Well, after an eleven night stay at POR, I just wanted to give a few thoughts on what our family of four thought of this hotel. We were so excited to go to DW & super excited to try this hotel. The only other time we had been to DW we had stayed at CSR & though we loved it, we wanted to try something different.
We were supposed to arrive at POR on 09/21 but due to some sort of problem with weather (so Delta Airlines claimed!), our flight was cancelled & re-scheduled for the same time on the following day. Just as a side note, Disney was amazing when we called to inform them...without asking & without insurance, they refunded us the price of that missing day!! WE LOVE YOU DISNEY!!
Now, our first view of POR was positive...it's very cute though we all agreed that the front entrance & check in was not as beautiful in presentation as CSR had been. Though we arrived in the mid-afternoon of a Saturday & it was very busy, we got to the front of the line quickly. Our CM was friendly & handed us our cards & paperwork in a timely fashion. However, it went downhill from there! I noticed that they had not modified the length of stay due to the missing day which meant we had too many dining credits. When I pointed this out to her, she went to talk to someone & left me standing there for 25 minutes! Finally she returned, re-cut the cards with the proper info & said we were now good to go.
We were assigned to building 28 in the AB...we had not requested any section as we didn't really care. Building 28 is a good walk to get too (read: far!) & again, we agreed that the "vegetation" was not really that appealing but rather looked unkept in a lot of sections. We love trees & bushes, flowers, etc but this just did not look like well tended gardens but rather wild vegetation. On the up side, we did not have a parking lot view.
We finally arrive in our room, to a ringing phone...the CM called to announce that she had made a mistake & we needed to come back to the front desk to have the room keys cut AGAIN!! I just saw our "afternoon" at the park diminishing more & more! As a side note to this little escapade....we did go back, wait, have the cards re-done & went to Epcot, only to discover that the same CM had erred yet again...my card was not activated & I could not enter the park!!! (A CM at Epcot took care of getting me in & we went back to "check in" once again at close to eleven that night!!) I was pretty mad at POR by this time! It took them four trys to get it right....it was a pretty major waste of my time.
Onwards.....the room was fine...nothing fancy. We liked the double sinks. Mousekeeping always kept it clean on the surface but I doubt they did a lot of deep cleaning. My son found a beer bottle cap on our last morning there, under the bed...no one from our family had drank any beer there during our eleven day stay....hmmmmm.
The "quiet" pool was never quiet! We would walk by at eleven or later at night & the kids would be screaming!! I was some glad we did not have a room with "waterview"!!! The main pool was OK but not as good as CSR.
We never did Boatwright's but the CS restaurant was good. We ate lunch there once & dinner there once & it was not bad at all. The gift store was nice but some of the CM's there didn't seem to like their job much...didn't like to be asked any questions...not terribly friendly. The bar was nice & large but we never did find the time to stop for a drink there.
Transportation was OK. We were at the West stop...first on the buses most mornings so lots of seats. However, it seemed to take 15+ minutes to stop at all the other stops & actually leave the resort area. It just seemed to take forever to get anywhere!! The boat was fun though. And one morning I did walk from our room, all the way around, to the FQ & back again. It was a very nice walk, especially in the Mansion section.
Overall, it was OK, but we would choose CSR over POR or POFQ in the future. Having seen it now, if we did stay at POR again, we would request the Mansion section but really, CSR wins hands down!!
Just my opinion of course....any questions??
We were supposed to arrive at POR on 09/21 but due to some sort of problem with weather (so Delta Airlines claimed!), our flight was cancelled & re-scheduled for the same time on the following day. Just as a side note, Disney was amazing when we called to inform them...without asking & without insurance, they refunded us the price of that missing day!! WE LOVE YOU DISNEY!!
Now, our first view of POR was positive...it's very cute though we all agreed that the front entrance & check in was not as beautiful in presentation as CSR had been. Though we arrived in the mid-afternoon of a Saturday & it was very busy, we got to the front of the line quickly. Our CM was friendly & handed us our cards & paperwork in a timely fashion. However, it went downhill from there! I noticed that they had not modified the length of stay due to the missing day which meant we had too many dining credits. When I pointed this out to her, she went to talk to someone & left me standing there for 25 minutes! Finally she returned, re-cut the cards with the proper info & said we were now good to go.
We were assigned to building 28 in the AB...we had not requested any section as we didn't really care. Building 28 is a good walk to get too (read: far!) & again, we agreed that the "vegetation" was not really that appealing but rather looked unkept in a lot of sections. We love trees & bushes, flowers, etc but this just did not look like well tended gardens but rather wild vegetation. On the up side, we did not have a parking lot view.
We finally arrive in our room, to a ringing phone...the CM called to announce that she had made a mistake & we needed to come back to the front desk to have the room keys cut AGAIN!! I just saw our "afternoon" at the park diminishing more & more! As a side note to this little escapade....we did go back, wait, have the cards re-done & went to Epcot, only to discover that the same CM had erred yet again...my card was not activated & I could not enter the park!!! (A CM at Epcot took care of getting me in & we went back to "check in" once again at close to eleven that night!!) I was pretty mad at POR by this time! It took them four trys to get it right....it was a pretty major waste of my time.
Onwards.....the room was fine...nothing fancy. We liked the double sinks. Mousekeeping always kept it clean on the surface but I doubt they did a lot of deep cleaning. My son found a beer bottle cap on our last morning there, under the bed...no one from our family had drank any beer there during our eleven day stay....hmmmmm.
The "quiet" pool was never quiet! We would walk by at eleven or later at night & the kids would be screaming!! I was some glad we did not have a room with "waterview"!!! The main pool was OK but not as good as CSR.
We never did Boatwright's but the CS restaurant was good. We ate lunch there once & dinner there once & it was not bad at all. The gift store was nice but some of the CM's there didn't seem to like their job much...didn't like to be asked any questions...not terribly friendly. The bar was nice & large but we never did find the time to stop for a drink there.
Transportation was OK. We were at the West stop...first on the buses most mornings so lots of seats. However, it seemed to take 15+ minutes to stop at all the other stops & actually leave the resort area. It just seemed to take forever to get anywhere!! The boat was fun though. And one morning I did walk from our room, all the way around, to the FQ & back again. It was a very nice walk, especially in the Mansion section.
Overall, it was OK, but we would choose CSR over POR or POFQ in the future. Having seen it now, if we did stay at POR again, we would request the Mansion section but really, CSR wins hands down!!
Just my opinion of course....any questions??
I am glad there are so many different resort styles, and that we can all find which one suits us best!
