Technically, water view means just swimming pool views now - no more fountain or pond views as those fall under the new 'Garden' category.
Again, technically no. There are only 8 rooms within the four preferred buildings that are actually designated as facing the swimming pool anyway (all in building 18 in fact) and all of those rooms are categorised as Water View on the lists. That said, there's always room for pixie dust upgrades if the resort is not full...
We had booked River View for our last trip, a category which does include all of the river-facing rooms in buildings 14 and 27. I had requested Alligator Bayou, and we were lucky enough to be given room 1416 which is a corner room that overlooks the river from both windows - very, very nice indeed. Many thanks to the excellent room allocation team!
Andre