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 lodge, plus our commentary about what we hope to see occur throughout this prolonged challenge.
It’s odd how preferences and priorities change. Over the previous few years, Disney’s Up to date Resort has turn into one in all our most well-liked locations to remain at Walt Disney World–we mentioned the explanations for this in Our Favourite Resort 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 lodge, which has a variety of obtrusive weaknesses that I’d actually like to see corrected. That is all the cause why we’ve been watching the Bay Lake Tower room reimagining with baited breath–it appears to be like improbable up to now–and are eagerly awaiting extra updates on the prolonged building challenge 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 time 2025 (OLD) – Refurbishments will happen in choose areas of Disney’s Up to date Resort—together with Bay Lake Tower and the Conference Middle. Please enable for additional journey time. Friends may additionally 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 additionally 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 Might 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 get pleasure from.
The problem right here is determining what this new discover from Walt Disney World is even referencing. By technique of elimination, we will rule out a number of issues. The primary is a pool challenge, since that’s listed individually and ends in Might 2026. In any other case, this may be the more than likely candidate for a resort-wide discover impacting each the lodge facet and DVC wing.
Second is the year-long Bay Lake Tower refurbishment, as that has its personal separate discover on the Disney Trip Membership website. Beforehand, this involved frequent 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 challenge pertains to BLT.
There’s additionally the sensible actuality that Bay Lake Tower initiatives sometimes don’t set off bulletins on the lodge web page for Disney’s Up to date Resort. This solely works in reverse. There aren’t any facilities in BLT for visitors of the lodge facet, whereas there are within the A-frame for DVC visitors.
It’s additionally extremely unlikely that it is a room refurbishment challenge on the lodge facet of Disney’s Up to date Resort. The ‘Incredibles Injection’ simply occurred in 2020-2021 in the primary constructing, and the next 12 months within the Backyard Wing. Although these rooms have garnered combined opinions, it could be untimely for even a delicate items refurbishment. Not solely that, however a room refurbishment on the lodge facet seemingly wouldn’t set off an alert on the DVC website for Bay Lake Tower.
Although it’s not the Bay Cove Pool, it could possibly be one thing alongside these strains–impacting the waterfront, strolling paths, or different frequent 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 may see being seemingly 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. Shifting that station nearer to the lodge constructing is the only repair for this. Disney can also be doing a whole lot of roadwork proper now, so it could possibly be one thing extra bold.
Lastly, there’s the likelihood that that is lengthy overdue work to the Grand Canyon Concourse. Although that is the A-frame atrium, it’s a typical space that’s residence to eating places, retail and different shared facilities. It might 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 could 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 challenge was slated to be achieved in time for Walt Disney World’s fiftieth Anniversary, and ended up being a race towards the clock.
In reality, 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 components 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 accommodations for extended durations of time. Clearly, there’s Disney Lakeshore Lodge, however that’s type 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 start out 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 to be like).
On this shot, there are 5 totally different kinds of carpet and 4 several types of tiles–and that’s not counting the deliberate sample selections across the buffet at Chef Mickey’s. All presumably put in throughout totally different initiatives through the years.
Should you have been to face within the middle of the hallway above Grand Canyon Concourse, you would depend much more disparate kinds, as the varied reward outlets on the opposite facet have their very own kinds, 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 few 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 facet aren’t significantly better. Though we’re a fan of the meals served at Contempo Cafe, the design of the restaurant is nothing particular–it appears to be like 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 to be like drained, dated, and visually chaotic. It’s an unsightly patchwork of eras, with its type persevering with to age and muddle frequently added. Sarcastically, it’s in all probability the least up to date resort at Walt Disney World, with little or no modernity in its type.
There is no such thing as a coherent aesthetic to the Grand Canyon Concourse. Its present “type” is the results of Disney’s Up to date Resort having visible muddle added over the a long time, with increasingly stuff (PG time period) accumulating through the years with none overarching imaginative and prescient.
It’s really a bit ironic that it’s referred to as the Grand Canyon Concourse, as a result of the layers of muddle are very very like the sedimentary rock layers within the Grand Canyon. Besides ugly as an alternative of awe-inspiring. Minor element.
Many Walt Disney World followers view the Up to date by 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 in all probability be upset can 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 primary foyer and check-in space and it’s attractive.
The brand new-look looby takes a timeless mid-century fashionable type and combines that with a group of recent 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 bold of an overhaul–it was achieved fairly rapidly–and but, it made a world of distinction.
The Up to date’s new foyer appears to be like distinctive. It emulates Disneyland Resort with a pitch-perfect mixture of nostalgia and glossy stylization. The Up to date Resort’s foyer now has persona. As a substitute of trying like a vaguely fashionable design from the 2000s, it’s imbued with a pointy mid-century fashionable type. It’s distinctly Disney and can age much better than chasing present traits.
This marriage of a timeless fashionable aesthetic together with distinctly Disney artwork and decor makes for a successful mixture. That is the right rebuttal to all the discuss how the Up to date is a conceptually-flawed lodge (a variation of the Tomorrowland drawback) that can’t be “mounted.” Sure, it will possibly–and right here’s how!
I can not say sufficient optimistic 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 fashionable Disney may redo the latter and hit it out of the park.
They have been standing on the precipice of greatness with the lodge overhaul again in 2021, and I actually suppose 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 needs to be one other Incredibles-injection or Disneyland Resort-inspired?
In the end, 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 July 2026. It’s just about that, grounds enhancements or entrance infrastructure work. Whereas the latter in all probability 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 allure and environment. However the Contempo may 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 the atrium–if it grew to become a love letter to the Trip Kingdom of the World with a timeless mid-century fashionable aesthetic, it could be a Walt Disney World fan-favorite–simply as is the case with Disneyland Resort in California!
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YOUR THOUGHTS
What do you consider the development alert by July 2026 at Disney’s Up to date Resort? Any guesses as to what this thriller challenge could possibly be? Hopeful that the Grand Canyon Concourse will obtain an overhaul akin to the foyer? Or do you concern that it’ll get yet one more according to the Incredibles rooms? Have you ever stayed on the Up to date in the previous few years? Do you suppose 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 can assist you reply? Listening to your suggestions–even while you disagree with us–is each fascinating to us and useful to different readers, so please share your ideas under within the feedback!
