Walt Disney World has announced a mystery refurbishment starting this month and continuing throughout 2026 at the BoardWalk. Here’s the latest on the construction warning, plus what we expect the project to encompass.
For starters, this is interesting because Disney’s BoardWalk Inn recently “finished” (air quotes) a major, multi-year refurbishment project. Back in 2022, Walt Disney World announced they’d be reimagining elements of the beloved turn-of-the-century promenade and inside the Deluxe Resort, with a charming new lobby design, delectable new dining options, and other ‘light and airy’ touches.
The biggest changes that actually materialized were new guest rooms on both the hotel side of Disney’s BoardWalk Inn and the DVC Villas, Carousel Coffee (lobby coffee bar), Cake Bake Shop by Gwendolyn Rogers (replacement for ESPN Club), BoardWalk Ice Cream (replacement for Ample Hills), BoardWalk Deli (replacement for BoardWalk Bakery), and the new Blue Ribbon Corn Dog kiosk. All of that was completed a year or more ago, with Cake Bake Shop being the last to debut.
Fast-forward around 13 months, and Walt Disney World has announced another year-long project for the BoardWalk. Here’s the construction bulletin that appears on the official website:
Beginning late November 2025 and continuing throughout 2026, refurbishment work will take place in select areas of Disney’s BoardWalk Inn. While Guests may see or hear work during daytime hours, most Resort amenities—including dining, recreation, and merchandise locations—will remain available.
The Disney Skyliner will be closed for routine refurbishment January 25–31, 2026, and January 24–30, 2027. During these times, complimentary bus transportation will be available.
From January 11, 2027, through April 2027, the Luna Park Pool, the Luna Park Crazy Play Area and Leaping Horse Libations at Disney’s BoardWalk Inn and Disney’s BoardWalk Villas will be closed for routine maintenance. Guests may see and hear work taking place during daytime hours. However, the Villas Pool and the Inn Pool will remain open for Guests to enjoy.
Only the first paragraph is pertinent to this post. The Skyliner and Luna Park Pool closures were previously announced.
The most notable details are that it’ll take place throughout 2026, as opposed to having a specified end month. That suggests it’s expected to last the duration of 2026, or at least, most of the year. It’s also taking place in select areas, plural, of Disney’s BoardWalk Inn. Taking these two pieces of info together suggests it’s a fairly major project.
There are a number of possibilities as to what this could be. The first is the least exciting–that it’s just facade work. This has been happening over at Yacht and Beach Club, and it’s entirely possible Walt Disney World will use the same resources to replace and refresh the exteriors of Disney’s BoardWalk Inn while the construction crews are already at Crescent Lake.
Notably, the refurbishment bulletins for Yacht and Beach Club indicate that those resorts are “undergoing routine exterior maintenance” and that the “work may impact views from various locations throughout the resort, and at times, alternate paths of travel may be in place.”
BoardWalk not having these details does not definitively rule out exterior work, just makes it less likely. Walt Disney World is known to post vague bulletins from time to time. It just seems like they would’ve copied and pasted over the Yacht & Beach Club bulletins were this essentially an ‘extension’ of that work.
Another possibility is that Walt Disney World is finishing what it started with the 2022 reimagining. It was never clear to us whether the BoardWalk lobby was actually completed, or if Disney decided to do a light refresh and move on.
Aside from the check-in desks being replaced by kiosks, not a whole lot changed. You may not even notice the lobby received a refresh, and we’d stop well short of calling it a redesign. It might seem odd to revisit this ~2 years after it was previously “completed,” but that’s precisely what happened with the Grand Floridian.
In fact, this whole announcement reminds us a lot of that lobby overhaul, from the long pause right down to the vague bulletin that ended up coming into clearer focus a week or so later when Walt Disney World issued a press release and concept art for the Birdcage Bar. I don’t think BoardWalk will get another lobby bar, but stranger things have happened!
Then there are all of the vacancies out along the actual BoardWalk. Walt Disney World previously teased something new for the first of these, but that was well over a year ago and it seemed more like something to placate fans than it did that they had an actual plan.
In case you missed it, Big River Grille & Brewing Works permanently closed in early last year. And it was easy to miss, as the time from when the news broke to when the restaurant closed was literally only a few days. It was abrupt, and even the employees who worked there didn’t know until the last minute.
A little over one year later, Jellyrolls Dueling Piano Bar closed in April 2025 after nearly 30 years on the BoardWalk. According to Jellyrolls management, the decision was made to move to a new location in Orlando. This didn’t come as a huge surprise, as Jellyrolls had been struggling for a while and Walt Disney World rent is expensive.
Yet another closure recently hit this same side of the BoardWalk, as the Promenade Fine Art Gallery closed permanently last month. No word yet on a replacement for that, either. But it’s very telling that Walt Disney World has had 3 businesses go bust at BoardWalk in the last 2 years, and several more before that.
Both Big River and Jellyrolls were Walt Disney World institutions of sorts, opening in 1996 along with the rest of Disney’s BoardWalk Inn. These vacancies are somewhat concerning for the ‘health’ of that end of the promenade, where Atlantic Dance Hall is pretty much the lone survivor, and seems to itself be hanging on by only a thread.
To avoid BoardWalk having dead mall vibes, Walt Disney World really needs fill the void and reinvigorate the promenade. This area was once positioned as a secondary ‘destination’ entertainment district to Downtown Disney (now Disney Springs) but has been allowed to languish over the years.
Ultimately, our hope is that this mystery project involves filling one of the aforementioned vacancies. If so, the vague bulletin would make sense; Walt Disney World may not be ready to announce the project (especially if it involves a third party) but they need to alert paying guests to the potential disturbance.
On the other hand, I doubt they’re revisiting the lobby. It looks fantastic as-is, both from a thematic and freshness perspective. This is one case where it seems like a light touch with the refurbishment there was purposeful, as Walt Disney World (smartly) took a don’t fix what isn’t broken perspective. At least, that is also my hope.
This is actually one scenario where the most exciting possibility strikes me as the most plausible–new restaurant(s) and/or retail. This bulletin is being posted not just the same month–but the same week–that work is slated to start.
That usually only happens with urgent unscheduled maintenance, and it’s hard to imagine that there are previously-unknown, urgent repairs that are going to take a year or more. Rather, this seems like Disney finally just struck a deal with a third party for one of the vacancies, and they want to get moving on filling it ASAP. But once again, this is my hope.
Walt Disney World really needs to fill multiple of those vacancies, and has needed to do so for a while. So this being the mystery project would be an overdue win. The losses of ESPN Club and Ample Hills Creamery on the other end of the promenade were huge blows, but at least that side has been reinvigorated.
This culminated with the opening of the Cake Bake Shop Restaurant by Gwendolyn Rogers, which was controversial among diehard Walt Disney World fans for its pricing, but has been a huge hit with regular guests. That side of the BoardWalk feels alive again.
Walk a little farther, and the opposite end is dead. It’s time to begin the turnaround of Disney’s BoardWalk, breathing new life into the promenade with brand-new dining concepts and more. Even with minimal parking, the BoardWalk is within walking or boat distance of both EPCOT’s International Gateway and Disney’s Hollywood Studios.
Disney’s BoardWalk Inn is also connected to thousands of hotel rooms via the Skyliner gondolas, and there are another few thousand rooms that are walkable in the Crescent Lake Resort Area–many of which house high-spending convention guests. The district could certainly suspect a new tenant or two, they just need to be concepts that guests actually want.
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Your Thoughts
Hope this construction project is to fill one of the vacancies along the BoardWalk, or for something else? What is most needed in the Crescent Lake Resort Area? Think something more adult would help revive the BoardWalk, or should Disney focus more on family-friendly options for BoardWalk? 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!
