Resort Thread Disney's PORT ORLEANS RIVERSIDE Resort

[Wood Nymph]

Are woods view rooms all the AB rooms? Thanks!

There are woods view rooms in the mansion section, too.

 

[SwanVT2]

There are woods view rooms in the mansion section, too.

ok, thank you. My family has given the go-ahead to reschedule our Feb. trip that we had to cancel and was for SSR to April break, but now SSR is too expensive. I am looking at POR standard woods view. I stayed at POR as a kid back when it was Dixie Landings! Will we be as comfortable at POR? Does the hot tub get super crowded? Is there a room request I should put in for standard woods? It would be fun to get an AB room for the trundle, but DD is 5' 3" so might be too tall now. There are only three of us Thanks all!!

 

[andrewilley]

Are woods view rooms all the AB rooms? Thanks!

No, none of them are in fact. "Woods View" usually means a room in the mansion buildings, whereas "Woods View 5th Sleeper" means you will definitely be in the Alligator Bayou section. Sometimes when the resort is full they may need to upgrade some guests from the mansions to the AB section as there are more rooms there. https://www.portorleans.org/room-locations.php

At 5' 3" your daughter should be just about OK on the fifth-sleeper bed (it is a fold-down bed now, replacing the old trundles). My daughter slept in one at a little taller than that.

Yes, the hot tub can get crowded, it's not very big and people seem to let their kids play in and out of it, which is not what it's meant for. The location is amazing though, it's still every bit as magical as when you were there in the Dixie Landings days.

Andre

 

[SwanVT2]

No, none of them are in fact. "Woods View" usually means a room in the mansion buildings, whereas "Woods View 5th Sleeper" means you will definitely be in the Alligator Bayou section. Sometimes when the resort is full they may need to upgrade some guests from the mansions to the AB section as there are more rooms there. https://www.portorleans.org/room-locations.php

At 5' 3" your daughter should be just about OK on the fifth-sleeper bed (it is a fold-down bed now, replacing the old trundles). My daughter slept in one at a little taller than that.

Yes, the hot tub can get crowded, it's not very big and people seem to let their kids play in and out of it, which is not what it's meant for. The location is amazing though, it's still every bit as magical as when you were there in the Dixie Landings days.

Andre

Thank you! This does sound promising. One more question, we like walking, is there a path to DS or do we have to take the boat?

 

[Mle8308]

Thank you! This does sound promising. One more question, we like walking, is there a path to DS or do we have to take the boat?

You cannot walk to DS from POR or POFQ.

 

[connie254]

You cannot walk to DS from POR or POFQ.

And if the boats aren't running, you have to use the busses. The bus area is sort of near the mid point of Disney Springs, while the boat dock is close to Saratoga Springs.

 

[jrsharp21]

I think this is our target resort for Marathon Weekend 2026. We stayed here a few years ago for a marathon weekend and liked how quick and easy of a drive it was to Epcot to get to the races. Also, the food options were better than some of the other resorts we have stayed at for a race weekend. Now just need Disney to open up 2026 reservations.

 

[crazy4wdw]

New merchandise arrives at POR:

https://mickeyblog.com/2025/04/02/new-merchandise-arrives-at-disneys-port-orleans-resort-riverside/

 

[lovingeire]

I've posted this in the French Quarter thread too, but anyone who keeps an eye on the UK booking site, which already has all of 2026's package availability, will be aware that from 1st January 2026 there will only be FIVE bookable categories at Port Orleans Riverside: Standard, 5th-Sleeeper, King Bed, Preferred Location, and Royal Room. See https://www.portorleans.org/roomrates.php for more info on what I've been able to work out by searching the UK Disney website.

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Don't pay too much heed to the small-print wording about the view types by the way, the UK site is prone to go its own way sometimes. There will still be some rooms facing the parking lots for example, and Preferred can sleep 1-5 people. Not sure whether they may take this opportunity to tweak which rooms fall into which Categories - for example, it would make sense for Preferred Location to include some building 85 river-area rooms, as they are just as close to the main building as some of the further rooms in buildings 15 or 27. We shall see in time anyway.

Andre

Hmmm...so does this mean "standard view" Royal rooms are going away? I don't want a view of a parking lot, so I normally book a different category. My whole goal is normally to try to get close to the bridge between the mansions and the lobby.

Can't wait to see what the renovations will look like!

 

[andrewilley]

Hmmm...so does this mean "standard view" Royal rooms are going away? I don't want a view of a parking lot.

All of the various "view" types will be going away (at all Moderates, not just Port Orleans, as far as I know). As per the UK booking site for 2026, from 1st Jan 2026 the available booking categories will become:

Port Orleans Riverside:

• Standard Location (i.e. mansion buildings, non-Royal)
• Preferred Location (presumably still Alligator Bayou 14, 15, 18 and 27, but they might add some other options too)
• 5th-Sleeper (the other 12 Alligator Bayou buildings)
• King Bed (could be anywhere except Royal buildings)
• Royal Room (anywhere in a Royal building)

Port Orleans French Quarter:

• Standard
• King Bed
• Preferred Location (not sure where yet, perhaps building 4 and/or 3?)

So things like pool or view views, or non-parking lot views, will be purely down to guest requests rather than being firmly booked categories.

Andre

 

[Wood Nymph]

All of the various "view" types will be going away (at all Moderates, not just Port Orleans, as far as I know).

I hate that they are making this change. We really like the river view category. They have already taken away the categories at the deluxe resorts. I think it is a big mistake because each resort has some unique characteristics it that can't be pigeonholed into a certain category.

 

[CaroM8]

If you have stayed at both.. how does POR compare to CBR in terms of resort size and how spread out it is? We've stayed at CBR and yes it's big, but we really enjoyed it anyway! We didn't mind the bus loop either.

 

[vamassey1]

I've stayed at both. I don't feel that POR is as spread out as CBR but we really did enjoy the Skyliner at CBR. The boat to DS is nice at POR and the use of POFQ is nice too.

 

[tguz]

How long is the boat ride from POR to Disney Springs? We have never tried it and want to on our Nov trip. Thanks.

 

[andrewilley]

How long is the boat ride from POR to Disney Springs? We have never tried it and want to on our Nov trip. Thanks.

About 20 minutes.

Andre

 

[Wood Nymph]

If you have stayed at both.. how does POR compare to CBR in terms of resort size and how spread out it is? We've stayed at CBR and yes it's big, but we really enjoyed it anyway! We didn't mind the bus loop either.

We've never stayed at CBR but love POR. My sister has tried to talk us into trying CBR because of the Skyliner. But one of the things that keeps me from booking CBR is that there isn't a room category that puts you close to the Skyliner station. CBR preferred view is close to the main building but across the resort from the Skyliner. I would book it if I could get a guaranteed room close to the Skyliner. But we have had great bus service at POR and we love the boat to Disney Springs.

 

[tguz]

About 20 minutes.

Andre

thanks.

 

[FLCA026]

About 20 minutes.

Andre

How long is the boat ride from POR to Disney Springs? We have never tried it and want to on our Nov trip. Thanks.

We were just at Port Orleans and the lines for the boats was long! We had a dinner reservation and we were late because of the long wait but the restaurant was so nice. The lines coming back were real long! And sometimes they stop at French quarter if people need to get off. our boat was so full going to Disney Springs that it couldn't stop at French Quarter.

 

[FLCA026]

We just got back from our stay at Port Orleans. We had a family wedding in Orlando and just went over to Port Orleans to stay for the night. We went there early and we had them hold our luggage and sat by the pool until our rooms were ready.
We stayed in Magnolia Terrace.

 

[andrewilley]

@FLCA026 The ferries generally are direct, they don't stop at the other resort en route. The flag colour tells you which resort it serves (yellow for Riverside, purple for FQ, and dual yellow/purple if it happens to be a combined service). That said, if a guest asks to be dropped off at FQ, they will happily accommodate them as it takes almost no extra time.

Queues can indeed get quite long - especially late afternoon/early evening, when there can often be a couple of boatfuls of people waiting. There will be more than one boat on the route, but if the line is up to the walkway by the Marina Rentals kiosk, I would suggest getting the bus instead if you are in a hurry, as you could have to wait a while.

We wanted to go from Riverside to FQ at around 7pm one evening, and by then there were a lot of people waiting to go to Disney Springs. Rather than taking up four seats on the main ferry, the captain called for another smaller boat and we were given a private high speed ride, we got there in about two minutes! The driver said he often hangs around the resorts to do this at very busy times, but was a lovely bit of extra magic for us.

Andre