Disney World Reveals Art of Animation Resort First-Ever Room Reimagining in 2027!

For the first time since the hotel opened nearly 15 years ago, Disney’s Art of Animation Resort is getting a hard goods refurbishment. Walt Disney World has shared that the hotel will receive a room reimagining in 2027, following up on the Pop Century project and joining the All Stars to round out the Value Resort refreshes.

As basic background, Art of Animation first opened in 2012, rising from the ashes of Pop Century’s Legendary Years. It enjoyed a long run as the newest resort at Walt Disney World, until Riviera Resort debuted in 2019. (Kind of wild that the gap between AoA and Riviera will be shorter than Riviera and Lakeshore Lodge.)

Art of Animation features family suites themed to Finding Nemo, Cars, The Lion King along with Little Mermaid standard rooms. The resort was a smash success for a long time, and the first several times we stayed at Art of Animation, we paid full price. This might seem like a foreign concept today, as the family suites are often deeply discounted, but there were several years when Little Mermaid rooms were excluded from all discounts.

On top of that, the Little Mermaid rooms at Art of Animation Resort are the most expensive standard Value Resort rooms in all of Walt Disney World. While the Little Mermaid rooms at Disney’s Art of Animation Resort are often touted as being a small surcharge over the other Value Resorts, this is a bit deceiving due to the difference in discounts. As a result, the gap is often $50 or more per night over Pop Century, which is a steep price to pay.

While we love the Family Suites at Art of Animation, we’ve long been more critical of the Little Mermaid rooms. There are a variety of reasons for this, but one of the biggest is that they came along during a period when standard rooms were lacking. (For a full discussion of the pros & cons, see our latest Disney’s Art of Animation Resort – Little Mermaid Rooms Review.) In the years since, Walt Disney World has really hit its stride with room redesigns.

Unfortunately, the Little Mermaid rooms haven’t received any meaningful upgrades since they first opened way back in 2012. During that time, the resort as a whole has had a variety of projects. The biggest change was undoubtedly the construction of the Skyliner, which was built over Hourglass Lake and is shared with Pop Century.

The only room refurbishment has been a soft goods refresh that took place between 2019 and 2021. During this project, the family suites and standard rooms had their carpeting replaced by clean, modern laminate flooring. Additionally, full-sized beds were upgraded to queens, furniture and light fixtures were updated.

There was also a multi-phase floor replacement project in the lobby, which replaced the original tiles that became grimy and discolored over the years. More recently, the oversized icons around the resort have been repainted to ensure they stay vibrant against the Florida sun. Whenever I’ve stayed at Art of Animation in the last few years, it seems like there’s always been a character or two out of commission for refurbishment.

Fast forward to 2027, and Disney’s Art of Animation Resort will receive its first top-to-bottom hard goods room refurbishment.

This is one of a few multi-year projects that are either currently underway or will start soon, a list that also includes soft goods refreshes at the All Star Resorts and the first-ever Kidani Village hard goods refurbishment (an even older resort than AoA). These probably are not the only hotel renovations on the horizon, either–just the ones that extend into 2027 or 2028. Keep an eye on our Walt Disney World Hotel Construction Tracker for further updates, more of which are likely to be released between October and December.

During a recent media event at Walt Disney World, we had a chance to hear from resort leadership about how they reinvest hundreds of millions of dollars each year in the parks & resorts. These efforts are part of a broad effort to ensure existing experiences receive the care, to maintain the guest experience.

It takes an enormous team to “maintain the magic” at Walt Disney World. Outside of Imagineering, there are more than 4,000 Cast Members across 15 different trades dedicated to maintaining and refreshing the parks & resorts. One such project discussed as an example of this is the upcoming Art of Animation refurbishment.

During the presentation, Walt Disney World leadership announced that a refurbishment of Disney’s Art of Animation Resort will begin in Summer 2027. No end season was given, but we’d expect this to last into the second half of 2028.

They revealed that this will be a phased refurbishment, with the hotel staying open during the process. This is to be expected. Outside of Disneyland Paris where the resorts were in rough shape and inventory wasn’t needed, it’s exceedingly rare for Disney to close hotels during regular and routine refurbishments. And that’s what this AoA project is.

Disney shared that Imagineering and Facilities Asset Management has been working on the Art of Animation project to maintain what makes the resort a special place while evolving and enhancing the guest rooms. They shared a first look at the new rooms with us to showcase the style.

No images have been provided by Walt Disney World for sharing, which I assume is because the redone rooms are still being tested and not all details are finalized. (This is common with top to bottom room overhauls; we saw test rooms for Yacht Club and Wilderness Lodge years ago that didn’t perfectly match the finished product.)

The good news is that I can confirm that they’re a marked improvement. The Little Mermaid rooms will finally be redone in the style of all other Value Resorts, with the pull-down Murphy bed that doubles as a table. This is the big substantive improvement, and should make the Little Mermaid rooms much more appealing to guests.

I’ve previously sung the praises of these Murphy beds for their space-saving design, flexibility, and the comfort of the bed over a typical sofa sleeper. In Walt Disney World Adds Free Resort & Room Amenities for Young Families, I went as far as to say that our family actually prefers this style of Value Resort rooms that most Moderate Resort rooms thanks to these Murphy beds. The biggest exception, ironically enough, is the the special ‘Under the Sea’ rooms at Caribbean Beach.

Beyond that, the design looks better. One of our biggest criticisms over the years is that, rather than having elaborate theme and details, the Little Mermaid rooms have had fairly cheap decorations scattered around.

I’ve also written that I’d take the more restrained thematic elements and style of All Star Sports in an instant over the lazy look of the Little Mermaid rooms at Art of Animation. There are some fun details, to be sure, but the cutouts and other cheap visuals had a DIY quality. Like something I could do for our daughter’s room at home, or what you’d find in a third party vacation rental.

What was shared by Walt Disney World of the new-look Little Mermaid rooms is a marked improvement. With the caveat that there’s no guarantee these are the final design, I found the style to be a good mix of fun and detailed, while also feeling slightly more adult.

It struck me as a mix between the current Little Mermaid rooms and the ‘Under the Sea’ Little Mermaid-inspired rooms at Disney’s Caribbean Beach Resort (pictured below), which probably isn’t a huge surprise. I’d imagine WDI and FAM have learned lessons from both and this is the next iteration on those designs.

For my tastes, it threaded the needle nicely, being neither too subdued nor too over-the-top. (I feel like this is likewise demonstrated in the recent soft goods refurbishment at Pop Century, which offers a host of incremental improvements.)

Speaking of which, for those unfamiliar with the terms, a hard goods refurbishment is typically a gut-job during which the furniture, flooring, fixtures, and other elements are replaced. We refer to these as room reimaginings, as they usually result in materially-different rooms.

In between hard goods refurbishments, there are soft goods refurbishments to extend the life of a particular room design, and to give them a fresh look that takes advantage of industry trends and innovations in design. Soft goods refurbishments typically involve updating furnishings, including but not limited to wall coverings, flooring, linens, decor, and some furniture.

One thing to note is that Walt Disney World did not label the Art of Animation room refurbishment as a hard goods refurbishment (they never do). That’s my own conclusion, based both on the scope of work visible from the sneak peek and the resort’s refresh history. Art of Animation is due for a hard goods refurbishment, and this looks like one, therefore it probably is.

Art of Animation is on a different refurbishment cycle than Pop Century or the All Star Resorts, all of which got their big hard goods refurbishments starting in 2017 with Pop Century. The All Star Resorts took much longer and were interrupted by the COVID closure, but they ended up receiving the same update.

Fast forward to last year, and Pop Century started the next wave of Value Resort soft goods refurbishments, which was less about substance and more about style (and upkeep). If you want a better idea of the outcome with the Little Mermaid rooms, check out First Look Photo Tour of New Rooms at Disney’s Pop Century Resort.

That’s probably around 66% of what this project will yield, with the biggest difference being in the thematic window-dressing. The form and function of the rooms should be pretty similar, though. This overlap is good news from our perspective. The room reimagining that started in 2017 with Pop Century was one of the very first ‘modern’ generation of resort room designs at Walt Disney World, and subsequent soft goods refreshes built on that foundation.

These redone Value Resort rooms offered marked improvements to make them fresh and functional, with a bunch of clever space-saving design features added. While the footprint remained the same, the resulting rooms feel much larger. There’s more storage, one of the beds folds up into the wall to reveal a table, and more.

For the most part, the new layout has been uncontroversial with Walt Disney World fans. There’s a reason that all three All Stars adopted the exact same design as Pop Century; it was incredibly well-received among guests. Multiple managers at the Value Resorts have indicated to us that guest feedback has been incredibly positive, with higher satisfaction scores.

Prior to this, Walt Disney World room redos were heading in the wrong direction with overly generic and homogenized styles and no functional improvements to otherwise justify the bland designs. The one-two punch of the Value Resorts and Yacht Club marked a major course correction and began the turnaround that we’ve seen since.

From a practical perspective, expect the 2027 guest room reimagining at Disney’s Art of Animation Resort to be done building-by-building. This is pretty standard, and has meant that Walt Disney World takes an entire building out of the room inventory, overhauls it all at once, and then reopens that building.

This is done to minimize the construction impact. This way, no one is getting stuck in a room right next to one that’s under active construction. It’s good for guests and also for Disney, as they don’t have to deal with the inevitable complaints and relocating guests. It’s entirely possible that you could stay at AoA in the next year and not even realize there’s construction happening if the building being redone is on the other side of the resort.

With that said, there have been times when they do multiple buildings at a time and take rooms in one of those offline and bring them back online in two phases. We’ve had reports from some readers who were close to rooms being worked on and could see or hear it during the daytime hours. This situation is easily avoidable with a room request, thankfully.

Art of Animation having clusters of outlying buildings makes this type of project less impactful than it’d be at many other resorts. At this point, you do NOT need to avoid Disney’s Art of Animation Resort in 2027 or 2028. A room request to be located away from construction should suffice.

You might nevertheless opt for one of the other Value Resorts out of an abundance of caution…or simply to get a room that’s not at the end of its life. Until the halfway point (or so) in this project, we’d actually continue to recommend Pop Century over the Little Mermaid rooms at Art of Animation simply for the sake of those newer and nicer rooms.

Once the room reimagining kicks into high gear, we’ll have progress updates as to which buildings are being renovated, so you can make room requests accordingly. We’ll do this both so you know which buildings to avoid to steer clear of construction, and what to request to increase your odds of getting a new room. Sign up for our Free Walt Disney World Newsletter for updates on this and other developments.

We’re looking forward to the room refurbishment at the Art of Animation. As I’ve made clear over the years, I’m not the biggest fan of the Little Mermaid rooms. They have grown on me over time, but the current/original version still doesn’t compare to any other Value Resort standard room.

After this room refresh is complete, the biggest downside of the Little Mermaid rooms will be the location. That’s remediable with a room request and isn’t as big of an issue with the addition of the Skyliner, anyway.

I’m excited. Art of Animation already performs well on our Rankings of All Walt Disney World Resorts from Best to Worst, but that’s largely due to the Family Suites. Those are among our favorite room types in all of Walt Disney World, but the standard Little Mermaid rooms are much more budget-friendly, and this refurbishment should make them much more attractive.

Ultimately, as parents to a daughter who already loves the Little Mermaid, this reimagining is a huge win for us. We had already been coming around on these rooms, but still viewed them as a ‘warts and all’ option since (again) we have an Ariel loving toddler…and that helps overlook a lot of warts!

This hard goods refurbishment should instantly make the Little Mermaid rooms the best standard rooms at any Value Resort, striking the perfect balance of form, function, design, and Disney whimsy. The only downside will be the walk…and my own fear that these will once again become so popular that they’re excluded from discounts. That seems like a good problem to have!

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Your Thoughts

Are you a fan of the Little Mermaid rooms or do you prefer the style of the other Value Resorts? What major changes or incremental improvements would you like to see made during the upcoming Art of Animation Resort refurbishment? Is using the Pop rooms as a template work, or does Disney need to go back to the drawing board and totally redo these rooms again? 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!