Walt Disney World has several construction alerts for Contemporary Resort and Bay Lake Tower, including a new one that extends the ongoing refurbishment by a full year to July 2026. This covers the latest updates to the hotel, plus our commentary about what we hope to see happen during this lengthy project.
It’s odd how preferences and priorities change. Over the last few years, Disney’s Contemporary Resort has become one of our preferred places to stay at Walt Disney World–we discussed the reasons for this in Our Favorite Hotel for Disney World Trips as Parents with a Toddler. That covers the many selling points of the Contemporary and BLT, with the most notable being its proximity to Magic Kingdom.
We now stay at the Contemporary fairly frequently. This is despite serious misgivings with the hotel, which has a number of glaring weaknesses that I’d really love to see corrected. This is the entire reason why we’ve been watching the Bay Lake Tower room reimagining with baited breath–it looks fantastic so far–and are eagerly awaiting more updates on the lengthy construction project planned for the resort as a whole. Speaking of which, Walt Disney World has just extended that by a year–let’s take a look at the old and current construction bulletins…
Disney’s Contemporary Resort Construction Alerts
September 2024 Through Summer 2025 (OLD) – Refurbishments will occur in select areas of Disney’s Contemporary Resort—including Bay Lake Tower and the Convention Center. Please allow for extra travel time. Guests may also see and hear construction during their stay.
September 2024 Through July 2026 (NEW/CURRENT) – Refurbishments will occur in select areas of Disney’s Contemporary Resort—including Bay Lake Tower. Please allow for extra travel time. Guests may also see and hear construction during their stay.
September 2024 to September 2025 (CURRENT) – Room refurbishment work will take place in Bay Lake Tower at Disney’s Contemporary Resort. During this time, Guests will see and hear construction work throughout Bay Lake Tower. Please allow extra time for travel as alternate paths may be utilized.
January 26, 2026 Through Early May 2026 (CURRENT) – The Bay Cove Pool, the water play area and the whirlpool spa at Bay Lake Tower at Disney’s Contemporary Resort will temporarily be closed for maintenance. The Bay Lake Pool, the Cove Bar, the feature pool, the water play area and the whirlpool spa at Disney’s Contemporary Resort will remain open for Guests to enjoy.
The challenge here is figuring out what this new notice from Walt Disney World is even referencing. By process of elimination, we can rule out a few things. The first is a pool project, since that’s listed separately and ends in May 2026. Otherwise, this would be the most likely candidate for a resort-wide notice impacting both the hotel side and DVC wing.
Second is the year-long Bay Lake Tower refurbishment, as that has its own separate notice on the Disney Vacation Club site. Previously, this concerned common areas and the Skybridge connecting the A-frame to the tower, but that has been removed. With many floors of Bay Lake Tower already reopened, it’s unlikely that this project pertains to BLT.
There’s also the practical reality that Bay Lake Tower projects typically do not trigger bulletins on the hotel page for Disney’s Contemporary Resort. This only works in reverse. There aren’t any amenities in BLT for guests of the hotel side, whereas there are in the A-frame for DVC guests.
It’s also highly unlikely that this is a room refurbishment project on the hotel side of Disney’s Contemporary Resort. The ‘Incredibles Injection’ just happened in 2020-2021 in the main building, and the following year in the Garden Wing. Even though those rooms have garnered mixed reviews, it would be premature for even a soft goods refurbishment. Not only that, but a room refurbishment on the hotel side likely wouldn’t trigger an alert on the DVC site for Bay Lake Tower.
Even though it’s not the Bay Cove Pool, it could be something along those lines–impacting the waterfront, walking paths, or other common area amenities shared by BLT and the Contempo. The least interesting or exciting explanation is infrastructure work that results in a bit of noise or visual blight in the parking lot, but doesn’t amount to much difference in the guest experience or yield any tangible improvement when it’s done in 2026.
Another possibility that I could see being likely is relocating the security checkpoint. Everyone and their brother tries to park at the Contemporary, which can lead to traffic backups on World Drive. Moving that station closer to the hotel building is the simplest fix for this. Disney is also doing a lot of roadwork right now, so it could be something more ambitious.
Finally, there’s the possibility that this is long overdue work to the Grand Canyon Concourse. Even though this is the A-frame atrium, it’s a common area that’s home to restaurants, retail and other shared amenities. It would absolutely trigger an alert for both BLT and the Contemporary.
I really hope this is what it is. This blog has been bemoaning the datedness and just general ugliness of the Grand Canyon Concourse for years. Long before the Incredibles Injection even began, and we’ve continued complaining about this as the lobby overhaul that’s been sorely needed as Walt Disney World has announced other projects at the Polynesian, Grand Floridian, BoardWalk, etc.
You might be skeptical that Walt Disney World would revisit the Contemporary after “finishing” the overhaul back in Fall 2021. But did they really finish? That project was slated to be done in time for Walt Disney World’s 50th Anniversary, and ended up being a race against the clock.
In fact, it was not done on time–we heard construction workers at all hours in October 2021 struggling to complete the rooms (some even opened in unfinished form). The Garden Wing was pushed off until the following year, and new finishing elements kept appearing in the lobby even after it was “done.”
Not only that, but this wouldn’t be the first time Walt Disney World has hit pause on projects at the hotels for prolonged periods of time. Obviously, there’s Disney Lakeshore Lodge, but that’s kind of a separate thing.
More notable is the Grand Floridian lobby, which is now being worked on long after the rest of the resort was finished. There was an almost 18-month gap from the completion of the rooms to start of work on the lobby.
The Grand Canyon Concourse is just embarrassing at this point. It’s easily the worst atrium among the flagship Deluxe Resorts. There’s no excuse for Walt Disney World not redoing it back in 2020-2021 when occupancy was low and they had the opportunity before Walt Disney World’s 50th Anniversary.
Nothing better encapsulates the visual hodgepodge of the Contemporary better than the above photo (excuse the scrims–they’re old photos, but still completely representative of how the Grand Canyon Concourse currently looks).
In this shot, there are 5 different styles of carpet and 4 different types of tiles–and that’s not counting the deliberate pattern choices around the buffet at Chef Mickey’s. All presumably installed during different projects over the years.
If you were to stand in the center of the hallway above Grand Canyon Concourse, you could count even more disparate styles, as the various gift shops on the other side have their own styles, as does the center of the atrium.
Add those to the different varieties in the hallways around the guest rooms, and you have about a dozen carpet patterns. I’m a big fan of patterns and textures, but not like this. Then there’s the Fantasia gift shop, which was just plopped into the center to increase revenue per square foot, and needs to go.
The restaurants on the other side aren’t much better. Although we’re partial to the food served at Contempo Cafe, the design of the restaurant is nothing special–it looks tired and its only redeeming qualities are the monorail and Mary Blair mural overhead. It’s a similar story with Chef Mickey’s; that is the most iconic character dining experience at Walt Disney World, but one that time has passed by.
The Grand Canyon Concourse looks tired, dated, and visually chaotic. It’s an ugly patchwork of eras, with its style continuing to age and clutter continually added. Ironically, it’s probably the least contemporary resort at Walt Disney World, with very little modernity in its style.
There is no coherent aesthetic to the Grand Canyon Concourse. Its current “style” is the result of Disney’s Contemporary Resort having visual clutter added over the decades, with more and more stuff (PG term) accumulating over the years without any overarching vision.
It’s actually a bit ironic that it’s called the Grand Canyon Concourse, because the layers of clutter are very much like the sedimentary rock layers in the Grand Canyon. Except ugly instead of awe-inspiring. Minor detail.
Many Walt Disney World fans view the Contemporary through the rose-colored glasses of nostalgia. I cannot imagine being a first-timer with little knowledge of or history with this resort, booking it based on the “Contemporary” name and paying over $1,000 per night to stay in the A-frame. To say I’d be probably be disappointed would be a colossal understatement.
The very good news is that the blueprint for an overhaul to the Grand Canyon Concourse already exists! Back ahead of the 50th Anniversary, Walt Disney World redid the main lobby and check-in area and it is gorgeous.
The new-look looby takes a timeless mid-century modern style and combines that with a collection of modern art pieces, Mary Blair-inspired design, and historical, behind-the-scenes photographs of Disney’s Contemporary Resort in development and under construction. It wasn’t that ambitious of an overhaul–it was accomplished pretty quickly–and yet, it made a world of difference.
The Contemporary’s new lobby looks exceptional. It emulates Disneyland Hotel with a pitch-perfect mix of nostalgia and sleek stylization. The Contemporary Resort’s lobby now has personality. Instead of looking like a vaguely modern design from the 2000s, it is imbued with a sharp mid-century modern style. It’s distinctly Disney and will age far better than chasing current trends.
This marriage of a timeless modern aesthetic along with distinctly Disney art and decor makes for a winning combination. This is the perfect rebuttal to all of the talk about how the Contemporary is a conceptually-flawed hotel (a variation of the Tomorrowland problem) that cannot be “fixed.” Yes, it can–and here’s how!
I cannot say enough positive things about what Disney did here. I love the lobby as much as I dislike the Grand Canyon Concourse, and the former is proof-positive that modern Disney could redo the latter and hit it out of the park.
They were standing on the precipice of greatness with the hotel overhaul back in 2021, and I really think what prevented the Grand Canyon Concourse from being part of that was a lack of time. Or perhaps in-fighting about whether it should be another Incredibles-injection or Disneyland Hotel-inspired?
Ultimately, my sincere hope is that the lobby was simply a trial run for grandiose plans for the Grand Canyon Concourse and that is what’s planned for construction lasting through July 2026. It’s pretty much that, grounds improvements or entrance infrastructure work. While the latter probably needs to happen, so too does a Grand Canyon Concourse overhaul.
Disney’s Contemporary Resort will never overtake its monorail loop counterparts, as Grand Floridian is the flagship resort and Polynesian oozes charm and atmosphere. But the Contempo could improve tremendously and become the sleeper fan-favorite with a redone Grand Canyon Concourse.
Disney’s Contemporary Resort already has unique architecture and the monorail gliding through the atrium–if it became a love letter to the Vacation Kingdom of the World with a timeless mid-century modern aesthetic, it would be a Walt Disney World fan-favorite–just as is the case with Disneyland Hotel in California!
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YOUR THOUGHTS
What do you think of the construction alert through July 2026 at Disney’s Contemporary Resort? Any guesses as to what this mystery project could be? Hopeful that the Grand Canyon Concourse will receive an overhaul akin to the lobby? Or do you fear that it’ll get one more in line with the Incredibles rooms? Have you stayed at the Contemporary in the last few years? Do you think the resort is dated and tired, or still has a contemporary atmosphere? Think the Grand Canyon Concourse needs an overhaul? Do you agree or disagree with our assessment? Other thoughts or concerns? 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!
