Everyone expects to have a good time when they visit “the Happiest Place on Earth.”
Disney’s (DIS) self-awarded tagline makes a big promise, but for many, it’s a reality. That’s why many families save their hard-earned money year after year to go to Disney’s network of parks, and in turn, Disney constantly updates its offerings and creates new attractions to keep delighting people and give them a reason to keep coming back.
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Just like everything else in the world, Disney’s prices have gone up significantly since Disneyland first opened its doors in 1955. In those days, it cost visitors $1 to enter the park. Today, it’s $119 a person for a one day ticket. Times have certainly changed!
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Of course, the more expensive a ticket to Disneyland or Walt Disney World gets, the more parkgoers rightfully expect from their experience visiting one of these fantastical worlds. Naturally, visitors expect that they should be able to enjoy the park’s attractions without uncomfortably long wait times and feel their family is safe at all times while they’re inside Disney’s walls.
Unfortunately, one parent recently had the opposite of a safe experience at one of Disney’s parks, and now she is suing Disney over it.
A peek inside Walt Disney World’s Typhoon Lagoon water park.
Image source: Tribune News Service via Getty Images
Mother hit by ‘mammoth wave’
A woman named Kimberly Panetta has filed a lawsuit against Disney over a visit to its Typhoon Lagoon water park with her 4-year-old daughter in April 2022.
In the suit, Panetta alleges that she was waiting for her daughter to come down a slide by a kiddie pool when “she was violently struck by a sudden and forceful wave” that pushed her to the ground and dragged her along concrete, resulting in “serious and permanent injuries.”
The suit also claims that Panetta suffered “great pain, shock, and mental anguish” from the incident and now has permanent scarring on her legs.
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Panetta is accusing Disney of negligence and is asking the company pay her $2 million in damages.
Bad timing for Disney’s water parks
This news comes at a time when Disney was hoping to keep press about its water parks positive. Last month, the company announced that both Typhoon Lagoon and its sister water park, Blizzard Beach, would be open at the same time this summer for the first time since before the Covid pandemic.
Both parks were closed respectively in 2019 and 2020, first for repairs, then due to Covid restrictions. Typhoon Lagoon just reopened its doors on May 1, while Blizzard Beach makes its grand reopening on May 21.
Naturally, many people have sued Disney over the years for injuries and other incidents at its parks. As recently as March 2025, a Michigan family sued Walt Disney Parks of Florida for a situation that allegedly happened in 2023.
That lawsuit alleged that former Disney employee Jorge Diaz Vega dropped a toy intentionally, causing an underage girl to bend over to retrieve it. He then allegedly snapped photos and video up the dress of the girl in question. Vega later admitted he had been doing the same for six years and had collected more than 500 videos in that time.
