Volcano Bay Nights 2025 review | Is $99 ticket worth it?
Volcano Bay Nights are back for September and October 2025 with low waits for the water park rides and the debut of Ghost Clown, a character from “Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?” But is it worth the $99 ticket price?
Universal Orlando invited us out this past Friday night for the event.
Food at Volcano Bay Nights
Food for extra charge
We were able to taste a few of the food items available to purchase during the event. Everything we had was great. There are a couple of Volcano Bay Night exclusives: instead of the pizza fries from Halloween Horror Nights, they have pizza tots! There’s the regular pepperoni tots, and Island Tots, featuring Spam and pineapple. They were good, but very cheesy.
Food & drinks included with admission
As guests enter the park, they are given a souvenir plastic Universal Orlando-themed tumbler to use at the Coca-Cola Freestyle machines in the park, with nearly unlimited refills (one refill every 10 minutes). Guest also are able to get unlimited churro bites with chocolate or mango sauce, and sweet pineapple and coconut popcorn. Both the popcorn and churros were great, and we didn’t see any lines to get them, even though they only have them at one spot around the park.
Wait times for water slides
In additions to no lines for the paid or free foods and drinks, we also didn’t see any lines to ride the water slides. We heard the Krakatau Aqua Coaster had about a five minute wait at times. The park was pretty empty the whole night.
Not only was the park being not crowded at all very enjoyable, but Volcano Bay looks beautiful at night. They had special lighting (sometimes blue and sometimes red) on the volcano and it was very picturesque. All of the lighting looked great around the water park.
Scooby-Doo characters, including Ghost Clown
For this fall 2025 series of Volcano Bay Nights, and fitting with Halloween, the Mystery Inc. van is parked up front and you can get your photo with some of the Scooby-Doo characters. Even more of the gang can be found dancing with guests on the beach at a DJ party. They’re great to interact with, and being able to talk back and forth with most of them adds to the fun.
Even more fun for us fans of meeting characters, Volcano Bay Nights 2025 debuts an exclusive character making his first-ever appearance. If you keep your eyes out up around the main restaurant area, you may spot Ghost Clown, one of the famous villains from “Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?”
Even better, if you’re still around at closing time, you may see him chase Shaggy and Scooby out to the beach party and get caught and unmasked by the gang (see video below). It’s like an episode of Scooby-Doo playing out in front of you.
Volcano Bay cabanas
As part of our media visit, Universal provided us with some cabanas to use. They were nice, and some of the upstairs ones provided a great view of the sunset. They also include team members who will go get things for you, and a supply of towels. The cost to rent one during the event starts at $280. I don’t think that’s worth it. There are plenty of places to sit, and you won’t be sitting down much anyway.
Is Volcano Bay Nights worth it?
Not everything is open during Volcano Bay Nights. Many of the bars and snack stands were closed. So you may need to walk a little farther to get snacks, but the park is so uncrowded you most likely won’t wait in line.
Universal has changed a few things since the first run of Volcano Bay Nights earlier this year. The first run featured “Madagascar” characters instead of Scooby-Doo, and instead of churros and popcorn, the free food was more savory like mac & cheese and shrimp. Check the character lineup and menu before you go, in case they change before your visit, if that matters to you.
Overall, we had a lot of fun during Volcano Bay Nights 2025 and totally recommend it. At $99 per person, with the event lasting four hours, that’s about $25 per hour. That’s not bad when you consider how many slides you could go on in an hour with no lines, and compared to the cost of individual skip-the-line passes at other parks. You can also turn that four hours into seven hours, as you can enter the park park starting at 4 p.m. So as the day is ending for day guests, the lines should also be shorter. (You may have some down-time between when the park closes for day guests and reopens for the party.)
Admission includes free parking at the CityWalk garage. You’ll take a bus to the park. There is a 10% discount for all Universal Orlando passholders.
A regular daytime ticket to Volcano Bay is a bit cheaper at $80, and you may also find even cheaper ticket deals, but if you’re like my wife and I, you’d rather enjoy the park at night, when it’s not as hot, and less crowded. Plus you get the added benefit of the characters, dance party, and free snacks.
Some things to consider: it can get a bit cold some evenings in Orlando later in October. Also, evening thunderstorms are possible. It was raining during our arrival, but it cleared up right as we entered the park. Rain isn’t an issue with water parks since you’re wet anyway, but lightning in the area can shut the slides down.
Volcano Bay Nights is happening every Friday night in September and October 2025.
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