In January 2020, we reported on a rumor that suggested escape room style experiences were being developed for select Walt Disney World hotels. These experiences would allow small groups of guests to complete various themed tasks within a set amount of time at either Disney’s Polynesian Village Resort, Disney’s Saratoga Springs Resort or Disney’s All-Star Sports Resort.
Unfortunately, our latest update indicates the escape room project has been shelved indefinitely due to the ongoing health crisis.
Our original source on the rumor provided an update that stated the project has been cancelled. They added that they were personally working on these experiences for Saratoga Springs Resort (themed to the Society of Explorers and Adventurers) and one for the Polynesian Resort (themed to a tropical environment).
It isn’t too surprising to learn that this project is on hold indefinitely. The original concept placed guests in a relatively confined location – think no larger than a big conference room – where they’d interact with different items in the room to accomplish a task. Those guests would then move on to a different room and new guests would come in to try their hand at figuring everything out, touching the same items as the previous guests. Disney would have an extremely difficult time keeping everything sanitized to avoid spreading any illnesses.
The bright side of this news is that many of the concepts and ideas have already been created. It wouldn’t be too difficult for Walt Disney World to pick this project back up in the future once health concerns have eased.