Hollywood Studios opens The Magic of Disney Animation on Monday, September 14, 2026, and Walt Disney Imagineering’s September 9 walkthrough has finally taken us inside. The new attraction gathers an Olaf-led drawing class, character greetings, a theater, animation exhibits, MagicBand+ moments, and a Mary Blair-inspired playground under one roof.
The delicious surprise is how deeply this place knows its own history. Inside Off the Page, a sketchbook references My People, an unfinished film that was once developed in this very building when Disney animators worked here. That is not a random prop pulled from a very large Disney closet. The old studio is quietly winking back at us, and we absolutely noticed.
The lobby has already started showing off
The entrance hall is modeled directly after the Walt Disney Animation Studios lobby in Burbank, complete with its enormous tile color wheel. A chandelier made from paint brushes changes color with the lighting, washing different hues across the mural.
Even the brush colors were chosen by Disney’s ink-and-paint team from films they worked on. One is an orange called “Simba 103,” which is so gloriously specific that it deserves its own tiny round of applause.
Then there is the lost-and-found shelf. The Horned King has misplaced the Black Cauldron. The Shepherd’s Journal from Atlantis is waiting for its owner. Figaro is asleep on top of the box, because Figaro understands that being an Easter egg is exhausting work.
The Once Upon a Studio Theater is not simply pressing play on the Emmy-winning short and calling it an attraction. Walt Disney Animation Studios created new hand-drawn and computer-generated animation exclusively for this theater, with characters leaving their portraits around the room to join the short’s enormous group photo.
Before the film even begins, the lobby carpet carries pencil-sketch versions of Timon, Pumbaa, Lilo, Stitch, Pegasus, Kron, and Baymax. The entire space has committed to the bit.
Olaf has the pencils; Mary Blair has the playground
Olaf Draws! gives the new Audio-Animatronics Olaf a drawing class and, apparently, a very respectable animation education. Disney Animation artists provide the step-by-step instruction while classes rotate among nine characters. Mickey Mouse, Genie, Moana, Stitch, and Ursula are among the examples named so far.
Adults draw at Chouinard-style animator desks, while younger children sit in Arendelle sleighs colored for different Frozen characters. Olaf presides from a copy of The Illusion of Life, the Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston animation book he also sits on in Once Upon a Studio. Our favorite snowman has gone from summer enthusiast to adjunct professor, and honestly, the promotion suits him.
Drawn to Wonderland belongs to children ages 6 months through 5 years. Disney built the indoor playground from Mary Blair’s original Alice in Wonderland artwork, not from the finished film or Magic Kingdom’s tea cups.
Butterflies begin as flat graphics on the wall and lift into three dimensions as they flutter across the room. The Mad Tea Party table spins, makes sounds, and triggers lights. Even the floor glows in the pinks and purples needed to carry Blair’s color palette where ordinary paint could not.
That age limit is firm in the announced description. Older children are outside the stated range, even if they have excellent opinions about Mary Blair.
Off the Page divides its greeting rooms by stages of animation: Story, Layout, Hand-Drawn Animation, CG Animation, Lighting, and Effects. WDWMAGIC names Mulan, Rapunzel, Chip ’n’ Dale, Donald, Daisy, Goofy, and Stitch among the characters. The September 9 reporting does not provide a daily rotation, so this is not a promise that all eight will be greeting at the same time.
MagicBand+ interactions add one more layer. Baymax, Maximus, and the Kakamora respond as guests move through the building, which is a wonderfully chaotic little trio. Elsewhere, Stitch hides in an animator’s office, Mushu plays Fix-It Felix Jr., and selected pieces inside the Enchanted Art Gallery spring into animation.
Disney has given us the September 14 opening date. It has not yet given us daily operating hours, drawing-class times, or a character schedule. Our fairy godmother may be delighted, but she is not penciling Rapunzel into a timetable Disney has not supplied.
