Shanghai Disney's New Hotel Has a Name and a Story Worth Telling

Disney Enchanted Star Hotel Gets Its Name at Shanghai's 10th Anniversary

At a 10th anniversary celebration for Shanghai Disney Resort, Disney officially named its third hotel: Disney Enchanted Star Hotel. WDW News Today reports the hotel will feature Art Nouveau-inspired architecture paying homage to Shanghai's early 20th-century architectural legacy, a design choice that threads the needle between Disney fantasy and local cultural identity in a way the resort has been refining since opening day.

The hotel broke ground on August 31, 2023, and will open in winter 2027 with 400 rooms, making it the smallest of the resort's properties. According to WDW News Today, the existing Shanghai Disneyland Hotel holds 420 rooms and the Toy Story Hotel has 795. A fourth hotel, announced in November 2025, will be located near the park entrance, the closest of any hotel to the gates.

What makes this worth paying attention to beyond the name reveal is the trajectory it represents. Shanghai Disney Resort opened in 2016 with two hotels and a single theme park. A decade later, it is building its third and fourth hotels simultaneously while its park expansion continues. For a resort that Disney's leadership once described as the company's most ambitious international project, the pace of investment says something about confidence in the market. Four hotels do not happen without sustained demand, and sustained demand in Shanghai means Disney's global portfolio is healthier than the skeptics have suggested.

Art Nouveau is also a fascinating stylistic choice. Shanghai Disneyland's Enchanted Storybook Castle already leaned into a blend of Eastern and Western visual languages. An Art Nouveau hotel that explicitly references Shanghai's own architectural history from the early 1900s suggests Imagineering is pushing further into designs that feel rooted in place rather than transplanted from Anaheim or Orlando. That matters for the guest experience, and it matters for how Disney positions itself against local competitors who can always claim home-field advantage on cultural relevance.

The Parks

Walt Disney World's crowd pecking order flipped again this weekend. According to Lightning Brain's daily park report for June 14, EPCOT and Magic Kingdom both posted a 4/10 (Moderate) crowd level, while Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom each dropped to 3/10 (Moderate). This is the second straight day the usual hierarchy got scrambled, with EPCOT, normally the quietest of the four, sitting on top.

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The heat was the story behind the story. The high hit nearly 95 degrees with 74% humidity, the kind of sticky Florida afternoon that reshapes guest behavior. Lightning Brain's data showed EPCOT peaking early at 11:00 AM with a 25-minute median wait before the combination of heat and food booths pulled energy off standby lines. World Celebration and the festival pavilions acted as climate-controlled magnets. Magic Kingdom, despite tying EPCOT's crowd score, posted the resort's lowest median wait at 12.7 minutes across 6,870 data points. Fantasyland was especially generous: Barnstormer, Under the Sea, Dumbo, Mad Tea Party, and the PeopleMover all sat at five-minute walk-ons.

Hollywood Studios ran 17% below its 30-day average, and Slinky Dog Dash had a rough day. Lightning Brain notes the Toy Story Land headliner went down four separate times, including a 7:06 PM closure that never reopened for the night. Animal Kingdom was the quietest park on property, with Expedition Everest running 40% under its usual wait at just 15 minutes.

The takeaway for anyone planning a summer trip is that weather determines your park day more than the calendar does. When the heat index pushes past comfortable, guests migrate toward air conditioning, and the parks with the most indoor attractions absorb the crowd while headliner coasters thin out. Smart touring right now means chasing shade instead of chasing rope drop.

Over at Disney's Animal Kingdom and Disney's Animal Kingdom Lodge, the baby animal report is legitimately heartwarming. Disney Parks Blog shared details on Ivy, a Masai giraffe calf born in April who has made her savanna debut on Kilimanjaro Safaris alongside her mom, Willow. Ivy already weighs nearly 300 pounds and stands about seven and a half feet tall. A second female Masai giraffe calf was born earlier in May at approximately 120 pounds. According to Disney Parks Blog, Masai giraffes are classified as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, with an estimated 30,000 remaining worldwide. Disney's work through the Association of Zoos and Aquariums' Species Survival Plan is the kind of story that reminds you the parks do genuinely meaningful conservation work alongside the entertainment.

Disney's Animal Kingdom Lodge has also welcomed new arrivals, including a male nyala calf named Parker. Animal keeper Mel noted the lodge team has been welcoming baby animals for more than 25 years, and their process for gradual introductions to savanna life is well practiced. If you are visiting this summer, keep your eyes on the savanna overlooks. The babies are out there.

On a lighter note, Disney Food Blog reviewed the new Beef and Mushroom Poutine at The Daily Poutine in Disney Springs, and it sounds like one of the better quick-service values on property. At $12.99, you get a heaping serving of French fries smothered in beef brisket, button mushrooms, brown poutine gravy, cheese curds, and lime crema. Disney Food Blog called it potentially the best $13 they have spent and noted the portion easily serves two. A word of caution from the review: heavy poutine and a hot Florida day make for a complicated relationship. AllEars also reviewed the new poutine, confirming its arrival at The Daily Poutine.

Meanwhile, Typhoon Lagoon's second H2O Glow After Hours event had a memorable evening for all the wrong reasons. TouringPlans reports the event lasted 19 minutes before lightning forced everyone out of the water. Florida summer weather remains undefeated.

The Screen

Toy Story 5 arrives in theaters this Thursday, June 19, and D23 published its definitive character guide for anyone who wants to walk in fully briefed. Tom Hanks returns as Woody, Disney Legend Tim Allen as Buzz Lightyear, and Joan Cusack as Jessie, with Greta Lee voicing Lilypad, a tablet device who arrives in Bonnie's room with disruptive ideas about what is best for their kid. D23 details a story that pits analog play against digital distraction, a thematic choice that should resonate with every parent who has watched their child choose a screen over a toy box.

The film is directed by Academy Award winner Andrew Stanton, co-directed by Kenna Harris, and features an original song performed by Taylor Swift called "I Knew It, I Knew You," written and produced by Swift and Jack Antonoff. Oscar winner Randy Newman returns to score his fifth Toy Story feature. The voice cast and creative team represent a bet on proven talent, and the story setup of toys versus tech gives the franchise a thematic anchor that feels genuinely contemporary rather than nostalgic.

Shifting from the big screen to the streaming side of the galaxy, the Star Wars live-action television landscape continues its complicated chapter. A note of context: one outlet reported on Marvel Comics announcing a seven-part comic series adaptation titled The Book of Boba Fett, tied to the Disney+ show. Since this was reported solely by a source we consider less reliable, we will note it briefly and move on. The broader picture, that Lucasfilm is still figuring out what comes next for several of its Disney+ era characters, remains a story worth watching even without confirmed details.

The Vault

WDW News Today's daily recap surfaced a small but resonant detail: Disney Legend Kurt Russell spoke publicly about being connected to Walt Disney's final words. The snippet does not include the full context of Russell's remarks, but the mere mention is a reminder of how personal and sometimes strange the threads are that connect Disney's present to its past. Russell was a child actor under contract with the studio when Walt died in 1966, and the story of Walt writing Russell's name on a piece of paper shortly before his death has circulated for decades. Every time Russell talks about it, the gravity of that moment lands differently depending on where Disney is as a company.

There is also a small piece of signage news that caught our eye. WDW News Today reports that unthemed directional signage has been installed on Seven Seas Drive in front of the Polynesian Resort. This kind of detail is the sort of thing only the most devoted Walt Disney World watchers notice, but it matters in context. The Polynesian has been undergoing changes, and wayfinding signage that lacks theming is either a temporary measure during construction or a sign that operational needs are outpacing Imagineering's design timeline. Either way, it is worth watching.

Sources

WDW News Today · Lightning Brain · Disney Parks Blog · Disney Food Blog · AllEars · TouringPlans · D23