Amy&Dan
DIS Legend
- Joined
- Feb 19, 2004
- Messages
- 15,958
We just returned from a wonderful ten night stay at POR. I can't say enough how much my family enjoyed the resort.
We had stayed there in 2005 for a five night stay and loved it. But we have always enjoyed trying new things so we ended up trying out the other moderates as well as three of the DVC resorts (SSR, OKW and BWV) and the Poly. We have since sold our DVC contract, which I thought would be hard, however, our recent stay at POR put our minds at ease that in all reality, the moderates work great for our family and we stand by our decision to sell off our contract.
We checked in late on the 26th, I hadn't made a room request because in all my stays at WDW, I have gotten exactly one request met, so I thought, why bother! When the cm told us we were in Bldg. 14, I was very happy, that is an ideal location to the main pool as well as the South Depot which is the first bus stop within POR. Our room was on the second floor, #1456. I had read the usual disboard reviews of the resort and while I wasn't worried, I did hope the place hadn't gotten ratty or dirty in the past five years since we had stayed there. I am happy to say, our room was very clean, kept spotless by the mousekeepers and we had not one complaint. It was in really good shape, no scuffed walls, the bathroom was very nice and also in good shape. It didn't feel worn at all.
We ate in the food court every day, usualy once, but a few times twice. It was Easter Week and the parks and resort were crowded, but even on a few extremely busy mornings, we found a place to sit without a problem. And the lines for food generally moved fast. The exception was the omlette station in the morning, and the pasta/salad station in the afternoon and evenings. Those generally took more time since the food is all made to order. But we still never found the waits too long or bothersome. We were on the QSDP, so we enjoyed pigging out and not worrying about the cost. But I have to say, given the portions all over WDW, the food court in particular, I am just not sure I'l do that plan again. We wasted a ton of food and overate! But it was fun. The build your own pasta bowls, salads and desserts were all so good. That pasta bowl can feed two people easily. I think I ate at least 10 pieces of cheesecake from there and my kids loved the sundaes and milkshakes. All the cm's at the food court were so nice, one lady in particular would make my daughter the most fabulous sundaes with so many toppings my dd was in heaven. The moderate food courts, this one in particular are honestly what makes me think that even if we wanted to spend the money, the deluxes would not quite fit our needs. We really enjoy all the choices a food court offers and since we had originally stayed in values and moderates before buying DVC, we always missed those food courts.
Busses were fine, no problems. In nine days, we had maybe three waits coming close to 20 minutes. All the other times were much less. Again, based on some reviews on here (which I don't discount but rather just didn't have that same experience) I was worried about busses however we used them each day (no rental car for us) and never had a worry. Several times they had more than one bus loading at park closing. We did almost always share with POFQ, however during busy times, the only stop at POR that was picked up after FQ was the South Depot one.
The grounds were lovely, we really enjoyed walking around. We also enjoyed the boat over to DTD a few times. Its much more time consuming than taking the bus, but its very pretty. So if you aren't in a hurry, its a nice and relaxing way to get to and from DTD. We rented a surrey bike which was a lot of fun. We used the main pool quite a few times and the quiet pool near Bldg. 18 a few times too. The water felt cool to me but the kids said it was fine. The hot tub was always hot, just the way I like it!
One final thing, my daughter is about 5'2" and the trundle was not that comfortable to her. We brought our twin sized airbed thinking that might be the case (if we even got an AB room) and I am glad we did. She slept on it one night and that was enough! She could have toughed it out I suppose but since we had the airbed, it was easy to set up, we just kept it propped up during the day.
I hope that any of you reading this who may be heading to POR soon will enjoye yourselves as much as we did!
We had stayed there in 2005 for a five night stay and loved it. But we have always enjoyed trying new things so we ended up trying out the other moderates as well as three of the DVC resorts (SSR, OKW and BWV) and the Poly. We have since sold our DVC contract, which I thought would be hard, however, our recent stay at POR put our minds at ease that in all reality, the moderates work great for our family and we stand by our decision to sell off our contract.
We checked in late on the 26th, I hadn't made a room request because in all my stays at WDW, I have gotten exactly one request met, so I thought, why bother! When the cm told us we were in Bldg. 14, I was very happy, that is an ideal location to the main pool as well as the South Depot which is the first bus stop within POR. Our room was on the second floor, #1456. I had read the usual disboard reviews of the resort and while I wasn't worried, I did hope the place hadn't gotten ratty or dirty in the past five years since we had stayed there. I am happy to say, our room was very clean, kept spotless by the mousekeepers and we had not one complaint. It was in really good shape, no scuffed walls, the bathroom was very nice and also in good shape. It didn't feel worn at all.
We ate in the food court every day, usualy once, but a few times twice. It was Easter Week and the parks and resort were crowded, but even on a few extremely busy mornings, we found a place to sit without a problem. And the lines for food generally moved fast. The exception was the omlette station in the morning, and the pasta/salad station in the afternoon and evenings. Those generally took more time since the food is all made to order. But we still never found the waits too long or bothersome. We were on the QSDP, so we enjoyed pigging out and not worrying about the cost. But I have to say, given the portions all over WDW, the food court in particular, I am just not sure I'l do that plan again. We wasted a ton of food and overate! But it was fun. The build your own pasta bowls, salads and desserts were all so good. That pasta bowl can feed two people easily. I think I ate at least 10 pieces of cheesecake from there and my kids loved the sundaes and milkshakes. All the cm's at the food court were so nice, one lady in particular would make my daughter the most fabulous sundaes with so many toppings my dd was in heaven. The moderate food courts, this one in particular are honestly what makes me think that even if we wanted to spend the money, the deluxes would not quite fit our needs. We really enjoy all the choices a food court offers and since we had originally stayed in values and moderates before buying DVC, we always missed those food courts.
Busses were fine, no problems. In nine days, we had maybe three waits coming close to 20 minutes. All the other times were much less. Again, based on some reviews on here (which I don't discount but rather just didn't have that same experience) I was worried about busses however we used them each day (no rental car for us) and never had a worry. Several times they had more than one bus loading at park closing. We did almost always share with POFQ, however during busy times, the only stop at POR that was picked up after FQ was the South Depot one.
The grounds were lovely, we really enjoyed walking around. We also enjoyed the boat over to DTD a few times. Its much more time consuming than taking the bus, but its very pretty. So if you aren't in a hurry, its a nice and relaxing way to get to and from DTD. We rented a surrey bike which was a lot of fun. We used the main pool quite a few times and the quiet pool near Bldg. 18 a few times too. The water felt cool to me but the kids said it was fine. The hot tub was always hot, just the way I like it!
One final thing, my daughter is about 5'2" and the trundle was not that comfortable to her. We brought our twin sized airbed thinking that might be the case (if we even got an AB room) and I am glad we did. She slept on it one night and that was enough! She could have toughed it out I suppose but since we had the airbed, it was easy to set up, we just kept it propped up during the day.
I hope that any of you reading this who may be heading to POR soon will enjoye yourselves as much as we did!
