Big changes at Disney’s Contemporary and Polynesian Resorts

by Anne Larison

The façade may be the same, but there are big changes going on inside Disney’s Contemporary and Polynesian Resorts!

I recently had the pleasure of staying at the Contemporary Resort for 4 nights. This was my first stay at this beautiful, Deluxe resort. I arrived at the resort early the first day and was not able to get into my room so I spent the first morning exploring the outside of the resort. The views from all sides of this resort are amazing from the beautiful lake view in the back to Magic Kingdom in the front.

But the BIG news is the refurbishment going on inside the resort. Both the Contemporary and Disney’s Polynesian Resorts are undergoing major changes to their hotel rooms. We were able to enter one of the newly refurbished rooms during our Travel Agent site inspection. WOW! The changes are amazing.

Because the Contemporary and the Polynesian were two of the first resorts built on the Disney World property they have some of the largest rooms available of any the WDW resorts. Now they have taken these large rooms and made substantial changes to the décor. Gone are the bright colors and eye-popping patterns that said ‘contemporary’ in the 1970’s. The new look is a clean and modern contemporary look. In addition to the look they have upgraded the light fixtures, bathroom fixtures and electronics, such as a new flat-screen television! They have even upgraded the beds and the linens.

My travel agent group was very impressed. We did not have the opportunity to visit the refurbished rooms at the Polynesian but the change is reported to be just as dramatic.At the time of our visit the resort was more than one third done with the upgrade to all rooms and their goal to have the entire resort finished in August 2006.

The “old” Contemporary room look:

The new refurbished look: