ATTRACTIONS UPDATE
Disney Announces Plans to Build
Nature Inspired Mixed-Use
Resort on Bay Lake
Hotel and Proposed Disney Vacation Club
Property, Three Other Previously Announced
Resort Projects to Add More Than 1,700 New
Hotel Rooms, Villas at Walt Disney World Resort
F
or those of you who are long-time locals, you
likely remember “The Old Swimmin’ Hole” that
was Disney’s River County water park, within
the ground of the Fort Wilderness Campground Resort.
Opened just a few years after the Resort’s opening in 1976,
it was a great way to spend a day in the water either in
pools, on slides, or just splashing about in the lake without
a care in the world. But all that fun ended back in 2001, just
after the Resort’s new, larger, and more exciting Typhoon
Lagoon park opened its doors. But for the past 17 years, the
prime plot of land at the rear of Fort Wilderness and on a
span of Bay Lake, the area has sat unused and abandoned.
a total of more than 1,700 new hotel rooms and proposed
Disney Vacation Club villas online over the next four years.
The deluxe resort, which will be themed to complement
its natural surroundings, will include more than 900
hotel rooms and proposed Disney Vacation Club villas
spread across a variety of unique accommodation types.
“Walt Disney World is in the midst of our most significant
expansion in the last two decades and the combined
1,700 new hotel rooms and proposed Disney Vacation
Club villas we are building at four different resorts will
create thousands of new construction and permanent jobs
and will drive economic opportunity and incremental
revenue for Central Florida,” said George A. Kalogridis,
president of Walt Disney World Resort. “We continue
to add new attractions, new lands – and these beautiful
accommodations will be right in the heart of all that magic.”
Now, after years of planning, this somewhat-historical
piece of land will finally get put to a new use. The Walt
Disney World Company recently announced a new
nature-inspired, mixed-use Disney resort along this
picturesque shoreline of Bay Lake. Located between
Disney’s Wilderness Lodge and Disney’s Fort Wilderness The soon-to-be named resort, which will begin welcoming
Resort & Campground, this resort project joins three guests in 2022, is slated to be Disney’s 16th Disney Vacation
others underway at Walt Disney World Resort, bringing Club property and it will continue to build on the value
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WINTER GARDEN MAGAZINE
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NOVEMBER 2018