Back from POR 7/28

[ozzyla]

We spent 6 nights at POR and I wanted to share my thoughts on the resort and the week.

Yes, it was hot, but we got up early(out of the room by 7:30), returned to the room by 1:00 pm, swam -- did laundry and returned to the parks around 5:00 pm. This worked very well. The transportation at POR was great. But I do want to point out we avoided the parks with EMH (like the plague)every day except once. We never waited for a bus longer than 10 min, usually under 5. We never stood up on the bus, except the day we attended a park with EMH. There were several people who seemed very upset with the buses that attended EMH. From what I saw the parks with EMH had greatly increased bus traffic, and unless you caught the very first bus out you were waiting and standing. I HIGHLY recommend this strategy, not only do you get a little more sleep, the buses aren't crowded (several times we were the only ones on the bus in the a.m.) and the parks weren't until about 11:00. One morning we were at MK and rode Space Mtn, Peter Pan, Splash Mtn, Thunder Mtn, and Buz lightyear all the first hour.

We ate at Sci-fi, Cinderellas Castle, Crystal Palace (b-fast), Boma, Coral Reef, Liberty Tavern. I enjoyed the atmosphere at Sci-fi the best, but the food was probably the worst there. The food was best at Coral Reef (I shared the steak w/my 12 yr old), I was suprised at how loud the restaurant was. Boma was o.k. but we were stuck in a corner, and the wait staff was less than interesting. We waited the longest at Liberty Tree for a table, and were located right next to the kitchen which was noisy, but gave us the characters first as they came out. We were on the dining plan and loved it. I would highly recommend trying to splitting meals whenever possible, you get so much to eat. We did this and actualy got 7 sit downs out of our meal plan with some creative planning (6 actual meals -- cindy's counts as 2).

Room was great, mousekeeping was great, left a towel animal every day with or without a tip left (I forgot one day). We were in building 15 which is great, right near the bus and close to the restaurant.

Our best counter service would either be Pizzafarri (try the italian sandwhich --big enough for 2 people) or the fish place in Magic Kingdom (can't remember the name).

We have one child who is adverse to "big" rides, but he rode all the roller coasters with some encouragement (had to buy him a yetti) to go on Everest. He actually enjoyed it. He didn't like Space Mountain though too dark (7 yrs old), his twin is a daredevil which rode Tower of Terror later that night.

Any questions on the resort and parks would be welcome.

 

[tabby1881]

Great post! What characters did you see at Liberty Tree Tavern? Also, was it crowded doing laundry?

 

[BarleyJack]

Sounds like you had a good time! We are staying at POR in January and have never seen it so we're glad to here its a nice resort. I do have a ? about EMH tho, is it just busier for AM EMH at that park or does that apply to PM EMH as well?

 

[byoung]

Thanks for posting.

 

[amyy]

Thanks for the tip about the EMH. I will probably adjust our schedule. I need to do some more reading as we leave Fri but can you please remind me as to what time the parks open when there is EMH?

I have stayed at POR twice but can't remember.... are there hair dryers in the room?


thanks

 

[NeverlandPixie]

Great report, thank you! It's my favourite resort.

amyy: Yes, hairdryers are in the rooms.

 

[scottny]

We stayed there last month and I agree it is a great resort. i loved it. We stayed in the mansions and it was great. The boat ride to DTD was fantastic also.

 

[BillyFeat]

Thanks for posting your trip report. I'm glad to hear that you enjoyed your stay at POR.

 

[LorieBell]

we will be staying at POR, are the parking lots far from the rooms? Also, we have reservations for the SciFi do you mean that the food isn't very tasty or do you mean it is gross?

 

[eeyore45]

When we stayed at POR the parking lot was right next to the walkway to our Mansion - not sure about the Bayou areas tho

 

[ozzyla]

This is in reply to some of the questions on POR. The PM magic hours were worse. We had the best luck with going to the park that had EMH (PM) the night before. So if it was Epcot EMH (PM) on Tuesday, we would go Wednesday morning. The buses begins running one hour before opening, we found them to be very punctual, if you were not going to an EMH park. So if we wanted to go to MK and its regular hours were 9:00, the first bus pulled in at 8:00, and about every 10-15 minutes after that. On our first morning there, it was MK EMH, we went to MGM. Our bus pulled in precisely at 8:30am (30min before opening), and a man from the MK bus waiting area walked in front of us and asked the bus driver where the MK bus was, he said this was the 3rd bus to MGM and he still hadn't seen one from MK. My thought was it was too late to get there early now, he might as well have jumped on our bus. You have to be flexible.

There are hairdryers in the room.

 

[ozzyla]

Parking is close to the rooms in most buildings. I highly recommend making a building request with your reservations. We were in Bdg 15, I also would recommend 14, or 17. We put the request in with our reservations.

Character meals -- at Liberty Tree Tavern we saw Minnie, Goofy, Chip & Dale. At Crystal Palace we saw Tigger, Pooh and Piglet. And at Cinderellas, we saw Cinderella, the Fairy Godmother, and the two mice.

As far as the Million Dreams go, on our first day we got to AK at about 1:30 pm, we were greated with a Million Dreams representative which gave us front row seats for the Lion King Show of our choice.

We twice missed getting the fast passes for the day on two rides (peter Pan and Mickey's Philharmagic). They were handing them out as you exited the ride, but we got left out each time.