Disney Keeps Future Options Open For New Disney Vacation Club Property at Bay Lake

Gallery / 1 Photo
Nature-Inspired Resort concept art

Posted: Thursday May 9, 2024 9:30am ET by WDWMAGIC Staff

A recent permit filing has raised speculation that Disney is continuing to keep its options open for the construction of a new Disney Vacation Club property on Bay Lake between Disney's Wilderness Lodge and Fort Wilderness Resort.

Disney has extended a South Florida Water Management District water management permit for an additional five years. While this alone does not mean work is imminent on a new resort, it suggests that Disney wishes to retain the ability to use the land for a future project.

The previously announced Bay Lake Disney Vacation Club resort, Reflections—A Disney Lakeside Lodge, was canceled in 2020 amid the pandemic downturn, and the land was mostly returned to its pre-construction state.

Reflections - A Disney Lakeside Lodge site in March 2020

Project 89, as it was first known, has been somewhat controversial since it became public knowledge in 2018. The resort offered a design style that was not to everyone's liking on a prime piece of land around the former River Country.

Nature-Inspired Resort concept art

Despite the 2020 cancellation of Reflections, the land is a prized location, and it would be no surprise to see the project revived at a later time, or a new project moving in to take its place.

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JoeCamel1 day ago

Has anyone actually seen the cranes working? Seems all the photos are of them sleeping, maybe it's just for show and space people are dropping building parts in at night?

gerarar1 day ago

First time at Wilderness Lodge for a dinner reservation at Artist Point the other day. The food was fantastic and the resort as a whole was very beautiful with great theming and details and everything. We took the red flag boat from there to Magic Kingdom and grabbed these pics. First time too on the little boats (only ever took the ferry before). Neat transportation overall, gives some great views of the lagoon and surrounding areas. 848466

SplashJacket8 days ago

From afar today:

nickys18 days ago

Firstly that depends on whether it’s added to the Cabins at FW resort or not. If that happens it’ll have the same date. BWV is not a good precedent. It expires in 2042, which is when the very first DVC resort (OKW) expires. The first few resorts all had the same end date. If it’s sold as a new condo association, it will be based on when it is registered as such. So around when sales begin.

CJR18 days ago

This may have been discussed already, but does anyone know the likely 50 year expiration for this resort? Do you think they'll go off the original pre-pandemic date or when they restarted the project? Boardwalk for example, didn't open until 1996, but its expiration is set from 1992. If they went off the pre-pandemic, that would be like cutting it ten years short.

JoeCamel18 days ago

Some of them don't either....

Agent H18 days ago

Ha! I wish but I don’t have anything close to the needed talent.

JoeCamel18 days ago

Get a job with them and download the internal mail list

lazyboy97o18 days ago

The size of Walt Disney Imagineering fluctuates but is generally well north of 1,000 people. They also make use of independent contractors and vendors, who themselves can be some very large companies. There are also a variety of other stakeholders on any given project that are also going to impact outcomes. It’s a bit creepy because it’s a lot of personal information that doesn’t really tell you a lot. That said, one of the requirements to receive a Thea Award is providing a credits list. Unfortunately these lists are not tightly controlled by various contracts like the credits for a movie, they’re based on the honor system and vendors will often just be listed by company, but they are something. https://www.teaconnect.org/thea-awards-digital-programs