Cinderella Castle, the icon of the Magic Kingdom, will begin to return to her original color scheme in January 2026. Disney has announced that’s when work will start to transition the castle back to a look of grays, creams, blues, and gold. The color change was first announced back in August 2025.
Best of all, Disney will lower the cranes used to paint Cinderella Castle each day by noon. That means guests will enjoy unobstructed pictures of the castle each day during the project.
Disney didn’t announce when the repainting of the castle will be complete. We’re don’t think it will take too long, though the wording of “completed later next year” is quite vague. Surely it’ll be done in a handful of months or less, right?
Admittedly, we were a bit nervous when Disney didn’t mention the castle project in their 2026 announcements for what’s coming to Disney World. We assumed Cinderella Castle would be worked on in the new year, but we didn’t know when. And, we were fearful cranes and scaffolding in pictures would be a necessary evil to get the castle back it its OG look.
Thankfully, this is the best case scenario. Not only is Disney starting on this right away after the holidays, they figured out a way to solve the “those cranes ruined my picture!” complaints. No one wants a big crane in their picture.
We’re excited for Cinderella Castle to be back to its blue and white appearance. The rose gold color (see: salmon) was fine for the 50th anniversary, but it has overstayed its welcome.
