In case you missed it, there’s basically refurbishment-palooza going on at Walt Disney World Resort the next two years. While we’ve still got our dedicated post on hotel refurbishments updated, there were two specific announcements this week I wanted to talk more about. Here’s the latest on a pair of Disney World hotel refurbishments!
Contemporary Resort Refurbishment Details Updated
Read our Review of Contemporary Resort
First up, Contemporary Resort. Contemporary made waves a few months back with the announcement that through late 2027, refurbishments will occur in phases throughout select areas including the atrium and Bay Lake Tower. This was an update from a similar announcement that had only gone to July 2026, a rather substantial extension.
Now we’ve gotten a few new details. Here’s the three updated notices, from the Bay Lake Tower DVC page (which has more information than the hotel page):
Refurbishment work will occur in phases throughout select areas of Disney’s Contemporary Resort, including the atrium, Bay Lake Tower and the Main Tower. The Main Tower will undergo exterior maintenance beginning March 23, 2026, which may impact views from various locations throughout the resort and, at times, require alternate paths of travel. Guests may see or hear construction during daytime hours.
Late March Through Late May 2026: Exterior elevator landing repairs will take place at Bay Lake Tower.
March 30 Through May 1, 2026: The Skyway Bridge connecting Bay Lake Tower and the Contemporary Main Tower will be closed Monday–Friday, 9 a.m.–5 p.m. and will reopen daily after 5 p.m. and remain available evenings and weekends. Guests may need to use alternate paths of travel at times and may see or hear construction activity while work is underway.
First, notice that the atrium—the huge interior space in the middle of the Main Tower at Contemporary—is still listed as an area to receive work. We still assume this will be a large project with the goal of revitalizing the entire area, and we’re still hesitant to book at Contemporary until we know more about this. Among other practical issues, the Contemporary monorail station is adjacent to the atrium, and the monorail runs through the atrium.
Second, you can see that the next major project will be exterior work, beginning around March 23. This isn’t the sort of stuff that typically impacts a stay too much, but Main Tower guests should be prepared for their balconies to be not as enjoyable during the day. (I’d be interested to know if the Atrium Club Level is impacted.)
While I’d prefer more detail on the heart of the project…in the heart of the Main Tower…for now we’ll have to keep relying on the piecemeal updates.
New Rooms Coming to All Star Movies — Will Music and Sports Follow?
Read our Full Review of All Star Movies Resort
Read our Full Review of All Star Sports Resort
Read our Full Review of All Star Music Resort
News also broke this week that All Star Movies will be receiving a room refurbishment starting late May 2026 and running until January 2027.
This isn’t a surprise, given that Pop Century—another value resort with rooms similar in style to the All Stars—just got its rooms updated. While I loved the previous generation of Pop Century rooms (which are the current generation of All Star rooms), people criticized them for their “hospital room” feel. The new Pop Century rooms have a bit more color.
While I didn’t feel the Pop Century rooms needed significant updates, apparently other guests are bigger aesthetes and Disney decided to brighten them up (the recent Yacht Club soft goods refurbishment is on similar footing with me). If it made business sense at Pop Century, it probably makes business sense at the All Stars…or at least 2 of the 3. With Movies set for the new rooms, Music will probably follow shortly thereafter.
And then there’s Sports. I didn’t really think of this until I was putting together this week’s newsletter, but Sports is in a really awkward position because the room refurbishment was delayed by the 2020-and-beyond closure.
The old rooms at All Star Sports
I thought it was pretty funny when Sports reopened from the 2020 closure still with old rooms (I actually regret not flying down one last time to stay in one). The rooms didn’t actually wind up getting updated until mid-2022 to early-2023. That’s about 3 years after the Music rooms finished.
Given that—in my eyes—this is a pretty marginal room enhancement to begin with (the last one was much more significant), I could see Disney skipping the Sports refurbishment this time around. Presumably this would mean slightly lower guest satisfaction at that hotel, but these are trade-offs we sometimes accept.
Finally, its possible even Disney World doesn’t know where this is going. I guess the Pop Century rooms are making some people happy, which is why Movies is getting the new treatment. But will guest satisfaction and bookings improve at All Star Movies enough to justify the cost of upgrading the relatively new Sports rooms in short order? We’ll see. And, I don’t know how much group athletic bookings actually drive the bottom line at Sports, but that factor could be relevant.
What About Art of Animation?
Read our Review of Art of Animation
Art of Animation, the fifth value resort at Disney World, is unique. Most of its rooms are family suites, which at heavily themed and command high prices. The Little Mermaid rooms—not suites—are also significantly more themed than the other value rooms. All of these rooms were updated to remove carpeting and improve some other features around mid-2019 to early-2020.
Altogether, it’s about time to improve these rooms, especially when you consider Disney recently (2023) debuted significantly better “Under the Sea” rooms at Caribbean Beach.
The problem, as I see it, is that while I see what the upgrades at Pop Century were meant to achieve, there doesn’t really seem to be a corresponding “small step” that the Art of Animation rooms could take. They don’t need “brightening” or “a bit more theme.” They’re bonkers rooms already. I don’t love them, but a major aesthetic rebuild would be the only reasonable step.
Such rebuilds aren’t unheard of, and they ultimately have to happen every so often. We saw Caribbean Beach’s Pirate rooms become Under the Sea rooms. And the Royal Rooms at Port Orleans Riverside are in the midst of being updated. From my point of view, though, those rooms were in notably bad shape before the upgrades. I can’t say the same about the rooms at Art of Animation.
In any case, it would seem unlikely that Art of Animation goes completely untouched in this round. I’d suspect to see the rooms get small upgrades, with a huge redesign feeling unnecessary at this point (though I’d most welcome it at the Little Mermaid rooms). If Disney rotated through the value resorts one at a time, I think something like:
Pop Century
All Star Movies
All Star Music
Art of Animation
All Star Sports
could make sense.
Which Hotel Refurbishment are you most excited about?
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