Photos & Video: Wilderness Lodge New Rooms
The hotel side of Wilderness Lodge has newly-reimagined rooms, different from the studio and multi-bedroom units at Boulder Ridge and Copper Creek Villas for DVC members. This shares photos and video of the redone guest rooms, plus our thoughts on how these compare to the old rooms and other resorts at WDW.
Over the last several years, Walt Disney World has been overhauling its resort rooms. While it’s not a cohesive project, the scope and scale has been large, with nearly every resort impacted. The results have been mixed, with longtime fans frequently disappointed by scaled-back designs that prioritize function over form and often opt for a generically upscale style over ornately themed design.
As a huge fan of Wilderness Lodge who loved the rustic style of the regular guest rooms, I’ve been dreading its reimagining. We knew this day was coming given that pretty much every other Deluxe Resort has been remodeled, and because we toured a test room two summers ago. Although I would’ve preferred a refresh to the existing style, I nevertheless tried to go in with an open mind…
Before we get started, I’ll be the first to admit that I’m biased. I’ve been apprehensive about changes to Wilderness Lodge, mixed on past refurbishments, and against many expansions to and around the resort. While I didn’t exactly have glowing things to say about the Reflections DVC proposal, I have enjoyed other additions–like the Cascade Cabins.
This is largely because I believe Wilderness Lodge is the pinnacle of themed design at Walt Disney World and has been since the resort opened. Subsequent changes have almost all been compromises, attempting to make the property appeal to those who don’t like the U.S. National Park lodge style and should, frankly, simply stay elsewhere. (Pictured below is the old Wilderness Lodge room.)
Wilderness Lodge is, by virtue of its core concept, a niche property that cannot possibly appeal to everyone. Just like an actual U.S. National Park lodge. Some people don’t like nature or rustic style, and subduing those qualities can only do so much to appease those guests. Meanwhile, it alienates those who love outdoorsy accommodations. Trying to satisfy everyone is a recipe for disaster that makes things dull and unappealing to anyone.
With that said, I also have to acknowledge the tough task facing the team behind these new rooms. Making outdoorsy rooms that are also luxurious is a tough balancing act that requires deft design-work. Admittedly, it’s not something I’ve ever seen accomplished at a real U.S. National Parks lodge, either. Even the most iconic buildings with grand atriums that have been meticulously restored and maintained have lackluster rooms. Rather than being historic or modern, most of those guest rooms today look like a Best Western from around the year I was born.
So, how well do the reimagined rooms at Disney’s Wilderness Lodge strike the balance between themed design and modern amenities? Let’s take a look…
Starting with the positives, the new rooms at Wilderness Lodge are undeniably more upscale and refined. The interior design features are generally low-key and restrained, but offer subtle sophistication, good uses of texture, and upgrades throughout.
It probably goes without saying, but the new rooms are also in better condition than the old ones. The better point here is that some of the old rooms were in rough shape the last couple of times we stayed at Wilderness Lodge, “rustic” in more than just the deliberate sense.
Likewise, the higher end and more substantial furniture offers a more pleasant “user experience.”
This is something that’s difficult to articulate and it’s even harder to glean from photos and video, but things like the heft of a drawer or when a door gently and quietly closes instead of slamming shut. Sometimes these improvements don’t receive appropriate consideration in reviews or from guests, but they’re readily apparent when staying at a nice, modern hotel and then following up at an older room that hasn’t received updates in over a decade.
A major selling point of newer guest rooms at Walt Disney World is their improved functionality and finishings.
That continues to be true with Wilderness Lodge, which offers smart design elements that improve the quality of a stay. Things like storage space, power outlets, USB ports, and more.
Perhaps the biggest upgrade in the new rooms at Wilderness Lodge is the lighting, which is true in both the bathroom and the bedroom.
The backlit mirror provides ample lighting in the bathroom. In the bedroom, the lighting is now a lot less harsh and customizable. In addition to the bedside sconces, there’s also uplighting from the headboard itself. Then there’s the lighting on the decorative window between the spaces.
Speaking of which, when it comes to design, my favorite addition is this illuminated window between the bathroom and bedroom. The design reminds me of Grand Prismatic Spring in Yellowstone National Park. Or Fire Rock Geyser at Wilderness Lodge.
This is absolutely entrancing, a highlight of the room for people like me who are attracted to shiny objects. If left to my own devices, I’d sleep with this illuminated and the balcony door open the the ambient noise. Probably for the best that we didn’t, as raccoons are also critters that love Wilderness Lodge and are attracted to shiny objects.
Then there are design elements in the new Wilderness Lodge rooms that I appreciate, and some I really want to like. One such thing is the new headboards, which have a luxurious and grand quality to them while feeling appropriately on-theme.
These don’t hold a candle to the old wood ones featuring landscape scenes carved by beavers, but those were charming and more idiosyncratic. It’s honestly a surprise the previous style lasted so long; Disney moved away from the more quaint and homey hotel room aesthetic years ago.
Another grand idea is the woodsy feature wall art. I’m actually a fan of this design element, which is fairly on-trend with hotels right now. While I think these run the risk of being dated in under a decade, they are fun and give hotel rooms a pop of color and personality. For me at least, it’s difficult to complain about hotel rooms looking too sterile but also being against feature walls.
However, I don’t really care for this particular feature wall. It just looks off; art stuck in an odd limbo that is neither natural nor abstract. It feels like someone got carried away with the stylize filters in Photoshop, with an excess of beveling and drop shadows being the unfortunate result.
Next is the laminate floors that are meant to give the look of hard wood flooring. In other hotels, I’ve found this to be perfectly satisfactory–sometimes even an improvement.
Not so at Wilderness Lodge. The previous pattern was beautiful, timeless, and arguably the defining characteristic of the entire room. If they had to go with wood flooring here, a herringbone plank to emulate those patterns and create more visual interest would’ve been nice.
Photos can only do so much in conveying the quality, space, design, etc. of the room. Sarah’s video tour of the room should help give you a better idea how this space “feels.”
(No seamless transformation in this room, aside from the balcony “magically” appearing out of nowhere.)
While the furniture and fixtures do a fairly good job of reinforcing the resort’s theme, there was only one piece of art in our room. Another item or two would’ve made an appreciable difference.
It’s worth pointing out that this isn’t Walt Disney World’s first crack at rooms similar to this. Let’s take a quick look at some of the successes and failures of other comparable, recently redone rooms at Walt Disney World–plus one at Disneyland…
Pictured above is Animal Kingdom Lodge – Jambo House.
We offered effusive praise for these in “Awesome Animal Kingdom Lodge New Rooms.” Most of the differences are relatively minor, but the totality of them is a superior and better themed room.
It’s a similar story with the new rooms at Disney’s Grand Californian Hotel at Disneyland.
These rooms kept carpet and also did a better job with artwork, including the orange tree between the headboards.
There are actually several different designs for the Copper Creek Villas at Wilderness Lodge, of varying degrees of quality.
Some of my favorites use natural slab headboards, while others have higher end wood feature walls and no individual headboards. The above style, for example, is much more to my tastes than the new rooms at Wilderness Lodge. Add the red geometric pattern carpet and this is about the perfect mix of themed and modern for me.
In fairness, I don’t think the new hotel rooms at Wilderness Lodge are worse than all of the alternatives. I prefer them to the Copper Creek studios. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the ambition here; there’s simply a bit too much going on, and it has some shabby chic vibes and arbitrary eclectic quality.
With all of that said, I think we’re mostly talking about degrees of difference here. All of the rooms pictured above have much more in common with one another than they do the old rooms at Wilderness Lodge. Which you prefer will likely come down to personal preferences and tastes.
If you’re interesting in reading/seeing our other posts concerning these new rooms to judge for yourself how Wilderness Lodge stacks up, here’s the full list of our reviews, with the letter grade I’d give to each in parentheses:
- All Star Movies (B)
- Animal Kingdom Lodge (A-)
- Beach Club (D)
- Old Key West (C)
- Pop Century (B)
- Port Orleans Riverside (C)
- Port Orleans French Quarter (C)
- Saratoga Springs (A-)
- Yacht Club (B+)
Note that these leaves off a few resorts (Caribbean Beach, Coronado, BoardWalk Inn) all of which we’ve covered elsewhere, mostly in updated resort reviews. See our updated Walt Disney World Hotels Reviews page for those.
Ultimately, part of me was bracing myself for the worst with the new rooms at Wilderness Lodge and part of me was hoping for the best given that Walt Disney World has been on a roll with the last few room projects. In the grand scheme of things, the new rooms at Wilderness Lodge are more or less middle of the road by redesigned Walt Disney World room standards of the last ~4 years, perhaps slightly above average.
However, I must acknowledge that a lot of this comes down to my personal preferences. If I liked the feature wall art more, for example, this would be a more positive review. To their credit, there are many things the designers have done right with the new look–the patterned chairs, rich woods, substantial furniture, the entrancing illuminated window. There are still a few ways the new rooms at Wilderness Lodge fall short and feel slightly lacking, but nothing that’s a total dealbreaker. The styles aren’t clashing or garish, and the room is not totally devoid of personality or character.
Moreover, the furniture, finishings, and fixtures are high-end and there are numerous ‘quality of stay’ enhancements that unquestionably elevate the new rooms above their predecessor. Where you fall on the reimagined rooms at Wilderness Lodge will likewise come down to personal preference and where you fall on the “luxury v. theme” spectrum. I cannot imagine the overhauled look will be enough of a turnoff for any longtime fans to stay elsewhere, whereas I can see this being enough to attract a new audience to Wilderness Lodge. Perhaps when viewed through that prism, these new rooms are a success story, after all.
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YOUR THOUGHTS
What do you think of the new rooms at Disney’s Wilderness Lodge? What do you think of the feature wall art? What about the entrancing Grand Prismatic Spring-inspired window? Do you agree or disagree with our review? Do you prefer the look of the old or new rooms? 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!
Overall, I really like the look of the new rooms, but I wish they had been a little more creative with the tile work in the shower. That’s the kind of small detail that can really make a big difference in overall look and theming.
Tom – Your room reviews are always thorough, fair, and interesting. Really well done. I like the new Wilderness Lodge rooms a lot (just based on your excellent photos). I was worried Disney might go too sterile here, but they seem to have struck (in my view) a good balance, as you noted.
Awful. We stayed when it had the beautiful carved beds and it is a bummer they took all the awesomeness out of the rooms. Bummer
The flooring and lack of bed runners (or any color on the beds) continues to kill these rooms for me. I have no problem with removing carpeting… but they need to be way more creative with the patterns they’re using on flooring. It’s like they bought that light grey/brown color in bulk or something.
Totally agree on the lack of bed runners. Didn’t mention it in the review as it feels like beating a dead horse at this point; there’s no way they’re going to reverse course.
Tom, I don’t know how you surreptitiously snuck out after opening the balcony for Sarah’s video but I was hoping to see your shoes poking out from under the curtains as in some murder mystery film noir of the thirties,.. especially since you were going to a lot of trouble to create the long seamless take typical of the auteur,..
“Photos & Video: Wilderness Lodge New Rooms” inspired by Hitchcock’s Rope. 😉
Ugh with the sliding glass doors on the shower. Do they know how hard it is to bath super hyper little kids while reaching around a big glass sheet and praying none of the kids slams his (or his sibling’s) fingers in the door? Or how it means that your kids are banging on the door needing to pee (cuz the toilet is in the same room as the shower) and you can’t let them in because they’d see mom or dad naked? At least it’d be something if it was foggy glass, but nope, it’s crystal clear. Sliding glass doors on bathtubs are an absolute menace for families! Not to mention, the shower wall is super bland–I miss the cute little disney characters on the wall that were there before.
I don’t mind the rest of the room, though I agree Grand Californian is much much nicers. But uggggh on the shower.
Totally forgot to comment on that in the review, but as soon as I saw it, thought “parents of small children are going to hate this!”
Thanks for the reminder!
The feature wall appears to be a blow-up of a Motawi Tileworks piece – very close to this: https://www.motawi.com/collections/art-tile/products/handcrafted-art-tile-arts-and-crafts-woodland
It’s Arts & Crafts and pretty in keeping with lots of the lighting fixtures at WL, but I can see how it wouldn’t read to guests who aren’t into that period. I like it, but they’d have done better to commission some actual Disney tiles and hung them around the room. That would never become dated.
Grand Californian uses interpretations on that piece quite a bit (it’s common in merchandise, in particular).
Perhaps I’m nitpicking, but there’s something about this version that I really dislike. Perhaps it’s the stronger inner drop shadows or bevel? Maybe the color choices? I’m not entirely sure. I realize it’s very similar to something I like–but I just do not like it.
I don’t dig the feature wall either. I think the issue for me is that because the headboards are so big, you can’t see much of the feature wall. So, just seeing a small portion of a busy pattern on the wall is a bit unsettling to me.
In your pictures, I’ve noticed little night stand/shelves on the opposite side of the bed from the telephone/remote control main night stand. That’s huge! I always hated leaving my phone plugged in on the floor. Love it!
You want rustic AND luxury? Check out The Point, in Saranac Lake, NY, in The Adirondacks. Truly a sumptuous experience. It’s the yardstick against which I judge every other place.
https://thepointresort.com
Thanks for sharing–that looks lovely! Boutique hotels with unique and eclectic rooms like those are often a great time.
These rooms do look nice. The wallpaper on the feature wall isn’t my personal taste but I’m sure a lot of other guests will like it. The only thing that bums me out is it seems a little disjointed from the lobby and the turn-of-the-century national park theme that makes it one of my favorite hotels. I feel like the balance between updating and preserving the continuity was off here. That being said, we’re staying here in December and I’m still very excited to see the updates in person.
(It’s my deep disappointment at the “un-rustification” speaking. I love me some log furniture.)
Ha, yes…could be!
I cant believe we missed you! We have been looking to see you this trip and just did our first spilt stay, moving from Pop to Wilderness Lodge this morning. I am traveling with 3 of my kids, 20, 14, and 13, 3 of us are women. We decided to splurge for the last 3 nights of our 8 night stay to have the balcony, the ambiance, the resort pool, and the easier transport to Magic Kingdom.
This is our first stay at Wilderness, but we have stayed many times at Grand Californian, including one stay in their new rooms. I agree the room (and resort overall) “feels” like the Grand in CA.
Below are our first impressions, I will update later this week when we check out.
We love the new window light! It definitely is the highlight of the room. The chairs and cascading tables are nice looking, but not very functional for a family staying in the room and trying to use them to eat. Also, the two side “shelfs” next to each bed are too small (especially compared to the Pop rooms). You can fit a phone, but not much else. It wouldn’t have taken much to make that shelf slightly bigger with a cubby underneath (like the Pop design) to offer more functionality for a longer term family stay.
The bathroom seriously lacks function for a family of 4! Especially coming from the Pop where we had plenty of space for not only bathroom stuff for 3 girls but also all of our soda, water, Gatorade, etc from Instacart! All the storage space is tiny! None of our toiletry bags fit into these tiny spaces so everything has to be on the counter. We had 5 staying at the Grand CA and I remember shelving over both sinks and larger spaces underneath.
I am not sure what the design was previously, but I really appreciate the under bed storage. Without that this room would not really work for a family stay.. There are numerous drawers under the TV. They are adequate in size but not as large as I have had in other resorts.
The Grand in CA defiantly has more ambiance and art (critter/woodland feel) but these rooms are tasteful and have an upscale feel that matches my experience in a lodge at Yellowstone a few years back.
The wifi is definitely faster here than at the Pop. This will matter for boarding group acquisition.
More to come after we have been here a few days. It occurs to me that you likely travel much lighter than a family coming from out of state for a week+ so I will try to add comments that will help those travelers!
Thanks for sharing your experience in the new rooms thus far. Always helpful to get feedback from others, as our needs/preferences differ from a lot of families with kids, larger groups, etc. Enjoy the rest of your trip! 🙂
We typically go to WDW 2-3 times a year and have never stayed at Wilderness Lodge. We’ve eaten there many times and love the decorations during Christmas so we are excited about our stay this December. We’re really hoping Artist Point is open by our trip. Looking forward to your review of the refurbishment at the Lodge.
Sheri A: You beat me with your comment. I thought the same thing when I read that. I guess we need to get Tom out to Yellowstone to one of the lodges there.
Tom: I wish they would put drawers in every bathroom so you have a place to put your stuff so you don’t have to either leave it out on the counter or haul it back to your dresser. When they renovated OKW, they removed those nice drawers. But they kept the drawers in SSR and RIV. Plus the storage spots they left are very short in depth, so if you have some sort of bag for your toiletries, it won’t fit in the hole they left.
Since we own points at Boulder Ridge (or Villas at Wilderness Lodge as it was known), I worry about what they are going to do there. I’m not a fan of the last iteration of renovation, so I suppose I won’t like the next.
The feature wall in WL is so busy and the opposite wall is so plain. The window to the bathroom looks lovely, but when someone needs to get up early or heads to the bathroom in the middle of the night, when they turn on the light, it will flood the entire bedroom. The glass shower partition is nice. I’m also not a fan of the tall headboards that basically are there to cover up the wall. The colors in the window curtain do not go with the color of the feature wall or the furniture. Those curtains look like an after thought.
“The window to the bathroom looks lovely, but when someone needs to get up early or heads to the bathroom in the middle of the night, when they turn on the light, it will flood the entire bedroom.”
You can actually turn that light on in just the bathroom, just the bedroom, or both! Forgot to mention that in the review, but I essentially used it as a “night light” while getting ready this morning so I didn’t wake Sarah up.
you meant grand primatic in yellowstone right… I know you did
Whoops, yeah. Got my “Y” National Parks mixed up. Thanks!
I can’t get past the floor. It overpowers the room and reminds me more Motel 6 than anywhere I’d be paying at minimum hundreds of dollars a night to stay.
Everything else looks alright to great, but the floor completely kills the room and negates its positives for me personally.
I wouldn’t go that far, but I generally agree with your sentiment.
Even though the trend of replacing carpet with wood/laminate flooring is occurring throughout the hotel industry, it is notably not happening at the higher end of the spectrum. I think it’s absolutely fair to expect any hotel charging over $300/night to have carpeting and simply deal with cleaning it between guests. That’s not too much to ask at that price point.
It reminds me of an upgraded hospital room. A detail here and there to appreciate, but overall…where’s the nurse button, and where does the rolling meal tray go?
I kind of understood this sentiment when leveled at the (arguably) overly sterile walls of Pop Century or All Star Movies, but I totally don’t get it here.
I have very bad memories etched into my mind from hospitals, and those have never once been evoked by any hotel room anywhere. You all must have significantly nicer hospitals–free of equipment–around you!
Great review Tom. We just booked a stay at Wilderness Lodge for August and I was curious how the refresh turned out. We are huge fans of the Lodge. I agree with your comment about how much lighting contributes to the atmosphere of a room. I stayed at Boulder Ridge in December and the one main thing that stood out was the harsh white light from the main overhead lamp and how that really made the room look much worse than what it was. Contrast that to the overhead lighting we had at Riveria and I was hoping that lighting would be one area to improve in room refreshes.