This weekend I had the honor of flying around Walt Disney World with friend of the site bioreconstruct. Bioreconstruct is known for his aerial photography of the Central Florida theme parks, providing theme park fans with a peek into the construction of the latest attractions and a unique vantage point of the most popular tourist destinations in the world. Our 45-minute flight took us over all four Walt Disney World theme parks and Universal Epic Universe. In this article, we’ll take a look at the recently revived Reflections – A Disney Lakeside Lodge hotel project at Fort Wilderness.
Aerial Photos of Reflections Construction at Fort Wilderness
Back in late September, we gave you a first look at the restart of the Reflections Fort Wilderness hotel. From what we could see from the ground, crews were back to moving dirt and installing infrastructure ahead of the pouring of concrete. Our late September article was significant because many thought that the project was dead (including us!). Not only was construction halted during COVID-19, but Disney also removed mention of the project from its slate of D23 announcements back in August 2020. For all intents and purposes, the project was dead.
Well, it turns out that hotels are profitable for Walt Disney World, and with the latest construction of the Island Tower hotel at Disney’s Polynesian Village Resort wrapping up later this year, it looks like Disney is ready to restart the Reflections project in earnest. During our recent aerial tour, we flew over the Reflections construction site on our way to Magic Kingdom. Because of the Temporary Flight Restriction (TFR) at Walt Disney World, any aerial activity over Magic Kingdom and EPCOT must take place above 3,000′. To that end, these photos were taken from a helicopter at about 3,800′ above the construction site.
Here’s a look at the construction site during our approach from the south. The vast majority of Fort Wilderness is wooded, but the Reflections construction site was cleared pre-COVID. In fact, a significant portion of the construction site used to be home to the former River Country water park. Demolition of the River Country water park began in March 2019. In the distance, we can see Discovery Island, which currently has no guest offerings, but it does have a storied past.
As we get closer, we can see a staging area to the southwest of Fort Wilderness. This staging area is referred to in permits as the STOLport Stockpile, a nod to the nearby STOLport (Short Take-Off and Landing) strip that was utilized in the early days of Walt Disney World for private flights into the resort. Back in June 2023, we got our first indication that the Reflections project may not have been dead when Disney asked the state for an extension of a permit that allowed for use of the land.
There’s a bit of flooding on the land now following Hurricane Milton, but we assume that we’ll start to see even more activity here as construction continues at the Reflections site.
As we get closer, we can start to see some of the activity on the site. It wasn’t busy as we flew over midday on the weekend, but during the weekdays, the site has been a hive of activity as land preparation continues for what we expect will be an exact build of what was previously announced.
In this overview, we can see how expansive the construction site is. To the south is the Tri-Circle-D Ranch building. To the east is Pioneer Hall and the Settlement Trading Post. Here’s an overview of the area, followed by a labeled version of the same photo so that we can get our bearings.
As we pass over the site at 3,800′, we get a better look nearly straight down at the construction.
As we look at the photo, one thing starts to come into focus – the outline of the infrastructure. We can see what appears to be white pipes laid out in a very deliberate manner. Looking at the photo below, we can actually start to visualize the layout of the structure if we assume that the white pipes represent the exterior walls of the building. In fact, we’ve gone ahead and created what we think will be the rough outline of the building in the next photo.
If the outline above looks somewhat familiar, that’s because we’ve seen it before. Here’s a look at an outline of the previously permitted Reflections hotel, with the new hotel in red, some lakeside cabins in blue, and Pioneer Hall in green.
Short of an official statement from Walt Disney World, these aerial photos are the closest that we’ll get to confirmation that the structure that Disney is building is the same as what was previously announced for Reflections – A Disney Lakeside Lodge. Now, the final product can differ in name and aesthetic, but the layout appears to be the same has what was previously permitted.
To be honest, that makes a lot of sense. A project like this requires years of planning. Despite the fact that we didn’t see a lot of work on the ground doesn’t mean that Disney hasn’t already invested significant amounts of capital into the project between design, engineering, and more.
As a matter of fact, it looks like work has already begun for footer installation on the east side of the construction site near Pioneer Hall. In the photo below, we can see what appears to be 16 in-ground columns of concrete just north of Pioneer Hall.
Here’s a look at other sections of the construction site.
Finally, here are a couple of different angles of the construction site from our flight over Magic Kingdom and the Magic Kingdom resort area.
As always, keep checking back with us here at BlogMickey.com as we continue to bring you the latest news, photos, and info from around the Disney Parks!
