Disney Sets Art of Animation Room Refurbishment Window

Walt Disney World has set the refurbishment window for guest rooms and suites at Disney’s Art of Animation Resort, with work scheduled to begin in mid-June 2027 and continue through October 2028. According to BlogMickey, Disney’s official refurbishment notice confirms that the project will be completed in phases, with crews working through one themed area at a time. The notice does not identify which area will be addressed first or provide individual dates for each phase. Art of Animation Resort includes four themed areas: family suite wings themed to Finding Nemo, Cars, and The Lion King, along with a Little Mermaid wing containing standard rooms. The phased approach is expected to allow the remainder of the resort to stay open and available for bookings as work progresses. Guests may see or hear maintenance activity in the active refurbishment area during daytime hours. The resort is expected to remain open throughout the project, although Disney has not provided a more detailed operating schedule for the work. The refurbishment is described as a “hard goods” refresh, involving new furniture and fixtures in the rooms and suites. Disney showed media a piece of concept art earlier in 2026, but the artwork has not been released publicly. The project will be the first major hard-goods room overhaul at Art of Animation since the resort opened in 2012. Disney executives first disclosed plans for the room and suite refresh during a May 2026 media briefing focused on Walt Disney World’s classic-attraction reinvestment strategy, describing the work at that time as beginning in summer 2027.