Disney Canceled 7 Hotels for Disney World

For many Disney adults, there’s perhaps no more interesting topic than all of the unbuilt blue sky ideas that have never come to the company’s resorts. There have been planned and announced attractions, restaurants, whole lands, and our focus today: Hotels.

I’ve been writing about Disney’s theme parks for over 7 years, and during that time I’ve delighted in learning about the countless hotels that have been planned for Walt Disney World, and for one reason or another — mainly due to financial considerations — were never built and will (seemingly) forever remain in Imagineering’s blue sky files.

The Asian, Persian, & Venetian Resorts

These first three resorts are grouped together as they were all part of the initial plans for Walt Disney World, with each earmarked for a spot along the Seven Seas Lagoon alongside the Polynesian and Contemporary Resorts.

Asian Resort

According to the plans, the Asian Resort was planned to have 500-600 heavily themed rooms built to mimic Thai architecture. The hotel was also to include a 160-foot-tall central tower topped by a restaurant.

Plans for the resort were well underway as Walt Disney World was under construction, with land cleared out along Seven Seas Lagoon and an access road to the site fittingly named Asian Way. The company planned to begin construction in 1972; however, the 1970s energy crisis and the resultant downturn in tourism led to the Asian Resort being shelved. The Grand Floridian was built on the planned site of the Asian in 1988, effectively ending any chance of the hotel ever being built.

Persian Resort

The Asian Resort wasn’t the only Disney hotel to fall victim to the early 1970s energy crisis. The complex was planned to replicate Middle Eastern architecture, complete with spires and domes. Plans also seemed to indicate that the Resort would have a Monorail route that would run to the Magic Kingdom.

The idea of the Persian was briefly resurrected in the late 1970s, when the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, allegedly offered to fund the project. However, the Iranian Revolution put a stop to the plans once again.

Venetian Resort/Grande Venezia Resort

Like the Asian and Persian Resorts, the Venetian Resort was planned to open in the 1970s. The resort was planned to be themed after Venice, Italy, complete with canals and a marina. Like the others, development was crushed by the 1970s energy crisis.

Plans for a similar Resort on the site, to be known as Disney’s Grande Venezia Resort, were drawn up in the 1990s. The complex would have featured “intricately designed buildings with terra cotta roofs, canals with functioning gondolas, lighted fountains, a masquerade-themed pool, a conference center, and a wedding chapel.”

Mediterranean Resort

History repeated itself decades later when another massive hotel complex was planned for the same area, only to once again go unbuilt. Disney’s Mediterranean Resort was to have been a massive complex themed to a Greek fishing village. Designed in part by renowned architect Alan Lapidus, the resort was originally developed in the early 1980s.

According to Lapidus’s 2007 book Everything by Design, “The resort began to take shape as a series of streets with multicolored waterfront ‘houses’ (actually, rows of hotel rooms of various heights). There was a waterfront walkway with a mosaic serpentine design, a harbor entrance with a lighthouse, windmills, a breakwater, a marketplace, olive groves, and trellis-covered walkways leading to streets of “tavernas,” market squares, and many hidden courtyards with a variety of fountains and outside cafes.”

The concept was revived in the 1990s, when it was planned to rival the Grand Floridian in luxury and price. However, the hotel wasn’t built due to the swampy nature of the ground at the site, which would have made the Mediterranean too expensive to build for Disney’s liking, as the site would have required millions in stabilization before construction could even begin.

Fort Wilderness Junction

The Fort Wilderness Junction Resort — also known as the Buffalo Junction Resort — was once planned to be located between Fort Wilderness and Disney’s Wilderness Lodge. During the early 1990s, the 600-room resort was going to be similar to the Boardwalk Resort with a massive old west town with “horses on sawdust-strewn streets” and an imported version of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show from Disneyland Paris. Ironically, it was the initial financial failure of the Paris resort that led to the cancellation of many so-called Disney Decade projects, including Fort Wilderness Junction.

Pop Century’s Legendary Years

While the Pop Century Resort does exist — and in fact is one of my favorite Disney World hotels — it’s far from what was originally envisioned. The value resort was originally planned to be double its current size, with a second set of buildings depicting the 1900s through the 1940s, known as the Legendary Years. This half of the Resort was to have its own entrance building, lobby, food court, and check-in desk, all of which would have been connected to the 1950s-1990s Classic Years section by the Generation Gap Bridge.

While construction had begun on both sections of Pop Century, the post-9/11 tourism downturn sent Disney into cost-saving mode. Construction on both the Classic and Legendary sections of Pop Century was put on hold indefinitely in late 2001. The complex sat unused for two years before the Classic Years section of the resort finally opened in December of 2003. While the Resort was instantly popular, work was never resumed on the Legendary Years section. Instead, the unfinished buildings, complete with giant numbers in front of the lobby building, sat unused and became an eyesore for guests staying at Pop Century for years until Disney reworked the site into the separate Art of Animation Resort.

Reflections: A Lakeside Lodge

Reflections: A Lakeside Lodge was first announced in 2018. The resort was planned to be built on the site of the long-shuttered River Country water park, and feature elements from several Disney films, including Pocahontas and a Princess and the Frog restaurant. However, the project was put on hold early on during the pandemic.

After several years of silence, work on the site resumed in late 2024, with Disney confirming in November of that year that the project was back on, and that the resort had been renamed Disney’s Lakeshore Lodge. According to Disney, the new version of the resort will be “inspired by the majesty of nature and its enduring influence on Disney artists.” Construction is currently ongoing, with a projected opening date of 2027.

Each of these planned Disney hotels could have changed what it’s like to stay at Disney World forever. Stay tuned to AllEars for more on Disney history.

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Which of these hotels do you most wish had been built? Let us know in the comments below.

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