Disney World Finally Reveals New Lakeshore Lodge Concept Art, Opening Timeline & Details!

After radio silence for the last 16 months, Walt Disney World has finally announced more details about Disney Lakeshore Lodge, a new mixed use hotel and DVC resort opening in 2027. Here’s the latest official details about the property, new concept art, recent construction photos, what we can surmise from permits and more.

Originally announced in October 2018 as Reflections – A Disney Lakeside Lodge, the project was paused in March 2020 during early site prep amidst the COVID closure of Walt Disney World. It replaces the abandoned River Country water park, which was demolished in 2019. (The second and third pieces of concept art below are from the Reflections incarnation of the project. Only the top art is new.)

Work quietly resumed on the project 18 months ago, and has moved at a really fast pace. Following that, Disney confirmed the project was happening in November 2024, but minus any material details. The full extent of Walt Disney World’s announcement was basically “it’s being built” and will open in 2027.

Again, that was back in late 2024. It’s been over a year of radio silence from Disney Vacation Club and Walt Disney World since on the development of Disney Lakeshore Lodge, which is a bit odd for a company that gives us regular updates on pretty much everything. Officially, almost nothing was known about the Disney Lakeshore Lodge incarnation of the project…until now, thanks to a new announcement in April 2026!

Here’s what Disney has revealed about Lakeshore Lodge, the next DVC resort and hotel at Walt Disney World, starting with the first piece of concept art for this version of the project:

Nestled along the shores of Bay Lake, this tranquil waterfront retreat will invite members and guests to celebrate the beauty and magic of nature, as seen through the eyes of Disney artists and storytellers. According to the company, Disney Lakeshore Lodge will celebrate the profound connection between nature and imagination — a bond at the heart of Walt Disney’s artistic vision.

From the lush forests of “Bambi” to the colorful winds of “Pocahontas” and the majestic glacial peaks of “Brother Bear,” the resort will pay homage to decades of beloved animated stories inspired by the great outdoors. Subtle nods to these timeless stories will appear throughout the property, woven into the architecture, artwork and ambiance to establish an experience where families feel surrounded by the enchantment of nature.

“We’re excited to share our vision for Disney Lakeshore Lodge, a place where the magic of Disney storytelling comes alive through the beauty of the natural world,” said Bill Diercksen, senior vice president and general manager, Disney Vacation Club. “Inspired by Walt Disney’s lifelong admiration for the great outdoors, this resort will offer our members and guests an opportunity to reconnect with nature while creating cherished family memories at Walt Disney World Resort.”

Disney Lakeshore Lodge will embrace its surroundings as an integral part of the guest experience. Expansive floor-to-ceiling windows will frame the resort’s lush landscape, inviting natural sunlight to illuminate interiors. The resort’s location along Bay Lake will offer serene views of native flora and fauna by day and the Magic Kingdom fireworks illuminating the sky by night.

Disney Lakeshore Lodge will feature 967 themed accommodations, ranging from convenient studios to spacious multi-bedroom villas, designed with families in mind. Studios and villas will combine sophisticated style with the comfort and functionality guests have come to love, featuring warm natural materials, earthy color palettes and upscale amenities.

Disney Lakeshore Lodge will also introduce one and two-bedroom Lake Houses positioned along the waterfront, offering guests an up-close connection to the beauty of Bay Lake. These unique accommodations will provide privacy and water views.

Additional details will be shared in the coming months about Disney Lakeshore Lodge’s dining venues, recreational offerings, unique amenities and distinctive design elements that will bring the spirit of nature and storytelling to life.

Disney Lakeshore Lodge is slated to open in Summer 2027, so there’s some time to slowly pull back the curtain on its unique accommodations, amenities, and marquee features. However, there’s also a lot that we can glean from construction photos & permits…

Although some details could’ve changed since, Disney Lakeshore Lodge should be substantially the same resort that was announced back when it was Reflections. We know this because the permits did not change, and thus far, visible construction progress has been consistent with the original plans.

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.

Lakeshore Lodge is a mixed-use resort, meaning there are separate hotel and Disney Vacation Club wings. At one point, I knew the rough breakdown between the hotel inventory and DVC inventory, but can’t recall–it’s close to 50/50 or 60/40, though. At opening, most of that will be available for cash bookings, as even what’s dedicated Disney Vacation Club inventory won’t be declared.

Here’s a photo I took a couple weeks ago of construction progress from the monorail, passing the Garden Wing of the Contemporary:

The base structures have now been topped off at their maximum heights, and work is underway inside the buildings and around the grounds. In the photos below, you can see the pool, waterfront restaurant, boat dock, and outlying A-frame cabins all taking shape.

Active construction is visible from Bay Lake, Wilderness Lodge, and even the Settlement area of Fort Wilderness. There’s zero construction impact on guest rooms/campsites at Wilderness Lodge or Fort Wilderness, but it’s very visible from the Settlement of the latter.

Below is a look at new aerial photos from Spring 2026 showcasing the latest progress on Disney’s Lakeshore Lodge, which was moving at an incredibly fast pace ahead of its planned Summer 2027 opening. In the last few months, visible progress has slowed, presumably as crews have moved to the inside of the resort (which you cannot see from a helicopter).

As always, all aerial photos are courtesy of friend of the site bioreconstruct, who graciously provided the construction photos here (photos deeper in the post after this first set of 3 are from February):

One big question mark about Disney Lakeshore Lodge concerns the “waterfront lake houses” announced in April 2026. We already know that at least some of these will be A-frame cabins, but treehouse villas were originally intended for the Fort Wilderness side. Work has yet to start on those. It’s possible where those will be built is being used as a staging site, or that they’ve been cancelled.

The other big question marks about Disney Lakeshore Lodge involve the themed design, characters and movies that’ll be featured, and other window-dressing. Although there were leaks back in 2019, we’ve yet to see any official interior concept art of this resort (either incarnation).

Back at the 2019 D23 Expo, Bob Chapek revealed details, including a Princess and the Frog waterfront restaurant, along with Pocahontas and Bambi-inspired decor throughout. It’s unknown the degree to which all of this has changed in the last 6+ years. All of the IP could be completely different, or 100% the same.

What we do know is that Disney Lakeshore Lodge will be a massive resort complex. This 10-story resort, 967 room resort will be Walt Disney World’s biggest since Art of Animation or Animal Kingdom Lodge. 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 Grand Floridian; it’s ~1,000 rooms between the hotel and DVC wings. Lakeshore Lodge will be fairly close in size to the main resort–with more inventory than the Poly or Contemporary.

Relative to recent resorts, Disney’s Riviera Resort is 9-stories tall but with only 300 rooms. This will be one story taller and with a significantly larger footprint. Not 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.

Disney Lakeshore Lodge will feature both a waterfront restaurant (above) and a lazy river (below), both of which are in the main courtyard, on the side closer to Fort Wilderness.

This lazy river is huge. The pool complex will be the likely highlight of Disney Lakeshore Lodge, making it only the third Walt Disney World hotel to offer one, joining the iconic Stormalong Bay at the Yacht & Beach Club Resorts.

Disney Lakeshore Lodge’s feature pool will also include a zero-entry design for easy access, water slides, and a splash pad for the children’s play area. The pool area should offer scenic waterfront views of Bay Lake.

As noted above, there will also be A-frame cabins along the waterfront based on permits and visible progress. Tremendous progress has been made on these in the last couple of months.

What used to be the Clementine Beach at Fort Wilderness should also become home to a second ‘row’ of treehouses behind the A-frames, which will presumably have water views thanks to their elevation. This are expected to completely replace Clementine Beach.

Some of the standalone waterfront units will be closer to the Fort Wilderness boat launch than the new dock at Lakeshore Lodge (below). Although not officially confirmed by Disney, this dock is already taking shape, and a 967 room resort is going to need its own launch, bus service, etc.

The waterfront restaurant is interesting, and should actually have views of the “bayou of Bay Lake,” as the waterfront trees have not been removed here.

My hope is that many more trees are planted around the periphery of the resort once exterior work is finished. One of the big issues with the Island Tower and other recent projects is a lack of lushness. If this continues with a resort in the wilderness, it’ll stick out like a sore thumb.

Trees can also help conceal underwhelming facade work, and back of house areas. There are some spots like this that are plainly visible at the Island Tower, and look awful. It’s nice that Disney has left so many mature trees in place, but they also cleared out a ton of them. Planting young trees around the perimeter will be badly needed.

Thankfully, the new concept art shows a lot of trees around the porte cochere and front entrance to Disney Lakeshore Lodge. My sincere hope is that this is actually the plan, and not the typical artistic liberty being taken with the concept art. It wouldn’t be the first, second, or third time that concept art used lush vegetation as filler. I assume someone at Disney has a Photoshop action or whatever labeled “insert trees.”

Given the pace of the project to date, I’m honestly shocked that the official opening season for Disney Lakeshore Lodge is Summer 2027.

We’ve been saying for months that this should easily open in the first half of 2027. And if it opens on Memorial Day 2027, I guess we were technically correct. But I’ve taken that a step further, wondering whether Walt Disney World would be able to move it up to late 2026.

Part of this was a matter of past precedent. Disney’s Riviera Resort opened on December 16, 2019 and Island Tower debuted on December 17, 2024. The timing, almost 5 years apart to the day, does not seem coincidental.

Up until recently, it looked like the exterior of Lakeshore Lodge was at roughly the same point as of 2026 that Riviera or Island Tower were as of 2019 and 2024. That suggested to me that a holiday season opening was at least within the realm of possibility for Lakeshore Lodge.

However, we also pointed out that Lakeshore Lodge is much larger than either of those, and could take longer as a result of its size, amenities like the lazy river or waterfront restaurant. Moreover, the interior could be months behind Riviera or Island Tower at this point, for all we know.

Based on the announced Summer 2027 opening timeframe for Disney Lakeshore Lodge, it would appear that outside appearances were not conclusive of the resort being ahead of schedule. I’m sure Walt Disney World would’ve loved a Christmas 2026 opening–or even early 2027 for the busiest and highest occupancy weeks of the year–but alas, it is not to be.

As teased in the release, Walt Disney World and Disney Vacation Club should announce more about Lakeshore Lodge in the coming months.

To give just a couple of reference points, hotel reservations for Riviera opened on January 22, 2019, and DVC sales started two months after that. The model room also debuted around the same time, and we already had full official details on all of the restaurants, pools, etc.

Island Tower sales started on October 1, 2024–just in time for the fresh fiscal year. It’s also notable that it was pretty much radio silence from Disney on that resort until May 2024, at which point the name was revealed, as were a few other details. After that, there were regular updates to generate interest and enthusiasm throughout the summer and fall.

Ultimately, it’s impressive how quickly Disney Lakeshore Lodge is speeding along and we’re looking forward to staying here in Summer 2027. While I have a lot of reservations about this project and its proximity to Fort Wilderness, I’d be lying if I didn’t admit I’m also really looking forward to Disney Lakeshore Lodge.

The big driver for this is how we’ve ended up feeling about other resorts opened since 2018. There’s the aforementioned Riviera Resort for one, which has grown on me a ton. We also have ended up loving Gran Destino Tower. Hideous as it is from the outside, we’ve enjoyed Island Tower far more than expected.

Disney Lakeshore Lodge looks much more ambitious, fully-featured, and better looking than any of those. If this has a healthier budget for placemaking and a lush environment around the outside, that alone will make it a massive upgrade over the Island Tower.

It’s a shame that Disney Lakeshore Lodge towers over the Settlement, as opposed to being centered between Fort Wilderness and Wilderness Lodge, but it should still be an asset to this resort ‘region,’ as well as the DVC portfolio and Walt Disney World as a whole. Failing all else, we’re looking forward to finally being able to walk between Wilderness Lodge and Fort Wilderness again!

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Your Thoughts

What do you think of Disney Lakeshore Lodge? Surprised at just how massive this new Magic Kingdom resort looks from above? Are you looking forward to this new mixed use hotel and DVC resort? Thoughts on Lakeshore Lodge opening in Summer 2027? Do you agree or disagree with our assessment? 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!