It is the whole south wing plus the two honeymoon suites plus the woods view and standard view rooms above the check in desk. They are installing panelings along the edge of the hallways that will totally block off those rooms. They are also covering the huge windows and balconies that face Bay Lake. So the lobby should be getting darker when that happens. I need to get some pictures of this.
Yes. The only courtyard view rooms currently open are in the north wing.
We talked with the front desk manager last night and she told us that the check in desk will be located where the current temporary lounge food set up is now. I haven't heard anything about the location of the kitchen. Right now they are bringing all of the food from the honeymoon suite area.
Yes about the bathrooms. According to one CM the bathrooms that are in that office will be turned into public restrooms.
The two honeymoons suites on the north side of the lobby will be made into the new OFC.
I asked the front desk manager about the seating area and she said that they will no longer have a seating area along the balconies, like it has been located.
Your information is always appreciated,
@Wood Nymph, but I'm sure it's no fun being the bearer of bad news.
This whole CL talk has me throughly confused. We are wanting to stay in a Standard room on the 4th or 5th floor overlooking the lobby in September. I am not really understanding the construction. This is our first trip to WL and was really looking forward to it, but now, I am not so sure.
I do have a separate WL DVC Expansion thread located
HERE with more details, permits, etc... that might be helpful to you. However, the OFC/CL discussion has remained here.
If it's your very first stay at WL, I really can't recommend it. Even some WL CMs have been discouraging guests. The entire project is slated to be completed by April 2017 and Sue just reported that the current South Wing closure/WL room conversion could go on through December 2016.
I did some more exploring today and talked to more CMs about construction. Right now they have scaffolding up on the south wing and they are working on the exterior there.
Hidden Springs pool - one of the managers told us that the new quiet pool will be 90% larger than the former pool. It will be a zero entry pool and they will put the bubbling jets back in the new pool, just like they had in the old pool. They are just waiting for the ground to settle before they begin construction on the new pool. The contractors for the pool will be different than the contractors for the cabins, which means that the work will progress on its own schedule. It won't depend on the cabin construction schedule.
Cabins - they don't know when they will begin work on them. But they did tell me that they will be replacing some of the trees. So right now the rooms in the north wing have a better view of the Magic Kingdom then they will once the trees are replaced. They will not take any of the north view rooms out of inventory during the cabin construction. Those first floor, north wing, woods view rooms have a nice fence in front of them right now.
I was told that they learned from the mistakes that were made during Poly construction so things should go a little better than what happened at the Poly. (Don't ask me what that was, I didn't ask.
)
South wing rooms - the new rooms in the south wing will have a new interior design. They will no longer look the same as the north wing rooms. They will not be remodeling the north wing rooms. They have closed off the lobby elevators and closed off that whole section with panels to keep the dust out of the rest of the lodge. The remodeling is expected to take about eleven months.
All of the rooms on the north side of the resort, the side that faces Magic Kingdom, will also be facing the construction area. It will be noisy for those rooms between 9am and 5pm. Right now it looks like the rooms that overlook the lobby on the north side, the rooms above Whispering Canyon Cafe, will be the furthest from the construction on that side of the resort. They have always been categorized as woods view rooms. The standard view rooms on the north side have the service area as a buffer between the rooms and the cabin construction area. The rooms in the north wing that are closest to the boat dock area, the rooms that are categorized as woods view rooms, will be the closest to the cabin construction, depending on where the cabins are located.
I don't know the time frame for the Hidden Springs pool, but the south wing rooms that face the villas side of the resort will mostly be impacted by the pool construction. The cabin construction will be much farther away from those rooms, although it is hard to get an idea of what is going on over there. The sidewalk between the WL and the quiet pool area is blocked off now.
Terrific insights and thank you once again for taking the time to ask questions and post answers.
According to all the plans, which are posted on the WL Expansion thread, a new parking lot, which may be a garage, will be constructed just to the west of the SV-NW rooms, near where the current CM parking lot is located. This will include parking for cabin/handicapped guests. At some point, it'll get noisy by the NW-SV rooms, too. The cabins stretch past this new parking area so the entire NW will be impacted. I can't imagine why they wouldn't put these rooms out of inventory at some point
The plans also show that the NW rooms at the very end of the wing wouldn't really be impacted by cabin construction. Here is an overlay image from the other thread showing the cabin placement and new parking lot:
We have had a wonderful vacation so far. It was marathon weekend and we saw lots of half marathoners on Saturday wearing their medals. The full marathon was Sunday, which caused huge traffic problems. We were able to avoid all the traffic delays by taking the boat to MK that morning. WE arrived around 9:15am and headed toward Adventureland. I have never is all my many years of going to WDW seen the Magic Kingdom that empty. We walked on Pirates, BTMRR and Haunted Mansion in a matter of minutes. The crowds were finally able to get into the park by about 11 am, so we had a very good morning. I love having low crowds.
The Magic Kingdom was still decorated for Christmas so we went back to watch Wishes that night so that we could see the Christmas lights on the castle. I never expected to see them this late in the season, so it was a very pleasant surprise to see it. And it wasn't very crowded last night for Wishes.
We went to Epcot today and once again experienced low crowds. We have really enjoyed our trip so far.
Yes, it should be at only half capacity until November, if all goes to plan. But the cabins and whatever else they have planned will not be finished for quite a while yet. It wouldn't surprise me if they have more unannounced plans for future work.
For this April I would say that your best bet is courtyard view. The standard view will face the cabin construction and it will be noisy, too.
If you plan to be in the parks between 9am and 5pm then it probably won't bother you too much.
No, they won't all be turned into DVC units according to the CM I talked to. He said that there will still be regular rooms, too.
So surprised about the decorations still being up, what a nice treat. Was this only at the parks? Low crowds and walk-ons sound dreamy! And, you have another trip to WDW next month to look forward to
If they want to still offer any WL non-DVC suites, then they'll need to have some in the SW, unless they keep only the VP in the NW. There was at one time speculation that the Deluxe rooms would/could be expanded into two bedroom suites since each Deluxe room connects to a std. room.
Sue, thanks so much for the information about what is happening at the Lodge, and particularly the report about the OFC. Like pixarmom, I am super sad about the loss of the beautiful seating area by the windows. It was my new favorite of the CL lounges because the views on all sides were gorgeous, and it always felt like there was lots of space for everyone. I was so looking forward to going back. I don't think a fireworks view will make up for the loss of peaceful mornings looking out over the lake and lobby. Because all the standard club level rooms are dormers having those expansive views really made a difference to my experience. Sigh. I am not thrilled with the aesthetics of the reconstructed pool area at the Poly either - barren crowded rows of loungers with little in the way of landscaping or shade, and a sad patch of grass instead of the beautiful stream and lush plantings, not to mention the loss of the hammocks on the beach. It at least sounds like the new DVC area pools will be enhanced at both the Poly and the WL.
I'm sorry to hear that your first CL experience has some significant compromises to what is usually offered, but glad that your trip has been going so well. I am sorry to be so grumpy about all of this, but I am distressed that Disney apparently no longer has the drive or standards to prioritize providing guests with the best possible experience.
Well said and I share your disappointed and observations. The features that made the OFC unique and positive are being replaced with a more generic CL that will be more like all the rest: everything in one room, with limited seating. I loved the expanse of the OFC and the tables by the huge window overlooking Bay Lake and sitting next to the railing looking down at all the action. We never had an issue getting a table, unlike all the other CLs we've tried.
Also, ITA with you about Poly. We were there in August and DD and I would seek refuge under one palm tree on the beach near the boat dock or forgo the pool altogether and relax at the beach between Fiji and GF. It was so peaceful there, unlike the newly imagined Volcano Pool.
The comment from
@Wood Nymph that the VWL pool would be 90% larger made me chuckle because they are adding 26 cabins and adding many more DVC villas in the South Wing so it would stand to reason that the new DVC pool would have to be much larger than the former. And, I would assume that unlike before, the new VWL pool will not permit WL guests, although there will be fewer of those.
I share your feelings in your last sentence:
"I am distressed that Disney apparently no longer has the drive or standards to prioritize providing guests with the best possible experience."
DVC is extremely profitable for Disney and it provides an immediate injection of funds into paying for projects through the selling of timeshares. This is the direction WDWR has been going and will continue going as long as they have the land.
Thanks Wood Nymph for all that valuable information.......
I think I pretty much understand the reported scenario's based on the conversations that have been taking place with the CM's. It appears that there are really only a few "unknowns".
1 - Whether or not 1-All, 2-Most, 3-Some of the South Wing Rooms will be converted to DVC rooms under a separate DVC Condominium Association.
2 - Although we understand that the rooms will be of a new and different decor from the existing North Wing Rooms, do we yet know if the rooms will all be studio? or a combination of 1Bdrm and Studio???
Otherwise, I think that we all have a pretty decent roughed out time-frame on the future construction plan for the lodge and immediate area's outside the lodge. Anyone have any scoop on these last final few unknowns?
Thanks
1. It will definitely be a separate association from VWL.
2. The SW ground floor demo. "spy" photos we have on the WL Expansion thread
HERE, seem to show 3 std rooms being converted into one room/villa. Speculation on what villa configuration these would be is also in that post. (The "spy" post was originally posted here in this thread, but I cross-posted it.)
