Art of Animation's first big room overhaul since 2012 now has dates: mid-June 2027 through October 2028

Disney's Art of Animation Resort has never had a major furniture and fixtures overhaul in its 14 years open. Now there is a date on when that changes: mid-June 2027.

Blog Mickey reported Wednesday that Walt Disney World has put up an official refurbishment notice for the resort. The work starts in mid-June 2027 and runs through October 2028, and crews will take the themed areas in sequence rather than closing the whole place at once. Until now, the only timing Disney had given publicly was that the project would begin in the summer of 2027.

A Little Mermaid standard room. The scallop shell headboards and the pearl lights are the kind of fixtures a hard goods refresh replaces. The teal plank flooring is laminate, not the original carpet; that swap ran from 2019 to 2021 and was soft goods, not fixtures. Photo: WDW News Today

What a hard goods refresh actually means

This is not new bedspreads. Blog Mickey reports Disney will perform a hard goods refresh, meaning all new furniture and fixtures. That is a meaningfully bigger job than anything the resort has had before.

Per WDW News Today, nothing on this scale has happened at the resort since it opened in 2012. The examples that outlet gives are all soft goods: carpet in the rooms swapped for laminate between 2019 and 2021, and a lobby floor replacement. Neither touched the furniture.

The scope includes the family suites and The Little Mermaid guest rooms. WDW News Today adds one specific detail about what goes in, reporting that "while maintaining their animation quality, the rooms will receive pull-down Murphy beds providing a second bed or a table, depending on what the guests need at the time." Blog Mickey's account of the notice does not mention it.

Four areas, one at a time

The resort is laid out as four themed areas. The family suites fill three of them: Finding Nemo, Cars and The Lion King. The Little Mermaid section is the fourth, and it holds the only standard rooms at this resort.

Taking them one at a time keeps the other wings open and bookable while crews work, and Blog Mickey reports the resort is expected to stay open throughout. Blog Mickey adds that the notice does not identify which themed area goes first, and gives no phase by phase calendar inside the roughly sixteen-month span. Mid-June 2027 is therefore the most precise start date on the record right now.

Jellyfish sculptures in the resort main pool, photographed at a media preview in April 2012, weeks before Art of Animation opened. Photo: zannaland, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

What guests staying there should expect

Both outlets report the notice warns guests about daytime work. WDW News Today quotes it as saying guests "may see or hear maintenance work in the area during daytime hours," and adds that "alternate paths of travel may be in place until work is complete." Blog Mickey words the same line as maintenance in the "active area." In practice that means anyone booked into the resort across those sixteen months should expect at least one wing to be a work zone.

There is no concept art to look at yet. Per Blog Mickey, media saw a piece of it earlier this year, but nothing has been released to the public. The project itself surfaced in May 2026, when Disney executives briefed media on the company's reinvestment in Walt Disney World's classic attractions and said the resort would get a room and suite refresh starting in summer 2027.

Sources

WDW News Today, "Dates Announced for Major Room Refurbishment at Disney's Art of Animation Resort"
Blog Mickey, "Art of Animation Room Refurbishment Dates Announced"

Image credits: Blog Mickey (resort entrance sign); WDW News Today (Little Mermaid room); pool sculptures by zannaland via Wikimedia Commons, licensed CC BY-SA 2.0.