pool Party is offered Thursdays and Saturdays from June 21st until August 11th. This is a separate ticket event, $55 for adults, and runs from 8pm-11pm.

Even though the party starts at 8, guests can arrive starting at 7. So we made sure to be there at 7 to maximize our pool time. Once we got into the park we immediately went to get a locker for the night then hopped in Castaway Creek until the party officially started. Once we made out 20 minute loop around the park, we went to grab our stuff to head to Leaning Palms for dinner.

Before going to the party we had checked out the menus for the event. Leaning Palms was the only one with anything that appeared to be vegan as they had the Impossible Burger listed. At 8 they opened, we got in line then spoke with a cast member. We let her know that we’re vegan and that we’d like to speak with a chef or coordinator. She yelled for someone and a few minutes later a woman appeared in the back to speak with us. She said that only the Impossible Burger on the menu was vegan. However, she phrased it saying that just the burger was vegan. So we asked her if the bun was not vegan, since she made it sound like just the patty was, she replied that it was all vegan. Then we asked about the toppings, the menu stated crispy banana peppers and we assumed they were fried, she reassured us that everything on it was vegan. We thanked her then ordered our food.

Shortly after ordering our food we were speaking with another guest behind us who was also vegan, she noted that she had seen on the menu that it came with a mayo online. When looking at the physical menu it says Chipotle Sauce, not mayo. Suddenly we were a bit more nervous about the burger since the interaction wasn’t great with the coordinator to begin with. Some places currently offer vegan mayo, so it wouldn’t be out of place for them to have it, it just usually says “vegan mayo” on the menu.

Anyway, after over 20 minutes our food arrived in the window. This was an issue for several reasons. First, ours was the first to come out on our side of Leaning Palms, and several people had ordered before us, so all of us had waited over 20 minutes for food. Second, we had ordered two burgers, chips and salsa, and two specialty alcoholic drinks. Bridget let the cast member know that we had more food on our order than just the burgers, she handed the receipt to the cast member who then disappeared to find the rest of our order. Once she came back we asked her about the sauce that was on the burger, she went to ask a chef and informed us that it is not vegan, even though the coordinator had said it all was vegan. She quickly replaced our food without sauce and we were finally able to go sit down after 8:30. We understand it was the first night of the party, so we kind of expected there to be some issue. The most frustrating part of this was that we were told it was all vegan when it wasn’t, and that we wasted nearly 1/3 of our time at the party waiting for food then eating it.

We stopped at the condiment bar for the burgers and fries. We also needed straws for our drinks since they had boba balls. Straws were no where to be found, luckily a cast member saw us looking then brought out the large paper straws to us while we were eating.  We were slightly disappointed that the banana peppers on the burger were just plain banana peppers. They seemed like fresh peppers though, but when you read “cripsy” most people assume that they’re actually be crispy, or fried. The burger also came with lettuce and tomato. The burger was cooked well done and was crispy, I’m really enjoying the Impossible Burger on Disney property over the Beyond Burger for quick service options. The french fries were pretty standard for Disney quick service, thin cut and pretty cold by the time you actually eat them.

The Rainbow Chips and Salsa were okay. We didn’t eat very much of them as we were trying to stuff our faces to go ride some slides. The chips were over salted to us and the salsa just tasted like a generic store bought jar salsa. I would skip this, unless you just want a snack.

Our drinks had great flavors, but you wouldn’t have known there was any alcohol in them.  I had the Glow X-Fusion Punch, which was just like a slushy fruit punch, and Bridget got the Green Glowrita. Both were frozen and topped with boba balls.

One of the things we liked about the party was that the party theme went all the way to the food and drinks. Our burgers were on neon plates and the drink cubes were a fun touch. We had actually ordered ours without the cubes, but with the chaos of first night opening and everyone waiting for their meal, some how we ended up with them. Our meal was overall good, we just wish it hadn’t taken so long.

As for the rest of the party, there was a DJ who was going the entire time on the beach. Here you could find a giant Partysaurus Rex, fun games for all ages, and neon dressed dancers interacting with guests. We watched one of the games for a little bit then went back to the water.

Since it was a special ticketed event, the crowd levels were pretty low. This alone made the party worth is as we were able to do Crush’n’Gusher (all three slides!), Miss Adventure Falls, Gangplank Falls, and Mayday Falls in less than an hour. We aren’t big body slide people, so we just stuck to the tube slides. We did a few laps around Castaway Creek too. They added fun tubes in the creek, some that had glowing lights in them and some fun animal ones, we even saw a dragon.

With the theme being Toy Story, there were two character meet and greet spots, one with Buzz Lightyear and another with Woody and Jessie. We decided to see our favorite space ranger before heading home.

This event was really neat. It was great to be at Typhoon Lagoon with low crowds and to actually just walk on all the slides and float around the creek without being bumped by everyone. For those reasons alone I would do this again if they offer it next year. The burger was also very good, it’s great to see a vegan option at a party. I would highly recommend this is you’re going to be in Disney World this summer! You can find tickets and dates here.