Back from POR - A Review

c&m

Love the Mouse but love my DH more for taking me t
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Apr 24, 2000
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DH, me, and 2 DDs (ages 9 and 6) stayed in POR AB 15 from March 25-April 4. Though our room had a view of the parking lot, we liked it because it gave us easy access to our rental car. There were many late nights when we carried our sleeping DDs from car to our 2nd floor room! We were very close to the main building, food court, bus depot, quiet pool, and laundry. We were about a 5-minute walk to the main themed pool. Our room was newly renovated and still smelled like new paint and carpet.

Check-in was a breeze because we arrived at the hotel at 8am. I had called ahead 2 days before arrival to make my room request. We wanted AB 15, a room close to the parking lot and to the main building. We had our room request met, so we were quite happy. Our room wasn't ready yet, so we left our carry-ons and groceries with luggage services and explored DTD. FYI, luggage services has a big fridge where you can store your perishable groceries, should your room not be ready. By noon, our room was ready so we went to our room and called luggage services to deliver our bags. They came in 15 minutes, which was very good, I thought.

Our mousekeeper gave us a towel animal. She replenished cups, a kleenex box, and extra towels whenever I made a request to her by writing a nice note for her, left with my daily tip. We ran into her a few times -- a very nice lady. The bed linens were clean. Our room was on the 2nd floor and was very quiet. The pillow-top beds were sooooo comfy that I'm starting to hint to my DH that we should get one of them! We had clean, new fridge in our room, where we stored our milk, water, and OJ that we picked up on our way to the hotel.

We did laundry mid-way through our trip. Washers were $2.00 and dryers were $2.00. Though the resort was full to capacity during Easter week, we never had to wait for the machines.

We ate at the food court for breakfast each morning and even for dinner sometimes. The prices were good for Disney, and with my Disney Dining Experience card, it was even more reasonable. But I will talk about the food in my dining review over on the Restaurants board. What I will mention though is that my DH got food poisoning by eating the cottage cheese from the food court. He was violently ill for 24 hours. But the FD manager handled the situation very well, in our opinion. They treated us very well by delivering chicken broth to our room, giving us 1 night free at the POR, and compensating us for the Immodium I bought my poor DH. They were very compassionate and kind during this scary situation. The FD manager even offered us free tickets and anything else we may have wanted, but we turned it down, because we thought they treated us very well already.

Onto the main pool...very nicely themed we thought. Only one thing though, the slide was not as impressive for our DDs, I guess, because they've done longer and twistier slides. They went for one slide and moved onto other things. They actually played with other girls their ages who were in the pool with them.

Overall, our stay at POR was very pleasant. The grounds were beautiful, the winding paths were wonderful to take strolls on in the morning. We took the bus to MGM one day and didn't have problems -- no wait and we got seats. Very nice, polite CMs. The room was so wonderful that none of us wanted to leave. I had been a bit uneasy about the POR since we had previously stayed at the Dolphin in 2000. But this experience has changed me. We'd stay at POR again!
 
Yay!!! I'm so glad you liked POR, it's one of my favorites! I'm just sorry your husband got so sick. That must have been frightening for all of you. I'm glad the managers of the resort handled things so well.


Melissa
 
Glad you liked POR it is a favorite of mine. How did you know what caused your DHs food poisoining - (sorry to hear that happened)? I think it was very gracious of the food court manager to accept responsability.
 
I've read various posts on the DDE card and POR. Do you know if you can use the DDE in the Riverside foodcourt? Some have said no, because they have a sit down restaurant. I"m hoping we can.
 

Hi, Going to POR in mid-may with DH, DD, and DS, 6and 4 respectively. We requested building 14. I think that is next to building 15. Glad to hear it was close to everything. What is the Disney Dining Experience card? :cool1:
 
The DDE card is for florida and annaul pass holders. The cost is $50. It gives you 20% off of sit down restuarants and a few counter service places. :wizard:
 
DMRick The POR food court was not on the list we had so I didn't even try to use it. But the food court at the FQ is on the list and we used it there.
 
ok did i hear right?? por has pillow top beds?? is that new with the renovations?? :confused3
 
msteddom -- thanks for your post! yes, it was very frightening. my DH was throwing up and couldn't even keep down sips of water. i even called the paramedics to come because he was dehydrated and i wasn't sure if he needed to seek medical treatment. the daytime manager didn't handle the situration well at all; he thought i was pulling one over him. but the night-time manager (Bob) came over with the paramedics, and understood the whole situation and made everything better for us.

magicmouse2 -- my DH ate the cottage cheese at the POR food court at ~9am. by 1pm, he started feeling nausea, which eventually led to stomach cramps, which led to the vomiting. he didn't eat any lunch or anything else in between, so it was easily isolated to the cottage cheese.

DMRick -- yes, you can use the DDE at the POR food court. i used it every morning for breakfast, and on those evenings we were there during dinner time, we used it for dinner. it was an incredible amount of $$$ we saved, well worth it!!!

Debs1963 -- i bought my DDE for the AP rate of $50. because i bought the AP at MCO's Disney store, i didn't buy the DDE ahead of time. i bought it when i arrived at POR, by calling the DDE phone #, and they faxed an authorization letter to POR so i could start the 20% savings right away. i carried that authorization letter (and my DH got a photocopy of it as spouses can use it too) all over WDW. AB14 is even closer to the main building and still close to the parking lot, laundry, quiet pool, and has water views. you'll definitely be happy there.

nygrl -- yes, the mattresses were pillowtops. very thick that sometimes the sheets would come off of it. ever so comfortable that we slept soooo well. they looked like they were new mattresses.

hope this helps everyone! if you have more questions, ask away! i got some great info on this board so i'm more than happy to give something back!!!
 
c&m i started a thread to find out about these pillow top mattresses and so far every one is saying they didnt have them.. im sure you are not crazy... but i am still confused :confused3
 
nygrl: they certainly felt like them. and when i lifted up the sheets (because they were coming out from these really thick mattresses), they looked like them. if they weren't pillowtops, then they were really good replicas of them. whether they were or weren't, i don't think you'll be disappointed. they are new mattresses that don't have that used "slope" to them.

one more comment on the bed...they were high up. sometimes had to lift my DD 6 up to bed because it was too painful to watch her climb up sometimes. :flower:
 
i see you finding me everywhere lol... we are going to por for the first time and this really got me excited we stayed at cr last trip which was great but the only bad thing i could say about it was the mattresses so this was nice to hear.. we arent going until oct so hopfully by then all the sections will have new beds :wave:
 
Thanks C&M for your post. Would you happen to have any pics of the room you could post? Just curious to see how they've changed. I just can't wait to go there and see them myself! Urgh.......I have to wait until Feb 2006.

Thanks for the info!
 
We stayed there 5 N in Dec & 3 @ AKL del sav... POR was great, enjoyed everything, less stuffy, liked food court esp. ( AKL's is in basement by pool w/ no view or anything), grounds were great for early (5:30-6:00) morning walks, and we were 1st floor by small pool.. BUSSES were better than AKL and I cant wait to go back ( BUT NO CODES YET?????) Glad to hear you had a great time..............
 
AngieInOH -- Yes, as a matter of fact, we do have 2 pics of the room. Made my DH take the pics before we messed it up with our stuff. I will post it once I figure out how to post pics (never done it before).

klb5 -- Glad to hear you had as great of an experience at POR as we did. My DH, despite his food poisoning experience, had a wonderful stay as well. He told me that he'd definitely stay there again, because it was so well landscaped and the CMs were so nice and polite.
 
I'm so thankful for this thread. We are going to POR in September and we were originally staying at WL and POly but switched to POR w/ dining plan and saved $700. I couldn't believe the value!

So I've asked this before but could you tell me, we are a family of four me,dh, dd9, and dd4 would you recommend AB or the mansions for a family? I had read someone had called the AB section whimsical and that's really interested me because I thought the mansions would be the better of the 2. Thanks so much. :wave2:
 
We REALLY loved the AB section. We actually went to Magnolia Terrace because my parents had to stay there 1 night when they arrived because their room in AB 15 was not available. So we had an opportunity to take a look at the mansions as well. Though the mansions were beautiful on the outside, they didn't quite appeal to DH and me. AB to us was definitely whimsical and quaint. There were winding paths, little bridges, ducks, rabbits, different types of foliage, etc. There wasn't enough shade in Magnolia Bend like AB. My DD9 liked the mansions side the most out of all of us because they looked so "cool" as we passed them on the boat to DTD. But she liked our AB room better. Maybe it was because our room was so fresh from the recent reno.

Here are the two pics, as promised...hope it works!

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We were there in AB 15 from 3/27 to 3/31 and the mousekeeper was great. She made us 2 towel animals, an elephant and a bird. She also lined up the kids stuffed animals on the window sill looking out one day. I liked the resort but I thought the room was a bit small. We did however have 3 kids with us, two of whom are teens. The beds were comfy but I didn't look if they were pillowtops. Our sheets had a tendancy to come off as well. The kids also didn't like the slide, but enjoyed the pool. We rented a surrey bike and the CM's over there were great. My husband got lost coming back from MGM ( he got off at FQ) and a CM there took him and my DS back to the room in a golf cart. We really enjoyed it there but next time will probably get two rooms
 
C&M - Thank you for the picture!!! The room looks very nice. So glad to hear the good reports from POR. This Oct will be our first time staying there. :goodvibes

p.s. sorry to hear about your DH, I am glad that they handled it to your satisfaction.
 
Glad you enjoyed your stay at POR despite your hubbys bout with food poisoning. We'll be there from the 24th of this month until May 4th and I absolutely cannot wait, especially after reading how wonderful it is at this resort ! I have requested Bldg. 27, would you know if this bldg. was renovated yet, or if most bldg.'s are already done? Also, I usually sleep on "down" pillows and was wondering if you knew if they had them available for guests? I usually have such a hard time sleeping in hotels while away from home b/c I'm so use to my ever so comfy foam mattress and I'm so glad to hear that the new beds are very comfy! Thanks :flower:
 

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