Baymax Is the Decorator and Olaf Teaches the Drawing Class Inside The Magic of Disney Animation, Opening September 14

By entgrove · September 10, 2026

Disney walked Orlando media through The Magic of Disney Animation at Disney's Hollywood Studios ahead of its September 14, 2026 opening. The walk-in recreation of the Burbank animation building puts Baymax to work inflating balloons as the party decorator, hands the drawing lesson to Olaf, and adds an Alice in Wonderland-inspired playground alongside stations covering story, layout, hand-drawn and computer animation, lighting and effects.

The Magic of Disney Animation opens at Disney's Hollywood Studios on September 14, and the version Disney walked Orlando media through this week is not a queue-and-ride attraction at all. It is an open house. Guests step into a recreation of the Walt Disney Animation Studios building, help Baymax inflate balloons, sit down for a drawing lesson taught by Olaf, and turn a corner into an Alice in Wonderland-inspired playground.

The Burbank Animation Building, Rebuilt in Florida

The space is modelled on the Disney Animation building in Burbank, California — the working studio where a great many of the characters guests meet in the parks were first imagined and drawn. That is the conceit the whole experience runs on: the animators have stepped out, the characters have taken the place over, and you have wandered in behind them.

It is a deliberate return of a name. The original Magic of Disney Animation ran in this same building, with a working animation floor guests could look down onto and an Animation Academy drawing class. The building later became Star Wars Launch Bay, the character meet-and-greet hall that occupied it from 2015 until Imagineering gutted the space for this project. The new attraction sits inside the Walt Disney Studios Lot, the reimagined area that replaced Animation Courtyard and already holds Disney Jr. Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Live! and The Little Mermaid – A Musical Adventure.

“We had dreamed this space up. We wanted to be able to walk into a space where you see happy families playing, interacting, using really just their body and their brain to bring the space to life kinetically,” a Disney official said during the preview.

Baymax Has Been Put in Charge of the Balloons

Baymax is on hand for the open house with a job: he has been designated the decorator, and he wants help inflating balloons. It is a physical, hands-on bit rather than a queue-and-photo meet, which is the through-line of everything Disney showed off — guests move, push, draw and play rather than watch.

“We can play with Baymax. He's here for this open house. He's been designated the decorator, so he wants to inflate some balloons and help,” the same official said.

Elsewhere in the building, Olaf leads a drawing lesson — the spiritual successor to the old Animation Academy, and the piece of the original attraction longtime fans have asked about most. The reporter who took the class at the preview came away with a drawing of Mickey Mouse and called it “really easy, and… a lot of fun,” which is roughly the bar a drawing lesson aimed at families needs to clear. An Alice in Wonderland-inspired playground rounds out the play spaces.

Story, Layout, Hand-Drawn, CG, Lighting and Effects

Between the character moments, the building is organised around the animation pipeline itself. Guests can work through the stages a Disney feature actually passes through: story and layout first, then hand-drawn animation, then computer-generated animation, then lighting and effects. It is the same sequence a film moves through in Burbank, laid out as rooms you can walk between rather than a lecture.

That structure is what separates this from a character hall. Disney has framed the experience as one that celebrates the history of animation while trying to produce the next generation of animators — the same argument the original attraction made in the 1990s, when guests watched Florida animators at work through glass on the way to the theatre.

The Buzz

Orlando outlets were given a walkthrough of the finished space days before it opens, and the details that came out of it — a balloon-inflating Baymax, a drawing class taught by Olaf, a playground built around Alice in Wonderland — are the first look anyone outside Disney has had at how the attraction actually plays. News 6 was among the outlets granted the preview. Fan interest is running high because this is the return of a name Hollywood Studios retired years ago, in the building it originally occupied.

September 14 Is Firm; Capacity and Hours Are Not Yet Public

The opening date is set: September 14, 2026. What Disney has not detailed publicly is how the space will be managed once the crowds arrive — whether the drawing lesson runs on a posted schedule, how often Baymax appears, and whether any part of the experience will use a virtual queue on opening weekend. For a walk-in experience with hands-on stations, those are the operational questions that decide whether a family gets everything in one visit.

Guests planning around it should treat opening week as busy and build the visit around the rest of the Walt Disney Studios Lot, which already has two shows running. The building is a short walk from the park entrance, and unlike a ride, there is nothing here to close for weather.