The Planning Desk Dispatch
The Disney World Resorts With Themed Rooms Worth Booking Around
Under-the-sea story rooms, royal suites, and value-resort family suites: which Walt Disney World themed rooms are still bookable in 2026, and which one earns the upcharge.
Every Walt Disney World resort commits to a theme down to the carpet pattern. Stay at the Polynesian and the room tells you so, with tropical prints and tiki-adjacent lighting. But three resorts push past ambient theming into something closer to a stage set, where the room itself is the attraction. Here’s what’s still bookable in 2026, and which one is worth the premium.
Story rooms at Caribbean Beach Resort. The pirate-themed rooms that used to anchor the resort’s Trinidad South section are gone: Disney discontinued them in December 2022. The space was gutted and rebuilt with an under-the-sea, Little Mermaid-inspired theme instead, with aquatic finishes, a raised queen bed, and a Murphy sleeper plus a pull-down fifth bed that pushes capacity to five or six guests. It’s still a themed splurge over the resort’s plainer standard rooms, worth it for a family that wants the extra sleeping space, with the added bonus of Skyliner access to Epcot and Hollywood Studios that the whole resort shares.
Royal Guest Rooms at Port Orleans Riverside. These are the most photographed themed rooms at Walt Disney World for a reason. A fiber-optic fireworks display glows over the headboard, Cinderella’s coach is etched into the footboard, and the whole room reads more like a boutique hotel than a moderate resort. A mid-2025 refurbishment consolidated the category down to roughly 256 rooms, all in the Parterre Place building, after years of splitting the count across two mansion buildings. They carry a premium over standard Riverside rooms and they sell out well ahead of travel dates, especially over spring break and around princess-heavy events. Worth knowing: Port Orleans Riverside used to be marketed as “Dixie Landings” before Disney merged it with the neighboring French Quarter resort under the Port Orleans name in 2001, which is part of why the resort still feels like two different properties stitched together.
Family suites at the value resorts. This is where the biggest change since the original story rooms rollout has happened. Disney’s Art of Animation Resort opened with suites themed to Finding Nemo, Cars, and The Lion King, plus standard rooms themed to The Little Mermaid, and that split still holds. Each suite sleeps up to six, splits into a separate bedroom area, and includes two bathrooms and a kitchenette with a mini-fridge and microwave, which matters more than it sounds like for a family managing food allergies or just tired of eating out for every meal. Disney later brought the same family-suite format to All-Star Music, where it still sleeps up to six today, so travelers no longer have to book Art of Animation specifically to get the extra space at value pricing. For a family of five or six on a value-resort budget, this is the pick.
Dining at Art of Animation still runs through Landscape of Flavors, a food-court-style spot with a rotating global menu, a build-your-own-burger station, and a Mongolian-inspired stir-fry line. It’s the resort’s only true dining option beyond quick grab-and-go, so factor that into how much you want to walk for a sit-down meal elsewhere.
Our read: the Royal Guest Rooms are the one worth booking around, since the upgrade is dramatic enough to notice and the price gap from a standard Riverside room isn’t huge. The under-the-sea rooms at Caribbean Beach are a fun add if the extra sleeping space and theme matter to your crew specifically. The family suites aren’t a novelty booking at all, they’re just the smartest way to fit a family of five into a value resort without everyone climbing over each other.
If you’re mapping out where to stay against park days and travel dates, a free day-by-day itinerary tool can help you figure out how much resort space you’ll actually need before you book. For more on where the real savings are on a Disney World trip, our look at Lou Mongello’s money-saving book is a good next read, and if you want to see more resorts without paying for a room, free ways to spend a day at Walt Disney World covers the monorail loop for exactly that.