Walt Disney World is building a new DVC Island Tower at Polynesian Village Resort. This post shares the opening date, booking timelines, room photos, and a new look at summer construction. Plus, our opinion of the Disney Vacation Club expansion and why this is likely happening. (Updated June 14, 2024.)
Located on the shores of Seven Seas Lagoon and on the monorail line to Magic Kingdom, the Island Tower replaces Disney’s Spirit of Aloha Dinner Show, a luau featuring traditional Polynesian dances, live music, and an all-you-care-to-enjoy tropical feast. Spirit of Aloha is now permanently closed.
The new Island Tower will essentially be between the existing Polynesian Village Resort and Disney’s Wedding Pavilion, which itself is adjacent to the Grand Floridian. This high-profile Magic Kingdom resort area has already become overcrowded in recent years with the addition of the Villas at the Grand Floridian. A new tower will only exacerbate that, and could end up putting undue strain on infrastructure such as the monorail.
“It’s no secret that our Members and guests love the monorail resorts at Walt Disney World,” said Bill Diercksen, senior vice president and general manager of Disney Vacation Club. “Expanding our Disney Vacation Club offerings at the Polynesian would give our Members and Guests yet another incredible option for staying close to the magic while making vacation memories that last a lifetime.”
Plans for the Island Tower at the Polynesian include a variety of guest room types, new recreation offerings, and dining options. DVC will continue to release more details and glimpses inside the Island Tower as the opening date draws nearer. We’re specifically interested in hearing more about the restaurant scene, as the Island Tower will definitely need standalone dining options–hopefully counter and table service restaurants.
The Island Tower at Disney’s Polynesian Villas & Bungalows will open on December 17, 2024. The new Poly tower will offer villas brimming with original artwork inspired by the Polynesian Islands, wayfinding and the natural elements: earth, water, wind and sky. Each guest room will also feature custom art inspired by Moana.
One of the big updates for Summer 2024 is that Walt Disney World has shared a First Look at Guest Rooms for the Island Tower at Polynesian Resort. In our view, these rooms look pretty good with a lot of depth and texture, albeit a bit too much beige and neutral colors. But we never expected the rooms to be an issue, as that’s something DVC does exceptionally well.
All guests can now book the Island Tower at Disney’s Polynesian Villas & Bungalows online or by contacting (407) 934-7639. Currently, only cash rate reservations are available. Disney Vacation Club members will be able to make points-based reservations at a later date that has yet to be announced.
During the question & answer portion of last year’s Condo Association meeting, DVC board member Yvonne Chang indicated that the new tower is slated to become part of the existing Polynesian Villas & Bungalows condo association. Disney Vacation Club has since officially confirmed that the Island Tower will be part of the existing condo association. This is exactly what Disney Vacation Club did with the Big Pine Key addition at Grand Floridian, so it’s not a total shock.
In fairness, it wouldn’t have been without precedent to do two different condo associations. That’s exactly what happened a few years back at Wilderness Lodge, which now has separate associations for the Boulder Ridge Villas and Copper Creek Villas & Cabins. The new Poly tower is larger and more distinct than the Grand Floridian or Wilderness Lodge additions, so separate associations was an entirely plausible outcome here.
This means a few major things. First, all current direct and resale owners of Disney’s Polynesian Villas & Bungalows will have access to the new Island Tower as part of the 11 month booking window, and those who buy at the Island Tower will have access to the legacy inventory of the bungalows and studios in the longhouses.
It also means there will be a combined 2066 ownership end date for all owners. Annual dues will also be the same for the Island Tower as they are for the existing Poly Villas. Currently, dues are $8.23 per point, but we’d note that these are based on actual costs, so the addition of the Island Tower could, in theory, increase or decrease dues.
We’d expect a slight decrease–economies of scale and all that–especially since diluting costs on those over-the-water bungalows has gotta be a good thing. With that said, labor costs have caused all resorts to increase in the last few years, so don’t expect amounts to actually drop. It should be more of an offset, at least in theory, whereas other resorts will likely increase during the same timeframe. (Or we could be totally wrong here!)
In our view, adding the Island Tower to the existing association is the right move. Several years ago, we addressed a common question: Why is Disney Vacation Club Availability So Limited? That’s worth reading, but in case you don’t want to bother, part of the reason was the bungalows. Adding the new Poly tower to the current condo association should help dilute those points, improving overall availability.
Additionally, this provides more variety for DVC members who already own at Disney’s Polynesian Villas & Bungalows. This will add duo studios, 1-bedroom villas, 2-bedroom villas, plus the brand-new two-bedroom penthouse villas, as well as a different type of deluxe studio than in the current longhouses. This will make the Poly Villas far more versatile.
Finally, it won’t be subject to the dreaded resale restriction, since that does not exist as part of the current condo association. I’m starting to wonder whether this protectionist “experiment” at Disney’s Riviera Resort was deemed a failure, and perhaps we won’t see it at the Cabins at Fort Wilderness or Reflections – A Disney Lakeside Lodge. (Then again, it did appear again for the Villas at Disneyland Hotel, so perhaps not.)
All of this makes buying at the Polynesian Villas & Bungalows more attractive to us. Granted, that’s because we’d probably only consider buying via the resale market–and I’m still very hesitant until both seeing this in person and experiencing the degree to which it burdens the resort’s infrastructure. One thing is for certain, though–this seals the deal that we wouldn’t buy at Disney’s Riviera Resort!
Disney’s Polynesian Villas & Bungalows currently has 380 Disney Vacation Club villas, including the largest Deluxe Studios at any Disney Vacation Club resort at Walt Disney World. There are also the unique over-the-water two-bedroom Bora Bora Bungalows, which are not nearly as popular and have been problematic for their impact on the points pool.
This follows other work around Disney’s Polynesian Village Resort in the last few years. That included enhancements to the Great Ceremonial House, a new porte-cochère, and rebuilt monorail station. All of that looks good, a nice step forward for the resort that maintained its thematic integrity while bringing needed improvements to the aging property.
Room refurbishments were also part of the Poly’s overhaul. See our Review, Photos & Video: New Moana Rooms at Polynesian Village Resort for a tour and thoughts on the changes from our most recent hotel stay. If you’re looking at the existing DVC rooms, see our Review, Photos & Video: New Rooms at Polynesian Villas.
Now let’s turn to a construction update as work progresses on the Polynesian tower as of mid-June 2024. Not much has changed since our last update a couple months ago–more painting on the exterior and some scaffolding down–which is presumably because work has moved inside the Island Tower…
Polynesian Tower Summer 2024 Construction Update
Construction continues to speed ahead on the DVC tower at Disney’s Polynesian Village Resort. We recently stayed at the Contemporary and saw progress during many monorail rides and trips around the Seven Seas Lagoon; here are photos showing the work completed to date, as well as the scale of this structure as compared to the existing Poly longhouses, Wedding Pavilion, and Grand Floridian outer buildings. As you can see from the photos above and below, the Poly tower quite literally towers above them!
Just in the span of a few days, we saw considerable progress. The Poly tower has been fully enclosed for a few months now, with work moving to interiors and on exterior painting and accents. More than any in-park project, the Poly tower is really being constructed with remarkable speed. (If TRON Lightcycle Run or the EPCOT overhaul were built with this sense of urgency, both would’ve been done years ago!)
It’s interesting to watch the work–to the extent that it’s still visible. The Island Tower looks better with these coats of paint than it did as plain concrete, but that’s not saying much. It’s still absolutely hideous.
The boxy tower is still very incongruous with everything else around the monorail loop, and sticks out like a sore thumb. That’ll be the case when it’s fully finished, since it’s obviously not going to get any shorter or have a visual profile consistent with the existing Polynesian Village Resort. I still can’t believe Disney thought this was acceptable to build on the shores of Seven Seas Lagoon. It was one thing with Disney’s Riviera Resort or Gran Destino Tower, which are comparatively isolated, but this is part of the ‘skyline’ of Magic Kingdom’s monorail loop.
This Island Tower at the Polynesian is progressing even faster than did Disney’s Riviera Resort or Gran Destino, and those went up pretty quickly! It’s also amusing how much faster Walt Disney World builds resorts versus attractions. Maybe “amusing” isn’t the right word. It’s a little discouraging. Defenders of Disney will point to the comparative complexity, which is at least partly fair. But CommuniCore Hall and Plaza and the surrounding trees in EPCOT aren’t exactly the pinnacle of Imagineering. The unfortunate reality is that Disney purposefully prolongs construction timelines in many of those projects to spread capital expenditures over multiple fiscal years. But I digress.
The bottom line is that the DVC tower at Disney’s Polynesian Village Resort should easily make its Late 2024 scheduled opening timeframe. If anything, that seems like it’s on the conservative side if the project keeps up its current pace. Then again, with Disney Vacation Club sales slowing and both Riviera and Aulani still having plenty of unsold inventory–not to mention the newer Villas at Disneyland Hotel and the Cabins at Fort Wilderness–perhaps the pace will slow so DVC can allow its existing properties to sell first.
This would also explain why Disney hasn’t announced much else about the Polynesian tower. As ugly as this building looks from the outside, it’ll sell like hotcakes. (As noted above, I think it’s hideous…and would still consider buying here as a matter of practicality.) As such, saying as little as possible about the Polynesian tower so it doesn’t steal the spotlight from other new resorts that are being actively sold is probably the savvy move.
Polynesian DVC Island Tower Commentary
I realize change is inevitable, but I’ll miss this path and the beaches it passes. I’ve spent many a morning photographing the sunrise over here, using the twin and triplet palm trees on these beaches to frame the Polynesian’s longhouses.
Newer Walt Disney World fans may not realize it, but this stretch of land was once relatively tranquil. I don’t recall what it was like before the Wedding Pavilion was built in the mid-1990s, but up until the Villas at Grand Floridian, it was a peaceful area with large swaths of beach and green space between the Polynesian and Grand Floridian. Now, there’s a lot of parking and development, with more on the horizon. Really has a “paved paradise to put up a parking lot” kind of feeling to it.
My sincere hope is that the Island Tower is built as if it were a standalone resort like Riviera Resort or the planned Reflections, rather than in the style of Bay Lake Tower or the Villas at Grand Floridian. Meaning, that it contains counter and table service restaurants and other amenities.
The last time we stayed at the Polynesian, the beach was packed with guests during the Disney Enchantment fireworks–to the point that there was literally no available space–and the lobby was incredibly crowded with people waiting to be seated at ‘Ohana and elsewhere. The existing Polynesian infrastructure is often already stretched to its breaking point, and this tower needs to provide relief to that. Adding guest rooms without amenities will further exacerbate those problems, so we really hope that isn’t the plan.
Regular readers will recall that I was harsh about the proposed Reflections – A Disney Lakeside Lodge (above), which was supposedly a “nature-inspired” resort. It was slated for the former River Country water park location along the shore of Bay Lake between Wilderness Lodge and Fort Wilderness.
Reflections – A Disney Lakeside Lodge was one of the projects put on indefinite hold as a result of the closure. Based on Walt Disney World’s activities on that construction site and scrubbing all references to Reflections from the internet, the project was safely assumed to be cancelled. I was ecstatic. Absolutely over the moon in response to its cancellation. Reflections was a half-baked plan from the start, and Disney not proceeding with it was a good thing.
This Poly tower news makes me wish that Reflections – A Disney Lakeside Lodge were never cancelled. Not because I’ve suddenly had an about-face on Reflections (far from it), but because it would mean that this very-similar looking project at the Polynesian would not be happening.
Perhaps it would be simply a matter of forestalling the inevitable, with the site between the Grand Floridian and Polynesian Village Resorts slated for future expansion down the road. I’d still roll the dice on that. At least delaying development might mean getting something that looks appropriate for the area, and has some semblance of theme.
As for commentary about the design, I had to check my calendar when I first saw the Poly tower concept art, thinking maybe it was April Fools’ Day. Much to my disappointment, this is not a lame joke. (It is lame, just not a joke.)
I won’t rehash all of it here, but my criticisms of this new DVC tower at the Polynesian are nearly identical to those of Reflections. That’s in no small part because this project bears a striking resemblance to the cancelled Reflections tower. (My bad–Imagineers were inspired by the original Poly plans. Sure thing.)
Disney’s recent approach to developing hotels adjacent to existing resorts doesn’t inspire much confidence, and this looks like a generically modern design that would be at home in Holiday Inn’s portfolio.
Anyone who has been to pretty much any major metro area in the last few years has undoubtedly seen something at least vaguely similar to this Polynesian addition. It looks a lot like mixed-use developments in Anaheim–not to mention the Disneyland Hotel DVC tower (below), or even the cancelled Reflections plan.
That these three designs are virtually indistinguishable despite being located a three very thematically-different resorts should say all that needs to be said. Despite Disney’s best efforts to invoke past plans and history to preemptively stymie criticism of this unambitious addition, the actual “inspiration” is simply modern, generic hotel/condo/apartment towers.
Perhaps some of you will dismiss this as needless negativity, especially those who were looking forward to Reflections or are big fans of recent Walt Disney World resort additions. That’s obviously your prerogative, and to each their own.
The thing is, we have not been negative about every hotel change at Walt Disney World. To the contrary, we’ve been more positive than the average reader about recent resort reimaginings, changes, and expansions. The DVC conversion at Grand Floridian makes complete sense, and those rooms look nice. The new lobby at the Contemporary is fantastic.
Beyond that, most of the new room designs in the last few years are generally good, with Riviera Resort (above) providing the template for how those should be done. Every DVC room redo since then–from Saratoga Springs to Boulder Ridge and even the new Disneyland Hotel–has been a marked improvement. Disney is getting function right–it’s form that’s the problem.
More specifically, it’s the new builds and cost-cutting design that I find problematic. In the last few years, Imagineering has really found its groove with the interiors, including room redesigns. By contrast, it seems like the prevailing sentiment is that the exterior and integration of theme simply does not matter. It’s cheaper to build boxy towers, so that’s what they do.
When you compare Walt Disney World resorts built before the mid-1990s to ones built or redesigned in the last few years, there’s generally a clear division. Current projects are often interchangeable with real world Holiday Inns or other mid-tier chained brand hotels.
Look at the difference between BoardWalk Inn or Beach Club and the new casino tower at Coronado or the Fairfield Inn Des Moines Airport Riviera Resort. There simply is not the same depth of detail in the designs with new builds at Walt Disney World–they are not themed.
One explanation is that Disney simply doesn’t want to spend on themed architecture, which eat into profit margins on DVC contract sales. This makes sense, and also explains why Disney is adding these towers alongside existing resorts rather than making them standalone properties. By building adjacent to current hotels, they can share infrastructure or don’t need to offer every amenity on-site.
Another explanation is that the company wants to make things as crowd-pleasing as possible so as to not alienate any potential customers. The thing about this approach is that when you try to appeal to everyone, you end up appealing to no one. Either way, I don’t get it.
I’m not entirely unreasonable about development at Walt Disney World, I just think it needs to be done in a sustainable way, and one that’s respectful of what already exists. Like Gran Destino Tower or Disney’s Riviera Resort, I have no doubt that this Poly tower will have great guest rooms, offer worthwhile features, and functional enhancements to the Poly.
I’d imagine it’ll also add 1-bedroom and larger rooms to Disney’s Polynesian Villas & Bungalows, something that has been requested by DVC owners for years. From that perspective alone, I suspect many members will consider this addition a “win.”
As much disdain as I have for the exterior appearance of Gran Destino and the Riviera, they are both excellent resorts if all you care about is their substantive offerings and view them only from the inside, or in isolation. To be fair, that may be the case for many of you.
The outside appearance of Four Seasons Orlando isn’t exactly anything special, but it’s a great hotel on the inside. The critical distinction is that Four Seasons is known for superlative service, not Disney design–and the Four Seasons didn’t impact the existing ‘skyline’ of Walt Disney World when built.
Personally, I think it’s very fair to say that Walt Disney World should aim higher as themed design and immersive environments are its calling card. Exterior design being “good enough” for downtown Anaheim should not be the bar by which Imagineering is measured. Something being sufficient to “complement” Angel Stadium is not quite the same as it fitting with the flagship Grand Floridian or iconic Polynesian. Those are exemplars of themed design, and if additions aren’t capable of matching their look, they simply shouldn’t be built.
At this point, I feel like I’m wasting my breath with all of this, though. If you don’t look at the concept art for the Polynesian tower at the top of this post and immediately think that it’s out of place, there’s probably nothing I can say that’ll change your mind. We simply have different tastes and expectations about the caliber of product Walt Disney World should be delivering given the costs and its rich legacy. To me, this is all very obvious, but I suppose reasonable minds may differ.
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YOUR THOUGHTS
What do you think of this Walt Disney World news? Are you optimistic or pessimistic about a new tower being added to Disney’s Polynesian Village Resort? Happy that DVC is expanding the Poly Villas, or wish they’d build a new stand-alone resort? If you’re a Polynesian (hotel) fan, are you upset by this or indifferent to it? Do you agree or disagree with our assessment? 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!
