What You Need to Know about Lakeshore Lodge

Everything old is new again with the Disney Vacation Club program. The next hotel in the program will return Disney to its roots, both historically and from right before the pandemic. Here’s everything we know about Disney Lakeshore Lodge. 

Do You Remember River Country?

In 2025, Walt Disney World alternates operations between two water parks: Disney’s Typhoon Lagoon and Disney’s Blizzard Beach. What you may not know is that neither was the first water park on the Disney campus. 

That honor belonged to Disney’s River Country, which opened in 1976. It would remain Disney’s only water park until 1989, when Typhoon Lagoon debuted. In the decade that followed, River Country declined in popularity.

Ultimately, Disney “temporarily” closed the park in 2001 in anticipation of a 2002 reopening that never occurred. Park officials waited until 2005 to confirm River Country’s extinction. So, the water park technically lasted for 30 years, but it was closer to 26. 

Disney Attempted to Rebuild 

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For the body of 15 years, the land of River Country remained unoccupied. It was a poor use of space and spoke to Disney’s indecision about the land. Management wouldn’t drain Upstream Plunge, the 330,000-gallon pool, until more than a decade later in 2016. 

At the time, speculation ensued that Disney planned to do something with this valuable piece of land. In March 2018, the company filed paperwork for Project 89, with rumors circulating of a DVC hotel. 

Sure enough, DVC confirmed Reflections – A Disney Lakeside Lodge in October 2018. The hotel would have been a ten-story mixed-use hotel on the grounds of the former River Country. 

DVC anticipated a 900-room property with unique amenities. One of the first confirmed projects was a restaurant themed to Princess Tiana from The Princess and the Frog. Disney also promised A-frame cabins, novelty rooms akin to the Cascade Cabins at Copper Creek and the Bungalows at the Polynesian. 

The theming here would have celebrated nature, and the restaurant would have featured a bayou theme. Disney’s conceit was to be that Bay Lake was the bayou. 

There were big plans in place, and everyone was excited. Then, life got in the way. Despite the fact that construction was well underway, Reflections never became a reality, and you probably know why.

In 2020, a global pandemic forced the closure of every Disney theme park in the world. As part of this shutdown, Disney stopped most construction projects, cutting its capital expenditure budget by nearly $1 billion. 

Reflections fell by the wayside, as Disney filed the paperwork to end construction. By the first quarter of 2022, DVC had confirmed the cancellation of the entire project. 

Many fans assumed that was the end of the story. It wasn’t. In late 2024, Disney confirmed it would move forward with a new resort on the same footprint.

Lakeshore Lodge Rises from the Ashes

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Enter Disney’s Lakeshore Lodge. This place looks and sounds eerily similar to Reflections, albeit with some slight changes. Disney turned 1900 Park Fare into a Tiana character meal. 

You should view Lakeshore Lodge as more than just “the next best thing.” If anything, it’ll be superior in every way since Disney officials have had more time to plan the facility. 

To Disney’s credit, the company refused to give up on the idea of another DVC resort near Wilderness Lodge and Fort Wilderness. So, we’re getting another Magic Kingdom area resort in 2027. 

Many of the plans from Reflections have since been discarded. As such, the new hotel is far from a carbon copy of the one Disney promised at Destination D23 in 2018. Still, I believe that one aspect will remain true.

When Disney revealed Reflections, it promised a resort that will “be a celebration of Walt Disney’s lifelong love and respect for nature.” Given the location of Lakeshore Lodge, that borders on a necessity anyway, as Disney doesn’t want to disrupt the beauty of Fort Wilderness and the Wilderness Lodge campus. This new hotel should augment their appeal.

Everything We Know about Lakeshore Lodge

As an example, that hotel would have featured a breathtaking pool expansive enough to include a lazy river. The current expectation is that Lakeshore Lodge’s pool will contain a lazy river as well, making it the second DVC property at Disney World to have one. 

The supposition for this belief is that Disney filed the paperwork showing these pool plans. Also, the giant pool area should include a splash area, a concept growing in popularity at Disney and recently seen at the Island Tower at the Polynesian. One of the pools should be zero-entry as well, and I presume it’s the large pool, not the leisure pool. 

Something you should understand is that while construction is well underway, some of these plans may change. At this point, Lakeshore Lodge primarily consists of steel frames and concrete walls. The building interiors and hotel amenities I’m describing are part of the paperwork, but Disney could always file different plans later to change some of it.

Construction site of Disney’s Lakeside Lodge (Photo Credit: WDW News Today)

Still, Lakeshore Lodge should be a tower hotel, presumably ten stories tall, that will feature 900 hotel rooms, give or take a few. Disney has confirmed the nature theme, and insiders suggest that a restaurant by the bayou remains a strong possibility. 

To a larger point, we’ll add a significant amount of inventory near Disney’s Fort Wilderness Resort. That’ll be the fourth DVC property in this region of the Walt Disney World campus, which will nearly equal the current inventory at DVC’s monorail resorts. So, DVC members will improve their odds of booking near Magic Kingdom, the most popular theme park on the planet.

What’s the Timeline for Lakeshore Lodge?

I recommend that all Disney fans interested in construction projects follow a user named bioreconstruct. They have YouTube and Bluesky pages. The operators of this page use aerial views to capture images of various Orlando construction projects.

Recently, bioreconstruct has shown several images of Lakeshore Lodge’s progress, including this one confirming a lazy river being built. There are two other shots from this update, and they reveal tremendous progress.

The main edifices are well underway, as is the boat dock that will go here. In viewing some of these images, you’ll understand how close Lakeshore Lodge will be to Fort Wilderness. In fact, I’ve seen several DVC members nervously wonder whether the hotel will loom over the Pioneer Hall of Fort Wilderness. 

That’s actually a good thing in that guests at Lakeshore Lodge can take advantage of the spending amenities and activities at Fort Wilderness. To a larger point, the construction progress tells a story. 

Disney has already built out most of the backbone of Lakeshore Lodge before the end of 2025. As such, barring something unforeseen, this resort should definitely be ready in 2027. 

My belief is that it will debut during the first half of the year. Disney prefers to have new properties up and running in time to take advantage of summer vacations. Thus, I fully expect an opening during the second quarter of 2027. 

When Can You Buy Lakeshore Lodge?

Lakeshore Lodge construction site with possible lazy river foundation (Photo Credit: bioreconstruct on X)

In terms of planning your purchase, let’s look at recent DVC history. When the Island Tower opened at Disney’s Polynesian Village Resort, sales began on October 1st, which was two and a half months before the resort’s debut. 

At The Cabins at Disney’s Fort Wilderness Resort, sales began on February 1st, 2024. Meanwhile, guests stayed in the Cabins for the first time on July 1st. 

The Polynesian is a bit of an outlier here, as the new inventory was added to the existing condo association agreement. Thus, I’d expect Lakeshore Lodge to follow the same pattern as Fort Wilderness. 

In that scenario, we’d be discussing Lakeshore Lodge sales to begin early in 2027 for stays in May or June. If the project runs early, we may even see the sale window open in late 2026. 

In terms of Expiration Years, The Cabins end in 2075. Since Lakeshore Lodge will debut three years later, I’d anticipate a 2078 Expiration Year for these contracts. And I sadly expect the same DVC resales constraints as with The Cabins, as Disney just can’t help itself with this ridiculousness. 

What level of confidence do I have in this timeline? Well, delays obviously happen all the time in the construction industry. Thankfully, Disney has been quite good at making its DVC construction deadlines lately. None of its last four projects experienced a delay. So, I feel pretty good about the chances of Lakeshore Lodge opening in the next 18 months or so.

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