This Unique Resort Town In Florida Is An Underrated Gem Close To Orlando

What it's like to live in Walt Disney's idealized version of small-town America? Theme park visitors might imagine that while strolling down Disneyland's iconic Main Street, where there's always a light shining in the window of Walt's old firehouse apartment. In Florida, that idea was also the initial appeal of Celebration, the master-planned community that Walt's company founded just 20 miles from Orlando International Airport — and 5 miles from Disney World. Before the town welcomed its first residents in 1996 (30 years after Walt's death), the prospect of Celebration was so inviting that Disney held a lottery to determine who could live there.

Celebration went through some growing pains, however, since Disney had outsourced the homebuilding, giving contractors tight deadlines that yielded expensive, poorly constructed houses. Much like Disneyland Cast Members in Anaheim, some people working in Celebration could never afford homes there. One of the lottery winners, Susan Bona, told MSNBC (via Midway to Main Street): "I think people came here ... thinking they were going to be living on Main Street, U.S.A., and the pixie dust would be sprinkled, and their life would be perfect. They wanted the monorail to pick them up at their front door, and, you know, this is real life, real mortgages, real jobs."

Disney eventually pulled out of Celebration, selling the town center and its dream of Americana to a private investment firm, Lexin Capital. Nonetheless, present-day Celebration almost feels like a subtle extension of Central Florida's "Disney bubble." It's a resort town that's received criticism for being too immaculately designed, with condos and homes following a specific blend of architectural styles: Classical, Coastal, Colonial, French, Mediterranean, and Victorian. Yet for those visiting (as opposed to living in) Celebration, the town's unique aesthetic and proximity to Disney make it an underrated lodging option.

In 2025, The Inn at Celebration (formerly known as the Celebration Hotel and Bohemian Hotel Celebration) reopened on the shore of Lake Rianhard after a multimillion-dollar renovation. This pet-friendly boutique hotel is Marriott-affiliated, so you can earn points toward free nights by staying there, like you would over on Disney property at the Swan and Dolphin resorts. The hotel's Lakeside Kitchen & Bar has an outdoor terrace where you can dine by the water with your pet. If you're traveling with a dog, Woof Gang Bakery & Grooming has a salon and gourmet treats to keep them just as pampered as you are while on vacation in Celebration.

Celebration's dining scene includes a branch of Florida's oldest restaurant, Columbia Restaurant, which got its start serving Spanish and Cuban food in one of Tampa's most interesting neighborhoods. The Celebration Town Tavern, run by a family from Boston, serves everything from clam "chowdah" (as it's written on the menu) to lobster rolls. With its peanut butter milkshakes and black-and-white, checkerboard tile flooring, the Downtown Diner evokes a bygone era. It's on the corner of Market Street, where you can shop for Christmas items year-round at Market Street Gallery. This same street is where the artificial snow falls every December during Celebration's "Now Snowing" event.

To take a self-guided, architectural walking tour of Celebration, which includes a lakeside promenade with an interactive fountain, ask for a map at the town hall. Behind The Inn at Celebration, there's also a trail with rental bikes you can unlock via a digital code for a cycling tour. As you breeze past white picket fences, you might begin to see why Forbes named Celebration one of America's 10 prettiest neighborhoods and why the town ranks among Samantha Brown's favorite Florida destinations.

In Celebration, there was reportedly an early building regulation that every house have a hidden Mickey somewhere. Residents don't always hide Disney's mouse mascot, who you can see in decorations right out on the front porch sometimes. Cruising down palm-tree-lined residential streets, what's more surprising is the sight of one or more real-life Bambis. It's not unusual in Celebration to see wild deer wandering through people's front yards at dusk. The Experience Kissimmee tourism office, which operates out of Celebration, reminds visitors that the wildlife here isn't animatronic like the animals you'll see on Disney rides. That said, Misty Blue Acres does offer horse-drawn Cinderella carriage rides during the annual "Now Snowing" event.

Though long abandoned, Celebration's picturesque movie theater building was designed by Cesar Pelli, the architect behind global landmarks like the Petronas Twin Towers in Malaysia. The theater's own twin spires — a throwback to the Art Moderne style, per Cinema Treasures — are reminiscent of the entrance to Disney's Hollywood Studios (itself inspired by LA's Pan-Pacific Auditorium). According to Business Insider, AMC originally agreed to operate this two-screen theater as part of a package deal that included its current dine-in multiplex in the Disney Springs shopping complex.

Celebration's theater closed in 2010, and now that multiplex is the closest option for moviegoing. AMC kept the lease on the theater until 2021, but in 2025, its seats finally went in the dumpster. On our trip to Celebration in January 2026, you could see the lobby gutted to make way for a new state-of-the-art athletic club in the spring. It was tempting to view the building's empty facade as a metaphor for Disney, but the former company town of Celebration still has plenty of its own retro charm to offer beyond the nearby theme parks.