Construction on Disney Lakeshore Lodge, the newest mixed-use Magic Kingdom resort that’ll be both DVC and a regular hotel, is flying along at a rapid pace that strongly suggests the massive resort will easily make its 2027 opening date target. This shares new aerial photos and progress on what was formerly Reflections – A Disney Lakeside Lodge.
In case you’re unfamiliar with Disney Lakeshore Lodge or Reflections, it was originally paused during the COVID closure of Walt Disney World, which happened 5 years ago. We’ve covered that at length elsewhere, so we’re not going to rehash it here. Suffice to say, here’s everything you need to know about Disney Lakeshore Lodge.
Demolition of the abandoned River Country water park already happened in 2019, as had site clearing and prepwork for the new lodge in early 2020. Pre-closure, the project was getting very close to beginning actual construction, so it should come as little surprise that it is now vertical and several stories of Disney Lakeshore Lodge have been built.
Reflections — A Disney Lakeside Lodge was previously set to debut in 2022, but Disney Lakeshore Lodge is not set to open until 2027. This makes sense given the delay, and suggests the construction timeframe from start to finish is more or less unchanged–it was just delayed by ~5 years.
In the interim, Walt Disney World opted to convert the Cabins at Fort Wilderness into Disney Vacation Club inventory. “Convert” isn’t really the right word–they replaced the old cabins with brand-new ones that are more modernized and mirror (to some extent) what we’re expecting of Disney Lakeshore Lodge.
These cabins are one of a trio of stop-gap projects aimed at adding DVC inventory in lieu of Reflections, along with the Island Tower at the Poly and Resort Studios at the Grand Florida. Whereas the monorail loop projects were low-risk, slam dunk additions that would sell themselves, the cabin conversion is another story entirely.
The DVC Cabins opened in phases starting about one year ago. They’ve proven controversial among Disney fans, but we love the new DVC Cabins at Fort Wilderness.
As part of the new DVC Cabins at Fort Wilderness conversion, Disney announced a “collection of improvement projects” at Fort Wilderness Resort & Campground designed to enhance the guest experience. Examples include pool and walking trail enhancements, as well as expanded dining experiences at Trail’s End Restaurant and Crockett’s Tavern.
Earlier this month, Walt Disney World announced a pool expansion project at the Meadow Swimmin’ Pool Area that continues this initiative. A new zero-entry pool and deck area is being built alongside the existing pool, effectively doubling the space for guests to enjoy. The expansion will also include a tennis court and two pickleball courts, giving families even more ways to play together in the great outdoors.
Above is a look at progress, which was underway prior to the announcement (permits were first filed almost a year ago). This should help improve the pool lineup at Fort Wilderness, and also relieve the burden on Disney Lakeshore Lodge opens, assuming that DVC Cabins guests are eligible to use that feature pool (which isn’t a sure thing).
(All aerial photos courtesy of theme park eye in the sky bioreconstruct, a highly recommended follow who graciously provided the construction photos here.)
Flying a bit higher, we have a high-level look at the entirety of Fort Wilderness and the Disney Lakeshore Lodge construction site. You can also see Discovery Island to the far right, along with Wilderness Lodge and the TTC at the top of the photo.
This should really put into perspective the footprint of Disney Lakeshore Lodge. It’s obviously not as sprawling as Fort Wilderness, which is a bunch of spread out campsites, cabins, and–as the name suggests–wilderness. But it’s nevertheless quite large!
The key difference is that these three interconnected resort wings will top out at 10 stories tall. Nothing at Fort Wilderness is more than a couple of stories. It’s hard to tell from such a high-level photo, but Lakeshore Lodge is also really, really close to the Settlement. The construction has opened up the area quite a bit.
Here’s another aerial shot showing just how close Disney Lakeshore Lodge is to Pioneer Hall. At the bottom of this frame is the Fort Wilderness dock. Just above that is Clementine Beach, and Pioneer Hall and the rest of the Settlement.
The Disney Lakeshore Lodge towers will, quite literally, tower over Pioneer Hall. For reference, Disney Lakeshore Lodge is much closer to Pioneer Hall than Gran Destino is to the (old) main lobby of Coronado Springs or even Island Tower is to the existing longhouses at the Polynesian.
No photos do this justice. Even after seeing construction plans illustrating just how close the two are, I was still taken aback when seeing this construction in person. It is right there, and the only way to fully convey that is by standing in the Settlement and seeing the tower taking shape.
Here’s another angle that shows the Fort Wilderness Settlement, Disney Lakeshore Lodge, and Disney’s Wilderness Lodge (green roof) along with the Boulder Ridge Villas (brown roof).
As noted above, Disney Lakeshore Lodge will eventually be a 10-story resort with 900 rooms. By contrast, Wilderness Lodge has has a 7-story main building and 728 rooms in total. The largest resort in the Magic Kingdom area is currently Grand Floridian; if you count both its DVC expansion and the main resort, it’s just over 1,000 rooms. Lakeshore Lodge will be fairly close in size to the main resort–with more inventory than the Poly or Contemporary.
To put this into context, Disney’s Riviera Resort is a 9-story with 300 rooms. This will be one story taller and with a significantly larger footprint. It’s not necessarily triple the size of the Riviera, but it’s the largest new resort at Walt Disney World in a long time–with more room inventory than Riviera and Island Tower combined.
Thus far, the footprint of Disney Lakeshore Lodge is unchanged from the previous permits and site plans for Reflections. Disney Lakeshore Lodge has a “W” layout of its wings, with two main courtyards.
If these site plans continue to be correct, there will be a lazy river, feature pool, and waterfront restaurant in the courtyard closer to Fort Wilderness (top of the photo above). The lower courtyard will hold the quiet pool and boat dock.
There’s no reason to believe the layout or site plans have changed. That would trigger permitting updates with the South Florida Water Management District prior to construction, and nothing was filed. What is being built is materially the same as what was permitted–the differences, if any, will be thematically or aesthetically, not structurally.
From this, we also know that there will be treehouse villas and A-frame cabins along the waterfront. In the above image, you should be able to spot 4 of these A-frame structures on the Wilderness Lodge side. The plans call for 4 on this side in total.
What used to be the Clementine Beach at Fort Wilderness will be home to another 9 structures. There are already A-frame structures closer to the water; there should be a second ‘row’ of treehouses behind those, which will presumably have water views thanks to their elevation.
Some of these treehouses will essentially be in-line with Pioneer Hall, and much closer to the Fort Wilderness boat launch than the new dock at Lakeshore Lodge. (Similar to how some of the Poly Bungalows are close to the TTC.)
Ultimately, it’s impressive how quickly Disney Lakeshore Lodge is speeding along. It’s been less than a year since this project resumed, and already, the resort wings are coming close to their full and final height. Obviously it’s a simpler project and a lot of site prep was done in 2019-2020, but it’s nevertheless amusing to see how quickly DVC development is done.
If you’re considering a stay at Fort Wilderness, you may want to wait. The obvious reason for this is the active construction; based on the current pace, we’d expect this to move inside the hotel by early 2026. Even so, that leaves another year or more before Disney Lakeshore Lodge opens.
You might want to wait until then for the sake of the added amenities it’ll bring to the table–along with restoration of the walking path between Wilderness Lodge and Fort Wilderness. While Fort Wilderness guests will almost assuredly not have access to the lazy river or pools, they will be able to use the dining options at Disney Lakeshore Lodge. We’re expecting a restaurant roster on par with Disney’s Riviera Resort or Gran Destino Tower, which should be a win.
To each their own, but if I were a Walt Disney World regular, I’d hold off on staying at Fort Wilderness until Disney Lakeshore Lodge opens in 2027. Even though the construction impact is minimal at over 95% of the campsites and cabins, the combination of work being noticeable from the Settlement and the worthwhile amenities that will debut once the new resort opens would be enough for me to hold off for now.
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Your Thoughts
What do you think of the construction on Disney Lakeshore Lodge? Surprised at just how massive this new Magic Kingdom resort looks from above? Have you seen it from on the ground at the Fort Wilderness Settlement? Are you apprehensive of staying at the Fort for the next few years? Thoughts on guest impact if you’ve stayed here recently? Do you agree or disagree with our advice? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing your feedback–even when you disagree with us–is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!
