Animal Crossing: New Horizons resort hotel guide (3.0 update)

The 3.0 update for Animal Crossing: New Horizons adds a full-blown resort hotel on the pier, run by Kapp’n and his family. It works like a little tourism hub: villagers rotate in as guests, you decorate rooms to suit different vibes, and the hotel’s souvenir shop doles out new furniture and rewards tied to your progress.

Update (Jan. 15): This guide now includes more detail on unlocking the hotel and additional notes on the room system.

How to unlock the resort hotel in Animal Crossing: New Horizons

Players report the resort won’t appear until a few island milestones are done, including Kapp’n’s boat tours and an upgraded (non-tent) museum. Typical steps include:

• Unlock Resident Services to access the island rating system.
• Reach a 3-star rating and host K.K. Slider’s concert.
• Donate at least 15 unique creatures to Blathers, then wait two days for the museum upgrade to complete.
• Wait for Isabelle’s announcements about Kapp’n and/or the museum upgrade to roll out.

Once Kapp’n is active and the museum is upgraded, Isabelle should eventually announce that a hotel has opened on the pier.

Some players say the resort unlocked immediately once those conditions were met, while others saw slight variation. Requirements may still be a bit inconsistent based on reports.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons’ resort hotel, explained

Hotel gameplay closely mirrors the Happy Home Paradise DLC. You’ll decorate guest rooms to match broad themes (Modern, Japanese, etc.), using your catalog plus any on-theme items the game temporarily makes available even if you haven’t collected them yet. Themes are a guide, not a hard rule, so you still get plenty of freedom to build the room you want.

Finishing hotel rooms and filling DIY requests earns tickets—a hotel-only currency you spend at the lobby’s souvenir shop, managed by Gran. You’ll get 200 tickets per completed room, and you can decorate two rooms per day until all eight are done. After that, you can either design a special VIP room (amiibo lets you invite specific characters) or choose to redecorate one existing room per day for more tickets.

Outside of room work, there’s a DIY request box. Tom Nook posts items to craft (made faster by batch crafting), and Kapp’n ships them out to drum up tourism. The first four items you ship each week pay double tickets; this bonus resets every Monday.

Hotel guests act like temporary villagers: they wander the island, chat with residents, and aren’t stuck in their rooms. However, unlike campsite visitors, you can’t ask hotel guests to move in permanently. The guest list rotates daily, so they won’t stick around.

In the lobby, the two mannequins work as borrowable outfits for visitors—both animals and players. You can set these looks using a mix of your own cataloged clothes and hotel-specific apparel. Interact with a mannequin to change its outfit. Guests (and visiting players) may be seen wearing one of these two fits while they’re on the island.

Resort hotel exclusive rewards

Gran’s souvenir shop features two items each day, and there’s also a catalog that expands as you complete more rooms. Ordering from the catalog costs more than buying a featured item the day it appears. Expect several new furniture sets—like the Artful, Tubular, and Kiddie series—plus hotel-themed souvenirs and various one-offs that don’t belong to a set.

Looking for other new 3.0 additions (like the Lego tie-ins)? Those show up through Nook Shopping rather than the hotel store.