Disney's PORT ORLEANS FRENCH QUARTER RESORT Information & Questions

[jlundeen]

I think POFQ is the PERFECT choice for your trip!! Garden views are all beautiful! The quietest are probably the further from the main lobby/bus transportation (building 7 or 1), third floor.

Hello all! I am planning a "top secret" trip to Disney in December (8th-11th) to propose to my girlfriend. I am still working out details, but I am hoping to lock down a package reservation in the next week. At this point I am strongly leaning towards a 3 night stay at Port Orleans French Quarter along with 2 day park tickets (Magic Kingdom and EPCOT). I am going with Port Orleans because moderate resort pricing works for right now and I like the smaller look (on a map). Others have commented on the intimate feel, which I think would be perfect for a weekend proposal trip.

I have been to Disney over 10 times, last in January 2016 with a stay at Art of Animation. However, this will only be my 3rd stay in a Disney resort.

At this point, does anyone have any thoughts, tips, or tricks? I am going to book a king room. The choices are garden and courtyard views. Any recommendations on requests when I make the reservation?

Thanks for any help!

 

[Belleandtinker]

Tie-Dye tshirt activity - how much? how mess? Any pictures?

I think it sounds so fun and my DS10 really wants to try it.

 

[andrewilley]

Tie-Dye tshirt activity - how much? how mess? Any pictures?

I'll see if I can get some pics.

Andre

 

[RCID]

Tie-Dye tshirt activity - how much? how mess? Any pictures?

I think it sounds so fun and my DS10 really wants to try it.

$18.11 per shirt, they have gloves, but still messy. They are wrapped in plastic then bagged. The shirts are super cute featuring Mickey in the middle. The children love them. Our youngest one's favorite shirt.

 

[Ladyfish77]

I'm here now. Only red and blue handled mugs. Only saw the same at Riverside and the Poly (we were over there, so I checked). CM said green had been discontinued, take that for what it's worth.

Had some bumps that were handled with pixie dust! We arrived around 4pm and had received a text with room number. We walked through front area and a CM asked us if we had received text and if we knew where we were going, we said, yes, thanks. Headed to room. The lights were on and someone was inside shampooing the room. Oops, guess it's not ready. Back to the front and spoke with same CM that we chatted with on way to room. She handled the situation, made phone calls, and ended up switching us to a new room with an upgrade to river view! (We had two rooms in our group and both got moved).

Then there was an issue with getting the magic bands working for the new room. We were pleasant and chatted while she worked on it. My son made a comment but I said don't worry, we don't have anywhere to be so we are fine and can wait for them to fix the issue. They ended up having to hard code the bands to the new room (evidently it was showing the bands being linked to both rooms). Total issue probably took about 30 minutes to fix. When she was done, she apologized for all the issues, and we said that it was fine, thanks for the upgrade room. She then told us since the first room wasn't ready when they had told us it was and all the problems with magic bands, that they put 3 extra FP's on each person's band for each of our 4 park days! Wow! That's service with a sprinkling of pixie dust. We didn't expect anything and remained pleasant during the entire time--talk about a nice surprise!!!!

The best part is my DS brought his GF for her first visit (young 20's). She has been having a blast, and having the FP's so we aren't standing in long lines during the heat has been wonderful!!! So POFQ continues to be my favorite resort for many reasons!

We haven't spent much time at the food court, so that hasn't been an issue for us.

 

[Debbie]

^^Those FPs are so much fun! We did Toy Story 3 times in a row once.

 

[kellym506]

Any new reports on the temporary restaurant services at French Quarter? The menus and photos were very helpful, curious to hear more about experiences. We'll be there in late September. Thanks!

 

[Ladyfish77]

You look at menu, then order with the cashier. They give you a number to put on your table. Then when your food is ready they bring it to you. There tends to be a line to order, but it seems to go quickly. There is also some grab and go stuff (fruit, pastries, etc) that you can get instead of ordering. The internal shuttle ran frequently between FQ and Riverside if you wanted to eat over there.

 

[krissyh]

GPS at the Bus Stop?
Has POFQ installed the GPS tracking / arrival time devices that Riverside has?
Thank you.

 

[andrewilley]

GPS at the Bus Stop?
Has POFQ installed the GPS tracking / arrival time devices that Riverside has?
Thank you.

All of the Port Orleans bus stops have wait time boards, however I think they may be powered by a random-number generator...

Andre

 

[Ladyfish77]

I think they may be powered by a random-number generator...

A random number generator that spontaneously resets and re-calculates just before your bus it set to arrive!

 

[comedyclaire]

Very random question ... are they selling cereal in the temporary food court? We have a fussy little chipmunk with us

 

[andrewilley]

Very random question ... are they selling cereal in the temporary food court? We have a fussy little chipmunk with us

Yes, still selling the little single-serving plastic tubs of cereal. I just bought one a couple of hours ago for DD to have for breakfast tomorrow.

Andre

 

[SRUAlmn]

Just wanted to post this since I know the latest info I saw was that the food court was supposed to be completed by Thanksgiving and many said technically it should be a little while prior to that....we check in on Nov 19 and got a letter in the mail yesterday stating that it would be CLOSED for our stay. I can post the letter if anyone is interested.

 

[vrajewski10513]

Just wanted to post this since I know the latest info I saw was that the food court was supposed to be completed by Thanksgiving and many said technically it should be a little while prior to that....we check in on Nov 19 and got a letter in the mail yesterday stating that it would be CLOSED for our stay. I can post the letter if anyone is interested.

Disney sent the letter to everyone whose stay falls within the refurb time frame. There's still a chance they could finish ahead of schedule. They just need to cover their butts in case they don't.

 

[andrewilley]

The best date I can give you for the completion of the food court refurb (from resort managers) is "by Thanksgiving". It could be earlier (they would like it to be) but they don't want to give out a date and then have to move it. It is very unlikely to continue into December - but then the Aquatic Play Area, which was scheduled to open before Christmas last year, finally opened in March.

The temporary replacement is working pretty well by the way, I popped down there for breakfast a few days about at about 9:15, when you would expect it to be at its busiest, and the queue to order was about 6-10 people deep and moved very quickly. There were tables available both inside the restaurant and in the Scat Cat's seating area, and my food was brought to me very promptly. It was a lot quieter than the Riverside Mill would be at that time anyway.







Andre

 

[comedyclaire]

Yes, still selling the little single-serving plastic tubs of cereal. I just bought one a couple of hours ago for DD to have for breakfast tomorrow.

Andre

Brilliant! Thank you for the reply

 

[AngiTN]

We were there May 30-June 4. Our fridge had a freezer 'section' that did not have a door. There was a lot of ice buildup inside and our water bottles kept freezing solid even though they were outside of that box. I defrosted it two nights running and turned the temp higher and it was still very cold. I never did get it to an optimum temp as bottles kept freezing.

Somehow you got an old fridge. I thought all of those had been trashed due to overheating issues. The norm will be one with no freezer area

We just booked last night for November! What are the preference options that come up when doing online check in? I think the initial post said they're "limited," but I wasn't sure if anyone had posted specifically what they are. Thanks!

These are the new options for online check in (in case no one else has posted them) (sorry, some overlap)

I've booked a standard room for November, does anyone know if it's possible to request an upgrade to a king? And if so what are the odds of that? Thanks!

You can request it but King is a bookable category so I'd say the chance of a requested one will be smaller than other categories of rooms that are not requests, like Ground floor, near elevator, etc.

 

[AngiTN]

All of the Port Orleans bus stops have wait time boards, however I think they may be powered by a random-number generator...

Andre

Wonder how it is we get rather lucky with the bus times. Maybe because we are rarely out for rope drop, but later.
Sure the times change but that's because the buses stop/start while driving due to lights, traffic, etc.
But they are reading GPS on the buses themselves so they do update as the bus moves around.
Every time I see a time for a bus I see a bus pull up at the time shown on the monitor. Granted, I don't watch EVERY time for EVERY bus but the ones I do watch match up.
I just have good timing in checking I guess. You'd think over our most recent 10 day trip, catching the bus at the stops twice each day (since we took afternoon breaks) we'd see one wrong. But I didn't

 

[SRUAlmn]

Disney sent the letter to everyone whose stay falls within the refurb time frame. There's still a chance they could finish ahead of schedule. They just need to cover their butts in case they don't.

The best date I can give you for the completion of the food court refurb (from resort managers) is "by Thanksgiving". It could be earlier (they would like it to be) but they don't want to give out a date and then have to move it. It is very unlikely to continue into December - but then the Aquatic Play Area, which was scheduled to open before Christmas last year, finally opened in March.

The temporary replacement is working pretty well by the way, I popped down there for breakfast a few days about at about 9:15, when you would expect it to be at its busiest, and the queue to order was about 6-10 people deep and moved very quickly. There were tables available both inside the restaurant and in the Scat Cat's seating area, and my food was brought to me very promptly. It was a lot quieter than the Riverside Mill would be at that time anyway.

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Andre

Thanks so much!! My husband saw the letter and immediately said he wanted to move to riverside, but I really think I want to stay at FQ, so I guess we'll have to decide how much it would really matter.