Recent Disney Permit Hints at Possible Revival of Reflections A Disney Lakeside Lodge Project

Aug 02, 2024 in "Disney Lakeshore Lodge"

Posted: Friday August 2, 2024 10:45am ET by WDWMAGIC Staff

Walt Disney Imagineering recently filed a construction permit for what appears to be a new project between Wilderness Lodge and Fort Wilderness Resort.

The permit lists multiple locations close to the Copper Creek Cabins at Wilderness Lodge, suggesting that Disney may have plans to add more cabins.

However, it has since come to light that the same Disney contractor, Balfour Beatty, filed a very similar permit in 2019, which was assumed to be for the announced Reflections—A Lakeside Disney Lodge project.

Nature-Inspired Resort concept art

Unveiled by Disney in 2018, Reflections—A Disney Lakeside Lodge was canceled in 2020 amid the pandemic downturn, and the land was mostly returned to its pre-construction state.

It now seems that Disney is returning to this prime piece of land for its next project and that Reflections may be about to make a return in some form. Note that at this time, Disney has yet to make any announcement of a new project in this area.

Aerial view of construction at Reflections - A Disney Lakeside Lodge - March 2020

Back in 2018, Disney said the deluxe resort would be themed to complement its natural surroundings. It would include more than 900 hotel rooms and proposed Disney Vacation Club villas spread across a variety of unique accommodation types. Notably, Reflections also included cabins, which may explain the multiple addresses in the permit.

Here are the two permits in question, from 2019 and 2024, showing similar location addresses.

2019 Permit
LOCATION "1" - 570 W. Wilderness Way, Bay Lake, FL; Tax Parcel ID #12-24-27-0000-00-005
LOCATION "2" - 572 W. Wilderness Way, Bay Lake, FL; Tax Parcel ID #12-24-27-0000-00-005
LOCATION "3" - 574 W. Wilderness Way, Bay Lake, FL; Tax Parcel ID #12-24-27-0000-00-005
LOCATION "4" - $76 W. Wilderness Way, Bay Lake, FL; Tax Parcel ID #12-24-27-0000-00-005
LOCATION "S" - 578 W. Wilderness Way, Bay Lake, FL; Tax Parcel ID #12-24-27-0000-00-005
LOCATION "6" - 580 W. Wilderness Way, Bay Lake, FL; Tax Parcel ID #12-24-27-0000-00-005
LOCATION "*" - 582, W. Wilderness Way, Bay Lake, FL; Tax Parcel ID #12-24-27-0000-00-005
LOCATION "g" - 584 W. Wilderness Way, Bay Lake, FL; Tax Parcel ID #12-24-27-0000-00-005
LOCATION "9" - 720 W. Wilderness Way, Bay Lake, FL; Tax Parcel ID #12-24-27-0000-00-005
LOCATION "10" - 722 W. Wilderness Way, Bay Lake, FL; Tax Parcel ID #12-24-27-0000-00-005
LOCATION "1|" - 724 W. Wilderness Way, Bay Lake, FL: Tax Parcel ID #12-24-27-0000-00-005
LOCATION "12" - 726 W. Wilderness Way, Bay Lake, FL; Tax Parcel ID #12-24-27-0000-00-005
LOCATION "13" - 728 W. Wilderness Way, Bay Lake, FL; Tax Parcel ID #12-24-27-0000-00-005

2024 Permit
Location "1" - 570 W. Wilderness Way, Lake Buena Vista, FL 32830, Tax Parcel ID #11-24-27-0000-00-004
Location "2" - 572 W. Wilderness Way, Lake Buena Vista, FL 32830, Tax Parcel ID #11-24-27-0000-00-004
Location "3" - 574 W. Wilderness Way, Lake Buena Vista, FL 32830, Tax Parcel ID #11-24-27-0000-00-004
Location "4" - 576 W. Wilderness Way. Lake Buena Vista. FL 32830, Tax Parcel ID #11-24-27-0000-00-004
Location "5" - 578 W. Wilderness Way, Lake Buena Vista, FL 32830, Tax Parcel ID #11-24-27-0000-00-004
Location "6" - 580 W. Wilderness Way, Lake Buena Vista, FL 32830, Tax Parcel ID #11-24-27-0000-00-004
Location "7" - 582 W. Wilderness Way, Lake Buena Vista, FL 32830, Tax Parcel ID #11-24-27-0000-00-004
Location "8' - 584 W. Wilderness Way, Lake Buena Vista, FL 32830, Tax Parcel ID #11-24-27-0000-00-004
Location "9" - 612 W. Wilderness Way, Lake Buena Vista, FL 32830, Tax Parcel ID #11-24-27-0000-00-004
Location "10" - 632 W. Wilderness Way, Lake Buena Vista, FL. 32830, Tax Parcel ID #11-24-27-0000-00-004
Location "11" - 636 W. Wilderness Way. Lake Buena Vista, FL 32830, Tax Parcel ID #11-24-27-0000-00-004
Location "12" - 640 W. Wilderness Way, Lake Buena Vista. FL 32830. Tax Parcel ID #11-24-27-0000-00-004
Location "13" - 684 #C W. Wilderness Way, Lake Buena Vista, FL 32830, Tax Parcel ID #11-24-27-0000-00-004
Location "14" - 720 W. Wilderness Way. Lake Buena Vista, FL 32830, Tax Parcel ID #11-24-27-0000-00-004
Location "15" - 722 W. Wilderness Way, Lake Buena Vista, FL 32830, Tax Parcel ID #11-24-27-0000-00-004
Location "16" - 724 W. Wilderness Way, Lake Buena Vista, FL 32830, Tax Parcel ID #11-24-27-0000-00-004
Location "17" - 726 W. Wilderness Way, Lake Buena Vista, FL 32830, Tax Parcel ID #11-24-27-0000-00-004
Location "18" - 728 W. Wilderness Way, Lake Buena Vista, FL 32830, Tax Parcel ID #11-24-27-0000-00-004
Location "19" - 910 Timberline Dr., Lake Buena Vista, FL 32830, Tax Parcel ID #12-24-27-0000-00-002

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MisterPenguin9 hours ago

Treehouses?! Oh my. Will this resort be overrun with tarzans swinging around impinging on my personal freedoms?!?!

HauntedPirate12 hours ago

What about the treehouses?

LapuLapu1 day ago

557+399+13 Lake Houses = 969, which is awfully close to the 967 room count used in Disney’s announcements.

nickys1 day ago

I said they were included in the schedule. 🤷‍♀️ But when @HauntedPirate gave the DVC room breakdown, neither the treehouses or the cabins were included. Afaik anyway. We discussed that at the time.

lazyboy97o1 day ago

Why would they be excluded from those schedules? Their purpose is to show that the entire facility is code compliant.

nickys1 day ago

I think there’s some confusion. I don’t think the A frames will be included in @HauntedPirate ’s room counts under 1 & 2 beds. They will be counted in the total number of rooms or keys as filed the other day.

lazyboy97o1 day ago

The schedules posted are not intended to show room categories for room assignment.

Disone1 day ago

They still would need to be called out separately from a one-bedroom or two bedroom in the main building. The Cascade cabins are two bedrooms but they're not the same as a boulder ridge or copper Creek two bedroom. They are their own room category. I'm going to go out and leg here and guess that the framed cabins will also be their own room category. Keeping them as a regular one bedroom or a two-bedroom would be an unrealistic scenario for room assignment and room requests.

dlfan13131 day ago

I certainly won't argue that Disney's resort track record of late has been abysmal in their dismissals of diegesis.

easyrowrdw1 day ago

That’s right! I can’t believe I forgot about 2nd floor Poly. I was walking by them just the other day! 😂 I didn’t know about most of the others lol Thanks for the info

nickys1 day ago

That would have shown up in the recent filing. It is a separate resort. But both will be part of this Palmetto Trust. Which means you don’t get a deeded part of the resort, you get some other kind of membership.

bmr15911 day ago

Someone mentioned it a while ago, but I have to believe that the Cabins will be thrown in with Lakeshore to sell inventory. That’s simply abysmal.

Tuvalu1 day ago

Not to quibble but just a small correction - All rooms on the second floor of the non-DVC longhouses at the Poly do not have a balcony. Second and third floor rooms of the Contemporary wing do not have a balcony. Some rooms at Beach Club have a “Juliette balcony” meaning a door that opens to a one-person standing balcony. Dormer rooms at Grand Floridian and Wilderness Lodge have enclosed balconies meaning you have zero view from inside the room and zero view if you sit in a chair on the balcony. But if you meant all DVC deluxe rooms, completely disregard the above.🤣

nickys1 day ago

I have a theory …… ! 🤔 Lakeshore is being added to the Palmetto Trust. Now it seems almost no one fully understands the Trust, but I have heard others say that Disney cannot simply deposit undeclared units of a resort into the Trust. It has to be all rooms. (This came up when people thought they’d add unsold rooms from Riviera into the Trust). Anyway what if, in order to add Lakeshore into the Trust, they had to put the whole resort into it? So they file for all rooms. But simply never declare all the rooms. Or they assume it’ll take so long to sell that they won’t have to declare all the rooms for at least a decade. Plausible? If the construction plans were drawn up before the full implications about the Trust were known, or before they decided to add it to the Trust , that would explain why the plans had DVC and Regular resort wings etc. It still leaves them with what I think should be a separate booking category of studios with no balcony. Maybe a handful of larger villas.