Walt Disney World has started to announce resort refurbishments for the next couple of years. One of the biggest upcoming hotel projects will be at Animal Kingdom Lodge, which now has confirmed dates from Fall 2025 through 2027. This shares details, plus our commentary about the impacts of the work and which rooms probably will not be changed.
This is one of a few multi-year projects that are either currently underway or will start soon, a list that also includes the Year-Long Pop Century Room Refurbishment, Disney’s Port Orleans Resorts Room Refurbishments Underway Until 2026 (or 2027) and Wilderness Lodge . These probably are not the only hotel renovations on the horizon, either–just the ones that extend into 2026 or 2027. Keep an eye on our Walt Disney World Hotel Construction Tracker for further updates.
As we’ve mentioned elsewhere, many of the Walt Disney World hotel hard & soft goods refurbishment timelines have been delayed due to the closure and the pent-up demand in its aftermath. The good news is that this hasn’t been as bad on the hotel side as with DVC properties, so Walt Disney World won’t be spending the next few years playing catch-up, but between a few postponed projects and the likelihood of larger-scale reimaginings and new construction, there’s a lot on the horizon.
Against that backdrop, here’s the official announcement from Walt Disney World about the multi-year Animal Kingdom Lodge refurbishment:
From October 2025 through May 2026, Guest rooms at Kidani Village at Disney’s Animal Kingdom Lodge will undergo refurbishment, followed by refurbishment work at Jambo House from May 2026 through January 2027. During these times, Guests may see or hear construction work in the area. All amenities will remain available throughout the refurbishment.
This refurbishment was to be expected. As discussed in our Disney Vacation Club Resort Refurbishment Timeline, this was already announced at the condo association meeting late last year, and simply given a 2025-2026 timeline. What the latest update does is narrow down the dates, while also extending the end target. No surprise there, as later starts and longer timelines have become the norm.
Although not officially stated, this room redo at Kidani Village and Jambo House is the long-awaited hard goods refurbishment. For those unfamiliar with this term, it’s typically a gut-job during which the furniture, flooring, fixtures, and other elements are replaced. We refer to these as room reimaginings, as they usually result in materially-different rooms. It’s typically a night-and-day difference, without any of the same furniture or fixtures.
In between hard goods refurbishments, there are soft goods refurbishments to extend the life of a particular room design, and to give them a fresh look that takes advantage of industry trends and innovations in design. Soft goods refurbishments typically involve updating furnishings, including but not limited to wall coverings, flooring, linens, decor, and some furniture.
Walt Disney World has been utilizing soft goods refurbishments quite effectively in the last decade to introduce space-saving design features. Consequently, the line has been blurred between soft and hards goods refurbishments, to the point that we’ve seen massive changes during soft goods projects (especially on the DVC side) to install new fold-down beds and make other major changes.
We mention both types of room refurbishments and this line-blurring because the Animal Kingdom Villas missed the boat for this. While these rooms have received soft goods refurbishments previously, they’ve been minor and barely noticeable. Basically just swapping out some fabrics and carpet–I’m not sure I would’ve been able to spot the differences if I didn’t have before and after photos.
This will be the first hard goods refurbishment since the Animal Kingdom Villas opened between 2007 and 2009. Combine that with the fairly light nature of the soft goods refreshes, and neither Kidani Village nor Jambo House have seen any major room renovations in over 15 years. Closer to 20 years by the time this project is finished!
To the best of my knowledge, that makes the Animal Kingdom Villas the oldest rooms at Walt Disney World right now.
As for what to expect, the Animal Kingdom Villas are in an interesting spot where they have missed two previous waves of room refurbishments. They predate the ones that began around 2014 that generified rooms, and they also missed the more recent wave that began with Disney’s Riviera Resort.
This means a couple of things. The first is that the Animal Kingdom Villas are more thematically pure than subsequent new or redone rooms that followed for about the next decade. During that time, there were a lot of rooms that looked like generic Marriott or Hiltons, something of which we were highly critical for a while.
Thankfully, the more recent wave has been stronger thematically. Their track record hasn’t been perfect, but the villas at BoardWalk, Beach Club, Grand Floridian, Polynesian, Boulder Ridge, and so forth have been improvements over their immediate predecessors. Pretty much every single DVC room redesign in the last 6 years has had a positive outcome.
This is also true from a functional perspective, as the changes that rolled out with Disney’s Riviera Resort have been rolled out in room redesigns. The old Animal Kingdom Villas opened long before the wave of Inova pull-down beds that started debuting in late 2019. Those will absolutely be added during this refurbishment, just as they’ve been added at Bay Lake Tower, Wilderness Lodge, Polynesian, and every other DVC resort that’s had its rooms refurbished since.
Given the trends over the last ~6 years, here’s what else we can expect with the room reimaginings at Jambo House and Kidani Village:
- Replacing the sofa sleeper with a combo couch-bed that pulls down from the wall
- More outlets and charging ports
- Carpet replaced by laminate flooring and area rug
- Disney art added to rooms
- Brighter and airier interiors with more pops of color
- Table and chairs replaced by 5th sleeper
- Improved and indirect lighting with more fine-tuned control
Keep in mind that this is purely speculative based on consistent past precedent in the last ~6 years. I wouldn’t mind if the AKV rooms retained the bedframes (which I consider timeless and iconic), as well as the light fixtures, framed art, and some furniture. But I wouldn’t count on that. Again, it’s a hard good refurbishment. What you see in the existing rooms is probably all ending up at Cast Connection & Property Control.
Here’s a look at the new Boulder Ridge (Wilderness Lodge) rooms to help you visualize what this could look like:
As we’ve mentioned repeatedly, the Boulder Ridge Villas are our new #1 rooms in all of Walt Disney World. This is probably the closest approximation for the before-after change you can expect at the Animal Kingdom Villas. Prior to their refurbishment, these Boulder Ridge rooms had been among the oldest at Walt Disney World.
The Boulder Ridge rooms received a hard goods refurbishment and were gutted in the process. The room received all-new decor, flooring, walls, panels, curtains, furniture, and beds. The old Boulder Ridge rooms were often criticized for being dark, drab and dreary. We liked the rustic style, and know a lot of other DVC members who agreed. But there also were plenty of complaints, and it’s hard to deny that the rooms looked dated. They were also very worn by the time of the refurbishment.
It’s an almost identical story with the villas at Kidani Village and Jambo House. Some fans love the thematically-rich designs, others argue they’re a bit long in the tooth and worse for wear. Personally, I don’t necessarily think these sentiments are at odds. I love the underlying themed design of the rooms, but they’re also dated and worn. A refresh is badly needed, and was ~6 years ago.
As evidenced with Boulder Ridge, the ‘dark era’ for Walt Disney World room redesigns that involved a lot of generic and very understated styles is over. Imagineering has demonstrated a defter design touch with these and other recent DVC rooms. The team tasked with redesigns has hit its stride in stylish yet practical accommodations that are both well-themed and comfortable, befitting both Disney and their price points.
There’s a ton of depth via textures, patterns, and even things like subtle wallpaper. There’s a ton of color–making this a significant departure from the rustic and drab designs of the prior rooms–but it’s utilized effectively and these rooms still have an outdoorsy sensibility to them. The rooms still look relatively relaxed and subdued, with calming colors. Most of these look fantastic, and do a great job balancing contemporary conveniences with themed design, while never being overly busy or chaotic.
This is precisely what we’re expecting at Kidani Village and Jambo House, albeit in the visual identity of Animal Kingdom Lodge. That’s good news because, for my tastes, the new rooms at Boulder Ridge stick the landing on well-themed without being overwhelming. These are my favorite rooms of the standard options at Wilderness Lodge, new #1 Disney Vacation Club studios, and right up there with the new-ish rooms at Animal Kingdom Lodge as the best themed accommodations at Walt Disney World (pictured below).
Speaking of which, this refurbishment is widely being reported as being to the rooms at Animal Kingdom Lodge. It’s easy to interpret the announcement that way, as even the bulletin from Walt Disney World doesn’t make clear where these refurbishments are happening.
It’s our expectation that these refurbishments at Kidani Village and Jambo House only impact the DVC villas. The hotel side of Animal Kingdom Lodge was “just” refurbished back in 2018-2019, as part of a comprehensive project that lasted over a year. While that is now 6 years ago, the hotel rooms have held up really well.
In digging through my archives of resort refurbishments, it doesn’t appear that Walt Disney World should be quite ready for another refurbishment at Animal Kingdom Lodge. The only way I could see this happening is if the hotel rooms are still commonly receiving complaints about being drab and dreary.
That wouldn’t completely surprise me, and if it is the case, I could see the hotel side of Animal Kingdom Lodge being rolled into this project as a quick soft goods refurbishment in 2027. That would make some degree of sense, as Animal Kingdom Lodge would be among the next resorts up for a light refresh towards the tail end of this project.
In any case, the hotel side of Animal Kingdom Lodge is not part of the hard goods refurbishment that will overhaul the Animal Kingdom Villas. Whatever happens to the DVC rooms will be materially different than the circa 2019 AKL rooms, and whatever the future holds for the AKL hotel rooms, it’ll be materially different from the upcoming DVC designs.
This is confusing, I know, and is the byproduct of Jambo House being home to both Animal Kingdom Lodge (hotel rooms) and the Animal Kingdom Villas. There was similar confusion back during the phased reopening about the distinction between AKV and AKL.
With all of this said, I will admit to being slightly nervous about the room redos at the Animal Kingdom Villas.
Even though the new rooms at AKL turned out awesome and were an anomaly for their era, how much of that could be attributed to legendary Imagineer Joe Rohde being the champion for all things Animal Kingdom? He fought hard to ensure that the park and its associated resort maintained thematic integrity, even in the face of IP mandates and more. Rohde is gone now.
Room reimaginings have generally gotten better, not worse, since then, but could this be the exception where the high-water mark was actually back in 2019? My gut is still that this is a net positive for the Animal Kingdom Villas, especially given the current condition of the rooms, but I worry slightly between ‘evolving modern guest preferences’ and the lack of Rohde that we’re going to end up with Lion King rooms as opposed to the richly-themed design for which Animal Kingdom Lodge is known.
In terms of the impact to guests staying at Animal Kingdom Lodge/Villas and Kidani Village, there probably won’t be much of one. The last time Walt Disney World did a room reimagining in the main lodge was a few years ago for the hotel rooms. During that, entire floors were taken out of commission one at a time, and the work was only done during daytime hours.
We stayed at Animal Kingdom Lodge during that project, and I had to go out of my way to see signs of the work. I wouldn’t have even known it was going on, but for those and various hallways being blocked off, which was visible from the lobby below.
If you’re staying above or below one of the floors being worked on and you tend to take naps during the day, it’s entirely possible your experience could differ. In which case, we’d simply recommend placing a room request to be on a floor that’s at least one-removed from the current progress.
Ultimately, there’s a lot of upcoming work at Animal Kingdom Lodge, both Jambo House and Kidani Village, between now and 2027. All of this might sound overwhelming, to the point that it makes you rethink staying here. Unless you’re really averse to even mild construction noise, we wouldn’t worry about it. Make a room request and be done with it.
Personally, this will not cause us to rethink upcoming stays at Animal Kingdom Lodge–not even with a toddler who needs midday breaks for naps. Even though it’s going to last multiple years, the work is sufficiently isolated, targeted, or off in the distance that it gives me no pause.
The construction at Jambo House and Kidani Village won’t be as bad as staying at the Polynesian during Island Tower construction, Riviera Resort from Caribbean Beach, Gran Destino Tower from the rest of Coronado Springs, or even Disney Lakeshore Lodge from Fort Wilderness.
What we will do is wait until a sufficient number of the room refurbishments are completed before staying at Kidani Village or in the Animal Kingdom Villas at Jambo House before booking those with DVC points. Although I love the idea of the “pure” themed design in the OG rooms, they were looking incredibly tired the last time we stayed in them, and that was a couple of years ago for Jambo House and even longer ago for Kidani Village. DVC villas are not something that ages like fine wine, so they’re probably in even worse shape now.
We’re happy to wait, especially with excellent new rooms coming online at Bay Lake Tower, Copper Creek, and elsewhere. We’re cautiously optimistic that the result will be similar at the Animal Kingdom Villas. Here’s hoping that Imagineering can thread the needle, accomplishing something that marries the look of the Animal Kingdom Lodge hotel room redo from 2019 with Boulder Ridge. We’ll keep you posted!
If you’re planning a WDW trip, we can help! For where to eat, read our Walt Disney World Restaurant Reviews. To save money on tickets or determine which type to buy, read our Tips for Saving Money on Walt Disney World Tickets post. Our What to Pack for Disney Trips post takes a unique look at clever items to take. For what to do and when to do it, our Walt Disney World Ride Guides will help. For comprehensive advice, the best place to start is our Walt Disney World Trip Planning Guide for everything you need to know!
YOUR THOUGHTS
Thoughts on the construction around Animal Kingdom Lodge between now and 2027? Excited for the room refurbishment at Jambo House or Kidani Village? Have you stayed at AKL since the hotel rooms were redone in 2019? What did you think of those “new” rooms? Hoping that the end result here is similar to those and/or Boulder Ridge? Do you agree or disagree with our recommendation to make a room request rather than stay elsewhere? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing your feedback–even when you disagree with us–is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!
