Walt Disney World announces renovation timeline and reveals new Birdcage Hall Bar is about to arrive at the Greater Florida Resort. In this way, the flagship hotel’s guest experience and product have made an impact, which extends until Christmas 2025. One effect without gingerbread display – this is the details shared and our comments on the news.
Let’s start with a quick background. The Walt Disney World holiday staple is the life-sized gingerbread house of Greater Floridians. Last year, this favorite tradition celebrated its 25th anniversary and officially opened on November 6 after construction began in mid-October.
Edible displays always attract a large number of guests craving their white chocolate candy cane, edible snowflakes, sugar chili peppers and 88-pound white chocolate Santa. The gingerbread itself is baked with 1050 pounds of honey, 800 pounds of flour and 600 pounds of candy. These décor features 700 pounds of chocolate and come with over 10,000 gingerbread pieces. The team spent over 500 hours baking gingerbreads and 480 hours bringing all the dazzling details to life.
To celebrate 25 years of holiday tradition, 25 hidden Mickeys were scattered in the gingerbread house at the Disney Greater Florida resort last year. There is also a limited edition that includes 25th anniversary merchandise, including needles, decorations, cookie jars, magnets, glasses, T-shirts, and more available for purchase.
If our experience over the past few years shows our experience, there are also a lot of crowds and long queues in the hall. Let’s watch Gingerbread House in Greater Florida, kind of like the lights of Cinderella Castle: an investment made by Walt Disney World that pays a lot of dividends in terms of sales, not in the case of travel or resort booking, but through Photopass, Foodopass, Food & Food & Febrave, Merchandise, and more.
Visiting Greater Floridians is a typical holiday experience, and it’s one of the few of us that have to stop Free self-introduction of Walt Disney World Yuletide Resort Tour. That’s what we recommend to have a very happy Christmas party in Mickey (if you choose to do that) or attend only on a non-park day. This is one of our favorite things to do at Walt Disney World, and we make a point of view every year – as well as separate visits to many hotels.
Like other monorail loop resorts, it’s also easy to visit Floridians on the same day you do Magic Kingdom. Whether it’s a walk before heading to the park for a lunch break, or after the park is closed (our favorite option), it’s worth a walk away thanks to its elegant Victorian decor, grand idol trees and glorious gingerbread house.
Usually this is true, but it sounds like it is on Christmas 2025.
Walt Disney World announced the following: As part of the ongoing enhancements at Disney’s Greater Florida resorts and spas, phased updates to the lobby, conference center and featured areas will begin April 14. Parts of the lobby are sometimes closed and guests may experience changes in travel paths.
While construction activities will be noticeable during the day, efforts will be made to reduce distractions and all pools, dining and other amenities will remain available. As Disney’s Greater Florida resorts and spa continue to undergo renovations, Gingerbread displays will not be available during the holidays in 2025.
On the surface, this explanation makes sense.
The architecture that takes place by the end of 2025 will surely impact Walt Disney World’s ability to build gingerbread houses in Greater Floridians. As mentioned above, this usually starts in mid-October.
So even though the hall renovation was conducted by traditional tee for Veterans’ Day and Christmas seasons, it wasn’t enough to make the Gingerbread House (which was visible in the hall at the time, which was built in the hall.
There is also the reality that construction can always be delayed, and even if the intention is to do the hall before early November or even mid-October, there is no guarantee that it will happen. There are a lot of moving parts and multiple teams involved when bringing the gingerbread house to life, so a safe move is to simply act cautiously and cancel the best showcase for Christmas 2025. This is disappointing, but it is pragmatic.
Some fans may wonder why Walt Disney World doesn’t move Gingerbread House to other places in Greater Floridians at all.
My guess is that this is a problem of crowds and traffic congestion. There is no other place to absorb the traffic that the gingerbread house attracts, and if there is, it will overflow into the hall. People don’t come to the hotel to go to the conference center or anywhere in the gingerbread house, no Entering the hall can also see its ornaments (hopefully there is still a Christmas tree).
If the lobby project is delayed and is still under construction in November or December, this will make the space untimely, which means more people are crowding into an even smaller area. While we hope to see Walt Disney World find a way to bring Gingerbread House back to its 26-year period, it might boil down to pragmatism.
In the long run, I can’t help but wonder about the future of Gingerbread House for Greater Floridians.
My first thought when looking at Birdcage bar concept art is that the hall will be quite busy with Christmas trees and gingerbread houses during the holidays. During the holidays, the main building is already a crazy house, which will exacerbate it.
This is not only another thing that causes the crowds in the hall, but will focus them. Frankly, I don’t know how Great Floridians will own this birdcage bar and Christmas tree and Gingerbread room. Something must be given or moved. My guess is that “something” will be the Gingerbread House.
Greater Floridians may move the gingerbread house to another space for Christmas 2026 and beyond. As mentioned earlier, there are conference centers and other areas with lobbies away from human trafficking.
But as mentioned, they all cause the same problem of hall overflow. Given this, we wouldn’t be least surprised if Greater Florida Gingerbread House had never returned. It is clear that this is purely speculative for us. There are even rumors, and of course not formal.
All I know is Walt Disney World received a lot of Complaints are made to guests every Christmas in the main building of the Florida building, most of which are hotel visitors. At some point, I wouldn’t be surprised if those “win” the sales, food and beverages of Gingerbread House. Maybe the exhibition will go back to 2026 in 2026, but I feel its retirement is inevitable – maybe when the villain is open on land.
Another possibility is that the gingerbread house is completely moved to another resort. In this case, it doesn’t “move” but rather Walt Disney World retires and introduces another showcase.
This has started to happen. Over the past few holidays, the Animal Kingdom Hotel has edible animal displays. These have been scaled and sized, but are still not “large enough” enough to justify the dedicated trips of most guests. Introducing the actual ginger cookies cabin (The hotel in La Humphrey was on Wilderness Lodge 6 years ago) will scalyze.
I have two ideas about this. I’m selfless, I hope more fans will trek to AKL and end up finding it’s undoubtedly one of Walt Disney World’s top resorts, with its huge cooking scenes, excellent theme designs, and more. Selfishly, I love how quiet it is during the holidays compared to Monorail Loop loop loop loop and Crescent Lake lake distorts. I want to keep this way. (I think perhaps This will be maintained in consideration of transport obstacles. )
I wouldn’t be surprised if Walt Disney World tried something similar to the Disney Vacation Club resort they were going to sell. During Christmas, the campgrounds do shine and it will be savvy to inspire visits to the Fort of the Wilderness during the holidays. “Oh, by the way, while you’re here, toured our new DVC cabin that is convenient for our settlement!”
For some time, rural resorts in Greater Florida and Polynesia and overcrowded tourists have been a problem. We’ve been warning readers about booking the main building of Greater Floridians for Christmas Yearbased on our own negative experiences and reports from others.
Again, one of our biggest fears about the island tower on Poly Island (apart from how ugly it looks outside) is a burden on the already tight infrastructure of the resort. The resort’s DVC point inventory isn’t even completely sold out yet, and we’ve seen some of these issues on a recent visit.
Walt Disney World is trying to solve the problem of Monorail Loop Resort traffic in recent years while building new things to create more demand. That’s why their visitors at these (and other) resorts park, sometimes limited mobile orders, and wristbands that require watching fireworks.
Ultimately, Walt Disney World can take other measures to control the Greater Floridian and Polynesian crowds, which will help control the crowds and allow the gingerbread house to return. People will need a key card access or confirmation of a dining reservation to get the entrance to the ground. This is exactly what Tokyo Disney Resort works with Toy Story Hotel and Fantasy Springs Hotel. I guess Walt Disney World doesn’t want to go that far, especially because they like to fix needles and threads on this type of thing (Equal income for the crowd!).
I’m also very likely to make my own psychological comparison of the Florida Gingerbread House, literally the lights of Cinderella Castle. In the latter case, it seems increasingly like a “temporary interruption” provides cover for Walt Disney World to make permanent decisions they know they will be unpopular. For the most part, fans will understand that Gingerbread House is not back this year, as the lobby building is a reasonable explanation. And if it doesn’t return in 2026, it’s quiet news, not a new announcement.
If Walt Disney World appears today and shares that Gingerbread House will be permanently retired, the reaction will be very different. Hopefully I overanalyzed this, it’s so conspiring, Greater Florida Gingerbread House is back, better than ever on Christmas 2026!
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Your thoughts
What do you think of Walt Disney World canceling Gingerbread House at Disney’s Greater Florida Resort and Spa for Christmas 2025? Do you think you will return to Christmas 2026? Do you agree or disagree with our assessment? Can we help you with any questions? Hearing your feedback (even if you disagree with us) is fun for us and helpful for other readers, so please share your thoughts in the comments!
