Are the further out Parterre rooms really that far from the main area?
The rooms on the far side, facing the woods area, can be a bit of a trek - even though the absolute furthest you can be is about 500 yards away from the food court door. After a long day at the park with tired feet, that can seem like a lot more though.
so POR experts...especially those that do rent cars... do you think it's worth the expense?
Personally, we always rent a car. Mostly for off-site stuff like shopping trips, but it's also much easier for getting to the other WDW resort hotels for meals/etc. For the parks, we almost always use Disney buses for the MK, and it varies for the other parks depending on how we feel, time of day, etc. It's nice to have the option. However for the parks only, and if you are arriving by DME, then the extra expense probably isn't worth it.
Any advice on getting a murphy bed? Or, do they have rollaway beds for the regular rooms?
As has been said, just book Preferred Location, which will give you an Alligator Bayou room in buildings 14, 15, 18 or 27 - and all of the AB rooms have the fold-down beds. There are no other roll-away beds available any more.
Yes all preferred rooms are in buildings 14, 16, 18 and 27. 14 and 27 will have views of the river 18 will have a few river viewing rooms. 16, and 18 have garden and parking lot views.
16 is not preferred (typo I assume, I keep trying to type '28' for some reason). Also 'Preferred' bookings will not normally give a river or pool view room (these come under River and Water categories), just standard or garden. There are technically no River View rooms in building 18 anyway due to its orientation, but as it is still right next to the river some of the garden view corner rooms do give a nice outlook of the river from the second window.
My son is on the autism spectrum and when we stay at a hotel we have to ride the elevator up to our room. It may sound silly but to him it is huge issue and he won't be able to get past it so better to plan ahead.
Both of the Royal Guest Room mansion buildings have elevators, which are located in the central three-story part of the building. If you request a third-floor room you will automatically be fairly near to the elevators as the third floor is quite small. It might be worth contacting the Special Assistance line in advance if this is going to be a major issue for you, but I'd have thought that a short fax to the resort 3-5 days before arrival explaining your reasons would also get to exactly what you need.
Andre
. I made note of this when you mentioned it some months ago. We've booked Royal Room Riveriew and requested close to South Depot as our first request. In the fax I plan to send 4 days before our arrival I'm explaining my reasons for that and also for the second & third portions of our request. Now that we're 5 weeks away from our first stay at POR I am super excited!
TIA
