Shades of Green originally opened as a Disney-owned resort known as the Golf Resort which opened in December 1973, in the middle of the Palm and Magnolia golf courses. 

 The resort only had an occupancy rate of 60% to 75% most of the year. One of the major problems with the resort was the location. The resort was out of the monorail loop; almost a quarter of a mile away from the nearest monorail station at The Polynesian. The resort was expanded and renamed The Disney Inn in February 1986 and given a Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs to try to appeal to more than golfers.

By the early 1990s, Army officials decided it was time to build a resort in the continental United States. Orlando was the top choice in a market survey of soldiers. On February 1, 1994, the US Department of Defense leased the resort and the land it sits on with a 100 year lease to use for the MWR program and limited the resort to eligible guests, renaming the resort Shades of Green. In 1996 the resort was purchased outright, for $43 million, due to the high success of the resort, although Disney still owns the land on which the resort sits.

Since the opening of Shades of Green, the resort has been running at or near 100% capacity.