Resort Thread Disney's PORT ORLEANS RIVERSIDE Resort

[FelisLachesis]

Thought we were going to stay at POFQ but just snagged a better rate for POR so we switched! First time at POR, DH & I for our 15th anniversary plus going to enjoy the DIS Anniversary events at the same time! We stayed at BCV & CR with the kids over February break, but POR has always been on my radar for a place I wanted to try. For the price difference between POR & Boardwallk, DH said we can certainly handle the buses, especially because it's just us! SO excited!

Room requests (using Touring Plans) suggestions? We have a garden room reservation, don't need a murphy bed, planning to go to Disney Springs one day and all Disney transportation.

Nice time to go, and just you and your DH, you're going to have a great time!

As for your room request, let me ask this: what would you like from your room? Would you like something on the ground floor, which is easier to get in and out, but you might hear pitter-patter from the room above you? Would you like an upper floor, where you don't hear footsteps, but you might have to take some stairs, especially in the AB section?

You say you don't need a murphy bed, and that's fine! Would you like a room in a mansion building?

Would you like to be near the food court and amenities, but there might be a bit more noise, or would you like to be farther away, where it's a bit quieter, but it is a longer walk to get to the food court? (the vast majority of the resort is still very quiet, no matter which room you receive). In a similar vein: Would you like to be near Ol Man Island, or not?

One overlooked request: would you like to be nearer or farther from the smoking areas of the resort? Some people don't care, some people hate the smell of smoke, some people are smokers. You don't smell it in your room (unless someone in the connecting room is actually smoking IN the room, upon which you should call the front desk, immediatelyl!), but once you get outside, you may get a face full of ashtray smell.

 

[Kamy04]

Remember you may not get your requests...we didn't. Our travel agent requested and I did Touring Plans fax request. We did NOT do online checkin.

 

[cmarsh31]

Nice time to go, and just you and your DH, you're going to have a great time!

As for your room request, let me ask this: what would you like from your room? Would you like something on the ground floor, which is easier to get in and out, but you might hear pitter-patter from the room above you? Would you like an upper floor, where you don't hear footsteps, but you might have to take some stairs, especially in the AB section?

You say you don't need a murphy bed, and that's fine! Would you like a room in a mansion building?

Would you like to be near the food court and amenities, but there might be a bit more noise, or would you like to be farther away, where it's a bit quieter, but it is a longer walk to get to the food court? (the vast majority of the resort is still very quiet, no matter which room you receive). In a similar vein: Would you like to be near Ol Man Island, or not?

One overlooked request: would you like to be nearer or farther from the smoking areas of the resort? Some people don't care, some people hate the smell of smoke, some people are smokers. You don't smell it in your room (unless someone in the connecting room is actually smoking IN the room, upon which you should call the front desk, immediatelyl!), but once you get outside, you may get a face full of ashtray smell.

Always upper floor - we don't care about stairs, near amenities or quiet pools are ok. I'm thinking Mansion building? Wish we could have reserved a King bed room, but they weren't available. Bus routes are arbitrary or do they always go in the same order? We've done internal busing at Fort Wilderness, so I'm not afraid of multiple bus stops, but also not adverse to walking across the resort to get off first, etc. We'd like to walk over to POFQ for beignets, if they still have GF ones for my DH. Plus we love the boats, so definitely boating to Disney Springs.

Definitely far from smoking is always good!

Thanks!!!!

Remember you may not get your requests...we didn't. Our travel agent requested and I did Touring Plans fax request. We did NOT do online checkin.

Oh yes, I know that one Our BCV request was fantastic, the only thing we got for our CR request was upper floor (garden wing) - close to transportation was a laugh, if you've ever been in the garden wing... we were 3 rooms away from as FAR FAR FAR away as you could possibly be from transportation, elevators, you name it!

Main thing I'm putting in our room request fax is that it's our anniversary - I just want my buttons! We went for my mom's birthday a few years ago and it was so fun having everyone say happy birthday to her!

 

[DLmama]

One overlooked request: would you like to be nearer or farther from the smoking areas of the resort? Some people don't care, some people hate the smell of smoke, some people are smokers. You don't smell it in your room (unless someone in the connecting room is actually smoking IN the room, upon which you should call the front desk, immediatelyl!), but once you get outside, you may get a face full of ashtray smell.

Where are the smoking areas? I'd really like to avoid them as they aggravate my husband's asthma. I've tried to find them on a map, but haven't been able to.

 

[FelisLachesis]

Where are the smoking areas? I'd really like to avoid them as they aggravate my husband's asthma. I've tried to find them on a map, but haven't been able to.

This is a PDF from Andre's website, but dated from 2011.

http://www.portorleans.org/images/PortOrleansDirectory-Jan2011.pdf

The other thing is to go into the MDE app,

1) scroll the header to "Guest Services",

2) Click the List button on the bottom right (not the filter button),

3) Scroll down to "Designated Smoking Areas" and click on it. It'll give you all the smoking areas in the entire park.

4) Scroll and zoom into Port Orleans, and you'll see the current locations.

 

[DLmama]

This is a PDF from Andre's website, but dated from 2011.

http://www.portorleans.org/images/PortOrleansDirectory-Jan2011.pdf

The other thing is to go into the MDE app,

1) scroll the header to "Guest Services",

2) Click the List button on the bottom right (not the filter button),

3) Scroll down to "Designated Smoking Areas" and click on it. It'll give you all the smoking areas in the entire park.

4) Scroll and zoom into Port Orleans, and you'll see the current locations.

Thank you so much! This is exactly what I was looking for!

 

[FelisLachesis]

Always upper floor - we don't care about stairs, near amenities or quiet pools are ok. I'm thinking Mansion building? Wish we could have reserved a King bed room, but they weren't available. Bus routes are arbitrary or do they always go in the same order? We've done internal busing at Fort Wilderness, so I'm not afraid of multiple bus stops, but also not adverse to walking across the resort to get off first, etc. We'd like to walk over to POFQ for beignets, if they still have GF ones for my DH. Plus we love the boats, so definitely boating to Disney Springs.

Definitely far from smoking is always good!

Thanks!!!!

Then your request should be an upper floor room, away from smoking areas, and in one of the mansions. Also explain why you'd like these requests.

You can always ask for some pixie dust and see if a king room is available.

The order you put the requests in matter, as if they can't fill all of your requests, the last one gets cut, first, then they recheck.

The bus system at PO is funny. I left the R off because, occasionally, a bus will go both into FQ and Riverside in the same trip.

During slow times, the bus will go FQ - West - North - East - South - out. The FQ stop will be the first to go when it gets busier, giving them their own bus. When it gets really busy, the South depot will get its own bus, and another bus will come in W-N-E and then out

So the only thing consistent is that if the bus goes to the West depot, it'll go north and east, unless enough passengers boarded on the West depot to fill the bus up.

... So the only thing consistent is that it's not...

 

[atkinstogram]

Ooop! I got East and West backwards in my post.

I wrote it as if West was the bus stop near the royal rooms. It is east.

I edited my post to correct it.

I'm still a bit jetlagged, so I sat here for a good five minutes trying to figure out which way round it was! Even drew myself a little map...

 

[andrewilley]

Buses have been doing West-North-East-South this week. We are near West, so that has been very convienent.

Correct, that is the normal routing for all the park buses, the first stopping point is WEST and the last one is SOUTH. The Disney Springs buses stop at South first as they also act as an internal shuttle service around POR and POFQ. See http://www.portorleans.org/buses.php for more info, which is about as accurate as I can make it given the way things constantly keep changing at WDW.

Andre

 

[traciruns]

Good afternoon! Can anyone tell me what to expect from a Pool View room? We originally had a Garden View booked, but I was able to get a FD package after trying for a few days last week with a Pool View. We've stayed in Garden View at POFQ, which was nice. Is it super noisy by the pool? Anything we should consider requesting in terms of rooms? Thanks in advance!

 

[ncc1701]

Good afternoon! Can anyone tell me what to expect from a Pool View room? We originally had a Garden View booked, but I was able to get a FD package after trying for a few days last week with a Pool View. We've stayed in Garden View at POFQ, which was nice. Is it super noisy by the pool? Anything we should consider requesting in terms of rooms? Thanks in advance!

I believe pool view at POR are by the quiet pools . We had pool view at POFQ which is at their only pool and didn't find it noisy.The quiet pools don't have the games and activities the main pools do.

 

[Moxiepup]

Good afternoon! Can anyone tell me what to expect from a Pool View room? We originally had a Garden View booked, but I was able to get a FD package after trying for a few days last week with a Pool View. We've stayed in Garden View at POFQ, which was nice. Is it super noisy by the pool? Anything we should consider requesting in terms of rooms? Thanks in advance!

We stayed in a Pool View room just the week before last. I was a little worried when we came back to the room one night and there were people in the pool being a bit noisy. Nothing out of the ordinary, just the splashing and laughing one would expect. Once our door was closed though, we didn't hear a thing. Granted we were tired, but the rooms seemed pretty well insulated from noise. If you go on touringplans.com, they have a room finder where you can click on any room and see the view and sort rooms by type.

This is the room we had, 3529.

 

[Wood Nymph]

Good afternoon! Can anyone tell me what to expect from a Pool View room? We originally had a Garden View booked, but I was able to get a FD package after trying for a few days last week with a Pool View. We've stayed in Garden View at POFQ, which was nice. Is it super noisy by the pool? Anything we should consider requesting in terms of rooms? Thanks in advance!

We booked a king room and ended up in room 2504, which was right next to the quiet pool. We loved the location. The pool was empty most of the time and we were able to have it all to ourselves several times. We never had problem with people being loud at night.

 

[TillyDe]

Well, we are at Port Orleans now. Check-in was not pretty. I did the online. Never got an text. There was only one check-in line. Then when it was my turn, it got bad. First, I was told our room was not ready. Then, after she was on the phone for awhile, she said she had to talk to someone else.
When she returned, she was going to put us in Bld. 80. I had reserved Preferred in Dec. She said that they over booked. And they had credited my credit card. I told her No and I wanted to talk to a manager. I let the manager know that I had booked this in Dec. After one hour, I had my room that I had paid for in Bld. 14.
When did Disney start down grading when the error is theirs?

 

[Three cats]

As a party of 2 are you less likely to be granted your request for the Alligator Bayou section? We've stayed at POR in the past but always requested the Mansion section. Knowing that the AB rooms sleep 5 make me wonder if they're less likely to place a party of 2 there?

 

[Scrapdolly]

It's a small thing but can anyone tell me if the drinks machines serve caffeine free Diet Coke ..it looks like the freestyle machines do but not sure if that is what they have at POR
As I say .. Tiny thing but would love to know

 

[Moxiepup]

As a party of 2 are you less likely to be granted your request for the Alligator Bayou section? We've stayed at POR in the past but always requested the Mansion section. Knowing that the AB rooms sleep 5 make me wonder if they're less likely to place a party of 2 there?

We were a party of two, and got Alligator Bayou. We even had an adjoining room which we didn't need. I don't think you'll have a problem!

 

[siskaren]

As a party of 2 are you less likely to be granted your request for the Alligator Bayou section? We've stayed at POR in the past but always requested the Mansion section. Knowing that the AB rooms sleep 5 make me wonder if they're less likely to place a party of 2 there?

I've only stayed at POR twice, solo both times and got AB both times (once by request). I think there's too many AB rooms for them to hold them exclusively for parties of 5.

 

[dansdad]

When did Disney start down grading when the error is theirs?

In my experience, at least 25 years.

 

[JennLTX]

I've only stayed at POR twice, solo both times and got AB both times (once by request). I think there's too many AB rooms for them to hold them exclusively for parties of 5.

We got a mansion on our first trip, and AB the other two times, and we've only been a party of 2. I was initially skeptical, but subsequently fell in love with AB. You absolutely canNOT beat the landscaping, and I was shocked how quiet it was.

Can't wait to go back next year.