The Magic of Disney Animation is open at Hollywood Studios with augmented-reality photos, Olaf's drawing class, six character meets and a Wonderland playground

By entgrove · September 15, 2026 · Updated September 29, 2026

The Magic of Disney Animation opened September 14, 2026 at Disney's Hollywood Studios, inside the Sorcerer Hat building where Florida animators once drew Mulan. It holds augmented-reality portraits that step out of their frames for a PhotoPass photo, a Baymax balloon game played with a MagicBand, an Olaf-hosted drawing class with nine lessons, six character meets laid out along the animation pipeline, a Mary Blair-inspired Alice in Wonderland playground and a theater for Once Upon a Studio.

The Magic of Disney Animation is open at Disney's Hollywood Studios. The building beneath the Sorcerer Hat took its first guests on September 14, 2026, and the team that built it has a one-line pitch for what you are walking into: an open house where the animators have stepped out and the characters have come to life. The technology doing the heavy lifting is augmented reality that pulls characters out of their frames to pose for a PhotoPass photo, alongside a MagicBand game with Baymax, a drawing class hosted by an animatronic Olaf, six character meets laid out along the stages of making a film, an indoor Alice in Wonderland playground and a theater for the short film the whole place is built around. All of it sits inside a building that once housed a working Disney animation studio.

Walt Disney World announced the opening in a press release distributed through PR Newswire on September 14, five days after Disney Parks Blog published a walkthrough of the building's hidden details and WESH 2 toured it with Disney's creative leads. What follows combines all three.

An open house where the art does not stay on the wall

"You're entering an open house where animators have left the building and characters have come to life in new and unique ways," said Andres Aranguibel, Disney's manager of experience design and creative direction, during a media walkthrough ahead of the opening reported by WESH 2 on September 9. The artwork lining the space is the point: some pieces are animated, others are interactive and invite guests to play along, and none of it is meant to be looked at from behind a rope.

The building is patterned on the Roy E. Disney Animation Building in Burbank, California, the studio's real headquarters, which wears the same Sorcerer Hat over its entrance. Disney's post says even the decorative tilework matches the lobby there. Inside, guests explore new takes on that headquarters and the departments that work in it. Portraits come to life as you pass them, an idea lifted straight from Once Upon a Studio, the Emmy Award-winning short in which characters step out of their frames after hours. Dan Abraham, one of that film's two directors, worked with Walt Disney Imagineering's Daniel Handke on the project, and the studio's own artists were involved throughout.

Once Upon a Studio was made in 2023 for the studio's 100th anniversary and gathers more than 500 characters from across its films for a group photo outside the Burbank building. The Hollywood Studios version, in effect, lets guests walk into that photo, and Disney restaged it with 60 costumed characters on the plaza outside to mark the opening. Every one of Walt Disney Animation Studios' 65 feature films is represented somewhere inside, including artwork from Hexed, the 65th, which does not reach theaters until November 25.

The building sits in the Walt Disney Studios Lot courtyard beneath the Sorcerer Hat, the area Hollywood Studios reimagined this year around the short. It replaces Star Wars Launch Bay, which held the space from 2015 until Imagineering gutted it for this project, and Disney's creative teams have been working on the attraction for roughly two years.

Tap your MagicBand to help Baymax with the balloons

The first interactive stop puts guests to work. Using a park ticket or a MagicBand, you interact with Baymax, who has been cast as the open house's decorator, and virtually inflate balloons for the party. The game keeps score, and guests can come back and try to beat their previous result. It is the same tap-to-play mechanic Walt Disney World already uses for ride photos and PhotoPass, applied to a mini-game with a leaderboard of your own past attempts.

Augmented reality pulls characters out of the frame

The photo moment is the headline piece of technology. Instead of a static backdrop, Disney is using augmented reality to have framed characters step out of their frames and pose with guests. "We've innovated by using augmented reality as a technology to have them actually step out of a frame and pose with you for a photo moment," Aranguibel said. The result is a PhotoPass keepsake that lands in your My Disney Experience account like any other park photo.

That matters more than it sounds. Character meet-and-greets at Walt Disney World have always meant a line and a face character or a costumed performer; a framed character who joins the picture is a way to add a photo op without adding a queue for a performer, and it fits the space's premise that the characters, not the artists, are hosting.

Off the Page! lines up six character meets along the animation pipeline

Off the Page! is the character meet area, and each meet is themed to a stage of production, so a walk through it doubles as a tour of how a film gets made. Disney names six pairings and leaves the list open:

• Mulan in Story
• Rapunzel in Layout
• Chip 'n Dale in Hand-Drawn Animation
• Donald and Daisy in Computer Animation
• Goofy in Lighting
• Stitch in Effects

Mulan hosting Story is a fitting nod to the building's own past: hers was the first feature produced primarily by the Florida studio that once worked in this building. Disney's post describes her posing in front of an oversized storyboard panel, while Rapunzel's Layout set is built around the multiplane camera, with layers of painted backgrounds and cels stacked in front of her. Look around the meets for the maquettes, the small sculptures animators build to study a character from every angle: a young Tarzan perched on a tree trunk and Taffyta Muttonfudge from Wreck-It Ralph are both out.

"Back when this was a working animation studio, it inspired so many people to become animators," Abraham said in Disney's post, adding that he hopes "this new version will do the same."

Olaf Draws! brings the drawing class back with nine lessons

Hollywood Studios has not offered a drawing class since Animation Academy closed in 2015, and this is where it comes back. A new Audio-Animatronics Olaf sits at an animator's desk, recreating his scene from Once Upon a Studio in which he discovers drawing, and hosts a class for guests of all ages. The lessons come from Disney Animation artists and filmmakers, recorded with tips, techniques and stories from inside the studio, and real animators appear on screen to lead the steps. Nine character lessons were announced:

• Mickey Mouse, with Dan Abraham, director of Once Upon a Studio and Baymax!
• Minnie Mouse, with Hyun min Lee, animator on Frozen 2 and The Princess and the Frog
• Donald Duck, with Austin Traylor, animator on Once Upon a Studio and Moana 2
• Genie, with Eric Goldberg, the Disney Legend who animated him in Aladdin and worked on Hercules
• Moana, with Samantha Vilfort, story artist on Encanto and Zootopia 2
• Stitch, with Fawn Veerasunthorn, director of Hexed and Lilo & Scratch
• Olaf, with Trent Correy, director of Once Upon a Studio and Frozen 3
• Ursula, with Michael Woodside, animator on Big Hero 6 and Encanto
• Judy Hopps and Nick Wilde, with Byron Howard, director of Zootopia and Zootopia 2

Josh Gad, who voices Olaf and was named a Disney Legend, recorded new dialogue for the class.

"I'm so thrilled that a whole new generation of kids can dream of becoming animators one day and can actually begin their journey right there on the studio lot," Gad said in the release.

Two details from Disney's post are worth a look on the way in. The back of the marquee carries Olaf's own sketch of Jungle Cruise, and inside he sits on a copy of The Illusion of Life, the animation book by Disney Legends Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston, with shelves of VHS tapes, character maquettes and a figurine from The Black Cauldron behind him.

Drawn to Wonderland is a playground built from Mary Blair's concept art

The youngest guests get Drawn to Wonderland, an indoor playground based on Mary Blair's original concept art for Alice in Wonderland. Blair, a Disney Legend, set the color and shapes of Alice in Wonderland, Cinderella and Peter Pan in the early 1950s, and her style later shaped it's a small world. Here her artwork becomes places to climb through: the Mad Tea Party, the Mad Hatter's house, the Queen of Hearts' rose garden and the Cheshire Cat's Tulgey Wood.

Disney says Alice was chosen because the story is about curiosity and exploring, which suits a space designed for climbing and wandering rather than queuing. Disney also pitches it as somewhere families can sit down and recharge without leaving the story, which is what a shaded indoor playground means to a parent at Hollywood Studios in September.

The Once Upon a Studio Theater and a gallery whose paintings move

The Once Upon a Studio Theater shows the short that inspired the whole project, with a difference. Disney Animation created new animation exclusively for this theater, and enhanced effects run alongside the film. Characters also turn up in the artwork on the theater walls while the short plays, so the room joins in rather than simply screening it.

Nearby is what Disney calls an enchanted art gallery: a room of framed artwork of Disney Animation characters that looks like an ordinary gallery until the pictures begin to move, again with animation made only for this space. The release ends its list with "and more," and that covers the Treasures Untold gallery, the Animators' Office and a shop selling exclusive merchandise.

Hidden details: a Lost and Found overhead, Treasures Untold and the Animators' Office

Disney Parks Blog's September 9 walkthrough is the guide to the rest. In the reception area the studio's Lost and Found Department hangs overhead, stocked with the Map Sphere from Treasure Planet, Eeyore's tail, a vase of Hercules fighting the Hydra and the Sundrop Flower from Tangled, with Figaro watching from above and flicking his tail now and then. Each paintbrush on the chandelier carries the name of a member of the studio's Ink and Paint Department. Pencil sketches of Oliver from Oliver & Company, Mr. Toad, and Tod and Copper from The Fox and the Hound are tucked along the route.

Treasures Untold is a gallery of keepsakes and props from across the studio's history: Jiminy Cricket's suit and gold star pin, a box of Kanine Krunchies from One Hundred and One Dalmatians, Lilo's doll Scrump, the Aristocats' collars and Kuzco's crown and earrings.

The Animators' Office is dressed to look as if an artist has just stepped away from the desk. The desk itself was saved from the original Animation Academy that ran in this building, and Disney's post points to a Moana cap, a miniature Walt Disney Animation Studios maquette and dozens of other keepsakes and pieces of artwork around the room.

The room where Mulan was drawn

The technology is new; the address is not. The building was home to Walt Disney Feature Animation Florida, the working studio that operated on the park's lot from 1989 until 2004, and portions of Mulan, Lilo & Stitch and Brother Bear were created there. Guests on the old backstage tour watched animators through the glass; now the desks belong to the characters.

"How far we've come is a huge thing," said Matthew Hamel, show director for Disney's Hollywood Studios. "That's the great thing about this space. It has legacy." The original Magic of Disney Animation carried the same name from 1989 until it closed in 2015, so the September 14 opening is a revival of a title as much as a new attraction.

The surrounding Animation Courtyard closed on September 25, 2025 to become the Walt Disney Studios Lot, a park-like courtyard modeled on the Burbank lot down to details such as Pluto's Corner. The Studio Theater next door still runs The Little Mermaid: A Musical Adventure, and a nearby soundstage hosts Disney Jr. Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Live!, which Disney's post lists as open.

Exclusive merchandise on the way out

The location sells its own exclusive merchandise, including ears, mugs, blankets and other items. Disney has not published prices. "It has to be just the amount of art in this space," Hamel said of what he expects guests to notice first. "It's so exciting to see. You're going to be overwhelmed."

What to expect now that it is open

Everything described here sits inside a single building, so one stop covers the meets, the drawing class, the theater, the gallery, the playground and the augmented-reality photo, and the PhotoPass picture will be waiting in My Disney Experience before you reach the shop. Disney has not announced a separate charge or a reservation for any of it. Neither the previews nor the opening release published an operating schedule for the space or a plan for managing crowds through the interactive rooms, so arrive early if you want the Olaf lesson or the balloon game without a wait. Opening week will be busy, and the smart play is to build the visit around the rest of the Walt Disney Studios Lot and come back to the building when the first rush thins.

Two details point to how the place will age. The drawing class rotates through nine characters, so a second visit can produce a different lesson. And the artwork already includes Hexed, still two months from release, a sign the walls are meant to keep pace with the studio's slate. The 65-film count already includes it, so the number will not move when the film opens on November 25.