Bitesize Orlando October 2026 – Issue 64

Welcome once again to spooky season around the world, but especially in Orlando. Our US cousins love to go all out for Halloween, and if you’ve been visiting the last few weeks, I hope you’ve managed to take in some of the decorations and festivities that have been going on since mid-August.

Today, I have a double header for you! In addition to this, my usual monthly catch-up, Bitesize Orlando October 2026, I have just published my latest ticketing guide ahead of this year’s Black Friday season. I’ve spent the last 10 months manually tracking prices for the most popular tickets across all the main vendors, even some you may not have heard of. It’s been monotonous, but rewarding when you see my findings and conclusions. Check out my full Black Friday Deals For Orlando article to see if you truly will save money if you’re holding out for Black Friday.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been updating one of my most popular articles on the website, and I am pleased to say my completely rewritten guide to navigating Orlando Without A Car is now live and features 10 times the information as the previous version.

If you’re thinking about heading to Orlando and don’t want to drive, this article is for you. I explain everything you need to know about getting to and from the airports to your hotel, plus getting to and from the parks, when staying on-site or off-site.

Ride Shares, Superstar Shuttle, Mears Connect, even Lynx buses with system maps – it’s all here!

The popular British eatery and drinking hole in the UK Pavilion in EPCOT will be closing on January 11th for a lengthy refurbishment. Disney has not released any specifics about the refurbishment, nor posted a reopening date.

A notice of commencement permit filed on October 14th by the Disney World Facility Asset Management specifically lists the scope of work to be finished on June 29th. This date is telling because permits have a standard one-year expiration, so that date has purposefully been altered, suggesting we are looking at a rough 6-month closure.

It’s possible it could reopen earlier, but at least we know the kind of date Disney is aiming for here. Rose & Crown is probably one of the higher revenue generators in EPCOT; its menu is stacked with popular items, and it’s one of the few restaurants that offer Fireworks Dining Packages, so the lost revenue will not go unnoticed by park management.

Closing both the restaurant and the pub could mean we may be looking at some cosmetic changes to guest-facing areas. The kitchen had work done during a shorter refurbishment in 2021, so there could be some scope of work there that may allow Disney to broaden the menu. Ultimately, this is all speculation, but Disney won’t want the restaurant out of action for any longer than is necessary.

October is price hike month in Disney and Universal. Entrance tickets have already seen record-high price points set, and over 5,000 menu items have increased in cost throughout Disney World. Starting November 1st, it’s the turn of Lightning Lanes, Disney World’s line-skipping product.

Single Pass Lightning Lanes have seen price rises across almost every attraction. As a reminder, Single Passes allow a one-time ride on each park’s most popular attraction for a set fee that changes depending on the date and expected popularity. The rates are as follows:

• Seven Dwarfs Mine Train (MK) – From $15 to $18 maximum
• TRON Lightcycle/Run (MK) – From $23 to $25 maximum
• Guardians Of The Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind (EPCOT) – From $23 to $25 maximum
• Avatar Flight of Passage (AK) – From $19 to $20 maximum
• Star Wars Rise Of The Resistance (HS) – No change to the $25 maximum

Multi Pass Lightning Lanes have not received any price hikes as yet and remain unchanged depending on your chosen park and visit date:

• Magic Kingdom: $45
• Disney’s Hollywood Studios: $39
• EPCOT: $37
• Disney’s Animal Kingdom: $35

Premier Passes will be seeing a $50 hike soon, though. This is the top tier of Lightning Lanes and priced accordingly and by park and date, marketed to the top 1%-2% of visitors:

• Magic Kingdom: $329 to $499 per person, plus tax
• EPCOT: $299 per person, plus tax
• Disney’s Hollywood Studios: $399 per person, plus tax
• Disney’s Animal Kingdom: $249 per person, plus tax

Disney has announced a slew of seasonal offerings across all parks this year, but I’ll focus on 4 of the most popular announcements from a guest’s perspective because merchandise is nice, but it doesn’t really add all that much to the moment.

Rock ‘N’ Roller Coaster attraction in Hollywood Studios will see a new holiday overlay paying tribute ot Muppt’s Christmas Carol with Gonzo appearing as Charles Dickens in a revamped pre-show.

On board, there will be a choice of 4 randomly selected holiday tunes featuring the Muppets and some big-name stars:

• “Holiday Road” – The Electric Mayhem ft. Kermit the Frog and Fozzie Bear
• “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” by The Electric Mayhem featuring Jennifer Hudson
• “Silver Bells” by The Electric Mayhem featuring Cyndi Lauper
• “Little Saint Nick” by The Electric Mayhem

The holiday overlay begins on November 4th, running through January 6th.

Guardians Of The Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind added a Holiday Remix in 2022. 2026’s version swaps out the usual randomised soundtrack with one of three holiday tunes from the following:

• “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” by Andy Williams
• “Christmas Eve / Sarajevo 12/24” by Trans-Siberian Orchestra
• “Christmas Wrapping” by The Waitresses

Holiday Remix starts a little later than Rock ‘N’ Roller Coaster, starting on November 25th through January 6th.

Santa has been booted out of his traditional home in Animal Kingdom, seeing as DinoLand USA has been flattened and work is well underway on Tropical Americas.

Santa will be moving for 2026 to a new dedicated area called Santa’s Holiday Grove, a small trail, presumably near the Theatre In The Wild, with Santa meet-and-greets, the occasional snow flurry and speciality food and drinks. Santa arrive on November 13th, but there’s no confirmation whether he will stick around after Christmas Eve or not. The space may still operate without him through January 6th. I’m still waiting on Disney to confirm the details on this one.

Not content with already overlaying Lilypad’s Jams to the traditional Alien Swirling Saucers, Lilypad’s Jams will play a selection of Christmas classics beginning November 4th through January 6th.

• “Toyland”
• “Deck the Halls”
• “Swirling, Swirling Saucers”
• “Joy to the Swirl

Monstropolis is well into construction in Hollywood Studios. The Muppets Courtyard replacement is scheduled to partly open sometime in 2027. Dark Avenue, the Muppets Courtyard replacement, will add a new show and 2 restaurants. The Monsters Inc. Door Coaster is also currently well into vertical construction in a former backstage area and will open at a future date, separate from Dark Avenue.

Disney has released a reel on Instagram featuring Brian Piasecki and Evan Rosenthal, who talk in quite some detail about the fun everyone has had coming up with the menus for the land’s 2 restaurants.

Harryhausens will be a table-service restaurant and will serve Japanese-inspired dishes like sushi, ramen, tonkotsu broth, and more, looked over by a giant octopus animatronic. On the other side of the courtyard, Archie’s Scare Pig Pizza has some big PizzaRizzo shoes to fill. It will be the place everyone in the university goes to for their favourite slice of pizza while they catch up with friends. Maybe even some frozen Blort, straight out of the movie.

Check out the short interview below.

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Disney has entered into a corporate partnership with Shutterfly, allowing visitors to create personalised mementoes like mugs, ornaments and photo books of their visits from the theme park with exclusive designs.

Customers will be able to connect their PhotoPass and Shutterfly accounts, instantly solving one of the big headaches of PhotoPass: expired photos in your Disney account. Customers will need both a My Disney Experience account and a Shutterfly account for the PhotoPass images to sync seamlessly once the accounts are merged, usually in 10 minutes, but it can take up to 24 hours. Shutterfly allows unlimited photo storage for active customers, so your photos will be safe until you get the opportunity to download them yourself.

There is one glaring issue for us UK visitors currently: none of the Disney range is available to ship internationally, despite Shutterfly offering international shipping on the rest of its product lines. This likely has to do with current licensing contracts Disney has signed covering the UK, completely separate to the Shutterfly partnership in the US.

Just to test, I tried ordering a standard Disney photobook with no extra pages. This costs roughly what you expect to pay in the UK; a little more than a standard photobook because Disney is involved, but, like many UK photo companies, they even bundle in a 20% discount currently, bringing the book cost down to just under £50. I can see shipping costs and taxes that are calculated automatically for international orders. Shipping works out to £22.50, and taxes add nearly another £15, making the final total for one photobook a much less palatable £84+.

It’s possible Shutterfly will lift the international restriction if Disney can work some of its own magic untangling existing UK-focused licensing deals, but currently, although you can view and personalise the Disney range, you cannot get the physical item unless you know someone in the USA who can receive it on your behalf and then ship it to you, adding even more expense.

Hot on the heels of Disney’s patent allowing guests to choose rides based on their likes and dislikes last month, Universal is looking at taking this one step further, but not without a lot of necessary big-brother watching.

Universal’s system will use a network of guest activity-recognition devices throughout the park, ranging from cameras, proximity and weight sensors to audio sensors and RFID tags, feeding information to a central AI entity management system. The management system then analyses the sensor data alongside opted-in preference profiles to alter elements inside a ride vehicle in real time.

Tailored elements could include visual displays, synchronised lighting and sound effects. Interactive animated characters could alter their dialogue, mood and personality traits according to the users’ preferences. The system will be smart enough to recognise single riders and group dynamics by identifying shared interests and preferences in the same ride vehicle.

Privacy controls could allow visitors to choose what they do and don’t want to share. For example, a character could call out individual adult names in a ride car at the end of a ride but be restricted from saying any children’s names.

The patent also encompasses an integrated monitoring system and service dashboard that would instantly alert cast personnel in the event of a technical malfunction or an unexpected stop.

People all to often shout down SeaWorld, but the park and its sister parks do a lot of good for wild animals, and this week SeaWorld Orlando has adopted an orphaned walrus calf found on its own on a remote beach in northern Alaska.

The calf was rehabilitated by Alaska SeaLife Center, but transferred to SeaWorld Orlando, which is one of only 4 US institutions capable of housing walruses. 5-month-old Annautaq was discovered hiding between the carcasses of two older walruses and was unlikely to survive without intervention.

Although he responded well to rehabilitation efforts, the US Fish and Wildlife Service determined he could not be released back into the wild, which is where SeaWorld stepped in.

His young age means Annautuq requires more nutrition and veterinary care. He is currently getting through 6 bottle feedings per day and has 24-hour, round-the-clock care and support during a planned 30-day quarantine.

In time, he will be introduced to SeaWorld Orlando’s other walruses, Garfield, Kaboodle and Uki. Check out his journey so far on the Instagram post below.

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The Florida-based firm behind Ovation Orlando has shared new renderings while updating the construction timeline for the massive 70-acre development less than a mile from Walt Disney World.

Locals have dubbed the upmarket complex Disney Springs 2.0, owing to its intended mix of retail and entertainment tenants. The resort will replace the long-abandoned Orlando Sun Resort that closed in 2012.

Like Disney Springs, the development will be split into distinct districts, originally 5, now condensed into 3, along with 3 signature hotels offering up to 740 units.

Accesso also shared that construction is expected to get underway in the first half of 2027 now that land clearing is nearly finished. There is a targeted opening for all districts sometime in 2028. I will keep an eye on developments and tenants as details are released for this exciting 76-acre long-overdue development.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy my guide to Black Friday prices for Orlando. I hope you find it as illuminating as I did while researching the article. See you next month.