Walt Disney World has a number of building alerts for Up to date Resort and Bay Lake Tower, together with a brand new one which extends the continuing refurbishment by a full 12 months to July 2026. This covers the newest updates to the resort, plus our commentary about what we hope to see occur throughout this prolonged venture.
It’s odd how preferences and priorities change. Over the previous few years, Disney’s Up to date Resort has turn into one in every of our most popular locations to remain at Walt Disney World–we mentioned the explanations for this in Our Favourite Lodge for Disney World Journeys as Dad and mom with a Toddler. That covers the numerous promoting factors of the Up to date and BLT, with probably the most notable being its proximity to Magic Kingdom.
We now keep on the Up to date pretty often. That is regardless of critical misgivings with the resort, which has a lot of obtrusive weaknesses that I’d actually like to see corrected. That is the whole motive why we’ve been watching the Bay Lake Tower room reimagining with baited breath–it appears unbelievable to this point–and are eagerly awaiting extra updates on the prolonged building venture deliberate for the resort as an entire. Talking of which, Walt Disney World has simply prolonged that by a 12 months–let’s check out the previous and present building bulletins…
Disney’s Up to date Resort Building Alerts
September 2024 By Summer season 2025 (OLD) – Refurbishments will happen in choose areas of Disney’s Up to date Resort—together with Bay Lake Tower and the Conference Heart. Please enable for additional journey time. Friends may see and listen to building throughout their keep.
September 2024 By July 2026 (NEW/CURRENT) – Refurbishments will happen in choose areas of Disney’s Up to date Resort—together with Bay Lake Tower. Please enable for additional journey time. Friends may see and listen to building throughout their keep.
September 2024 to September 2025 (CURRENT) – Room refurbishment work will happen in Bay Lake Tower at Disney’s Up to date Resort. Throughout this time, Friends will see and listen to building work all through Bay Lake Tower. Please enable additional time for journey as alternate paths could also be utilized.
January 26, 2026 By Early Could 2026 (CURRENT) – The Bay Cove Pool, the water play space and the whirlpool spa at Bay Lake Tower at Disney’s Up to date Resort will briefly be closed for upkeep. The Bay Lake Pool, the Cove Bar, the characteristic pool, the water play space and the whirlpool spa at Disney’s Up to date Resort will stay open for Friends to take pleasure in.
The problem right here is determining what this new discover from Walt Disney World is even referencing. By means of elimination, we will rule out just a few issues. The primary is a pool venture, since that’s listed individually and ends in Could 2026. In any other case, this may be the most definitely candidate for a resort-wide discover impacting each the resort aspect and DVC wing.
Second is the year-long Bay Lake Tower refurbishment, as that has its personal separate discover on the Disney Trip Membership web site. Beforehand, this involved widespread areas and the Skybridge connecting the A-frame to the tower, however that has been eliminated. With many flooring of Bay Lake Tower already reopened, it’s unlikely that this venture pertains to BLT.
There’s additionally the sensible actuality that Bay Lake Tower initiatives sometimes don’t set off bulletins on the resort web page for Disney’s Up to date Resort. This solely works in reverse. There aren’t any facilities in BLT for friends of the resort aspect, whereas there are within the A-frame for DVC friends.
It’s additionally extremely unlikely that it is a room refurbishment venture on the resort aspect of Disney’s Up to date Resort. The ‘Incredibles Injection’ simply occurred in 2020-2021 in the principle constructing, and the next 12 months within the Backyard Wing. Despite the fact that these rooms have garnered blended evaluations, it will be untimely for even a gentle items refurbishment. Not solely that, however a room refurbishment on the resort aspect probably wouldn’t set off an alert on the DVC web site for Bay Lake Tower.
Despite the fact that it’s not the Bay Cove Pool, it might be one thing alongside these strains–impacting the waterfront, strolling paths, or different widespread space facilities shared by BLT and the Contempo. The least fascinating or thrilling clarification is infrastructure work that ends in a little bit of noise or visible blight within the parking zone, however doesn’t quantity to a lot distinction within the visitor expertise or yield any tangible enchancment when it’s achieved in 2026.
One other chance that I might see being probably is relocating the safety checkpoint. Everybody and their brother tries to park on the Up to date, which might result in site visitors backups on World Drive. Transferring that station nearer to the resort constructing is the best repair for this. Disney can be doing numerous roadwork proper now, so it might be one thing extra formidable.
Lastly, there’s the likelihood that that is lengthy overdue work to the Grand Canyon Concourse. Despite the fact that that is the A-frame atrium, it’s a standard space that’s dwelling to eating places, retail and different shared facilities. It will completely set off an alert for each BLT and the Up to date.
I actually hope that is what it’s. This weblog has been bemoaning the datedness and simply common ugliness of the Grand Canyon Concourse for years. Lengthy earlier than the Incredibles Injection even started, and we’ve continued complaining about this because the foyer overhaul that’s been sorely wanted as Walt Disney World has introduced different initiatives on the Polynesian, Grand Floridian, BoardWalk, and so forth.
You may be skeptical that Walt Disney World would revisit the Up to date after “ending” the overhaul again in Fall 2021. However did they actually end? That venture was slated to be achieved in time for Walt Disney World’s fiftieth Anniversary, and ended up being a race towards the clock.
The truth is, it was not achieved on time–we heard building staff in any respect hours in October 2021 struggling to finish the rooms (some even opened in unfinished type). The Backyard Wing was pushed off till the next 12 months, and new ending parts stored showing within the foyer even after it was “achieved.”
Not solely that, however this wouldn’t be the primary time Walt Disney World has hit pause on initiatives on the inns for extended intervals of time. Clearly, there’s Disney Lakeshore Lodge, however that’s form of a separate factor.
Extra notable is the Grand Floridian foyer, which is now being labored on lengthy after the remainder of the resort was completed. There was an nearly 18-month hole from the completion of the rooms to begin of labor on the foyer.
The Grand Canyon Concourse is simply embarrassing at this level. It’s simply the worst atrium among the many flagship Deluxe Resorts. There’s no excuse for Walt Disney World not redoing it again in 2020-2021 when occupancy was low and so they had the chance earlier than Walt Disney World’s fiftieth Anniversary.
Nothing higher encapsulates the visible hodgepodge of the Up to date higher than the above picture (excuse the scrims–they’re previous images, however nonetheless utterly consultant of how the Grand Canyon Concourse presently appears).
On this shot, there are 5 totally different types of carpet and 4 several types of tiles–and that’s not counting the deliberate sample decisions across the buffet at Chef Mickey’s. All presumably put in throughout totally different initiatives over time.
If you happen to had been to face within the middle of the hallway above Grand Canyon Concourse, you would depend much more disparate types, as the varied reward retailers on the opposite aspect have their very own types, as does the middle of the atrium.
Add these to the totally different varieties within the hallways across the visitor rooms, and you’ve got a couple of dozen carpet patterns. I’m an enormous fan of patterns and textures, however not like this. Then there’s the Fantasia reward store, which was simply plopped into the middle to extend income per sq. foot, and must go.
The eating places on the opposite aspect aren’t significantly better. Though we’re keen on the meals served at Contempo Cafe, the design of the restaurant is nothing particular–it appears drained and its solely redeeming qualities are the monorail and Mary Blair mural overhead. It’s an analogous story with Chef Mickey’s; that’s the most iconic character eating expertise at Walt Disney World, however one that point has handed by.
The Grand Canyon Concourse appears drained, dated, and visually chaotic. It’s an unpleasant patchwork of eras, with its model persevering with to age and litter regularly added. Paradoxically, it’s most likely the least up to date resort at Walt Disney World, with little or no modernity in its model.
There isn’t any coherent aesthetic to the Grand Canyon Concourse. Its present “model” is the results of Disney’s Up to date Resort having visible litter added over the many years, with increasingly more stuff (PG time period) accumulating over time with none overarching imaginative and prescient.
It’s truly a bit ironic that it’s known as the Grand Canyon Concourse, as a result of the layers of litter are very very like the sedimentary rock layers within the Grand Canyon. Besides ugly as a substitute of awe-inspiring. Minor element.
Many Walt Disney World followers view the Up to date by means of the rose-colored glasses of nostalgia. I can not think about being a first-timer with little information of or historical past with this resort, reserving it based mostly on the “Up to date” title and paying over $1,000 per night time to remain within the A-frame. To say I’d be most likely be disillusioned could be a colossal understatement.
The excellent information is that the blueprint for an overhaul to the Grand Canyon Concourse already exists! Again forward of the fiftieth Anniversary, Walt Disney World redid the principle foyer and check-in space and it’s beautiful.
The brand new-look looby takes a timeless mid-century trendy model and combines that with a group of contemporary artwork items, Mary Blair-inspired design, and historic, behind-the-scenes images of Disney’s Up to date Resort in growth and below building. It wasn’t that formidable of an overhaul–it was achieved fairly rapidly–and but, it made a world of distinction.
The Up to date’s new foyer appears distinctive. It emulates Disneyland Lodge with a pitch-perfect mixture of nostalgia and glossy stylization. The Up to date Resort’s foyer now has character. As an alternative of trying like a vaguely trendy design from the 2000s, it’s imbued with a pointy mid-century trendy model. It’s distinctly Disney and can age much better than chasing present traits.
This marriage of a timeless trendy aesthetic together with distinctly Disney artwork and decor makes for a profitable mixture. That is the right rebuttal to all the discuss how the Up to date is a conceptually-flawed resort (a variation of the Tomorrowland drawback) that can not be “mounted.” Sure, it will probably–and right here’s how!
I can not say sufficient constructive issues about what Disney did right here. I like the foyer as a lot as I dislike the Grand Canyon Concourse, and the previous is proof-positive that trendy Disney might redo the latter and hit it out of the park.
They had been standing on the precipice of greatness with the resort overhaul again in 2021, and I actually assume what prevented the Grand Canyon Concourse from being a part of that was an absence of time. Or maybe in-fighting about whether or not it ought to be one other Incredibles-injection or Disneyland Lodge-inspired?
Finally, my honest hope is that the foyer was merely a trial run for grandiose plans for the Grand Canyon Concourse and that is what’s deliberate for building lasting by means of July 2026. It’s just about that, grounds enhancements or entrance infrastructure work. Whereas the latter most likely must occur, so too does a Grand Canyon Concourse overhaul.
Disney’s Up to date Resort won’t ever overtake its monorail loop counterparts, as Grand Floridian is the flagship resort and Polynesian oozes attraction and environment. However the Contempo might enhance tremendously and turn into the sleeper fan-favorite with a redone Grand Canyon Concourse.
Disney’s Up to date Resort already has distinctive structure and the monorail gliding by means of the atrium–if it grew to become a love letter to the Trip Kingdom of the World with a timeless mid-century trendy aesthetic, it will be a Walt Disney World fan-favorite–simply as is the case with Disneyland Lodge in California!
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YOUR THOUGHTS
What do you consider the development alert by means of July 2026 at Disney’s Up to date Resort? Any guesses as to what this thriller venture might be? Hopeful that the Grand Canyon Concourse will obtain an overhaul akin to the foyer? Or do you worry that it’ll get yet another consistent with the Incredibles rooms? Have you ever stayed on the Up to date in the previous few years? Do you assume the resort is dated and drained, or nonetheless has a recent environment? Suppose the Grand Canyon Concourse wants an overhaul? Do you agree or disagree with our evaluation? Different ideas or considerations? Any questions we may also help you reply? Listening to your suggestions–even whenever you disagree with us–is each fascinating to us and useful to different readers, so please share your ideas under within the feedback!