Port Orleans Riverside Q&A Thread 2013, Part Two [Thread now FULL and closed]

[IamBelle]

The concierge desk at the resort should be able to help them.

Andre

Great! Thank you!

 

[emsstacey]

Another who was able to pick fp+ last night and magic bands today, including color choices! I'm more excited than my kids!

BTW, I selected top floor, corner room. Anyone think this is good or bad? We stayed at Cocoa Beach this summer and the people above us were super loud. I thought corner, top might reduce the noise on this trip. Thoughts?

 

[LauraJean]

I did fp+ choices last night and today I can pick colors for our mb. Check in Oct.18th. We don't get the bands sent here but I don't mind that-one less thing to forget hah

 

[TDDisney]

I have a room only ressie and tickets bought from our ITT/MWR on base. We were able to link the tickets. You should be able to do the same for the ones you got from UT. Just jump on MDE and follow the instructions for linking tickets.

Does anyone know about linking travelocity tix? I've been trying for weeks, but can't get them to link. I am staying at POR, so chances are we would have been able to do magic bands. I'm really bummed....no fd bc our week was blacked out, no ro discount bc we are at por (tix increase negated the discount), and now no FASTPASS+ or magicbands bc I bought travelocity tix. Bummer! I keep trying to remind myself that at least I'm going to Disneyworld!

EDIT: Finally! After hanging up the phone with Disney tech support and AGAIN being told by a CM that I couldn't do magic bands or fastpass bc I couldn't get our travelocity tix to link, I figured I'd just mess around with it again. I went in and did the modify on-line check in thing and voila!...it showed up...YIPPEE!!...WOOHOO!!! I was able to customize colors for all of us...and, yes, my DD also wanted purple. However, I'm so thrilled to finally have them I'd been happy with gray! ....Now if I could only get FASTPASS to work.... It keeps showing the same thing I read about others seeing...."We're sorry. The selected date must be within at least one party member's FastPass+ selection window." Anyone know how to get it to work???

 

[momofEAP]

JUST OVER 9 DAYS TILL WE LEAVE!!!

 

[freckles04]

JUST OVER 9 DAYS TILL WE LEAVE!!!

Oooh, I can't wait for my ticker to be that low! Have an AMAZING time!!!

 

[kandb]

We are arriving at POR a week from tomorrow. My family of five and my mom, my niece and cousin from Florida will be joining us in a second room. I hope all the togetherness works out.. We have free dining and have some great meals planned (Yachtsman, Ohana's, Akershus, Tutto Italia, Liberty Tree Tavern, Garden Grill and Boatwrights). We are super excited. We are also taking the Magical Express which we haven't the last few years, the kids are so excited about that as well. Here we come Disney. Please don't let the vacation go too fast.

 

[webstah]

This time next week we'll be ending our first day at POR for this year. The tickers seem to be acting funny though. Mine says 9 days here, 7 days on another post and 14 on a different one. Oh well, 6 days and a wake up.

 

[CareHeartsDisney]

Another who was able to pick fp+ last night and magic bands today, including color choices! I'm more excited than my kids!

BTW, I selected top floor, corner room. Anyone think this is good or bad? We stayed at Cocoa Beach this summer and the people above us were super loud. I thought corner, top might reduce the noise on this trip. Thoughts?

We had a corner room on the top floor of Magnolia Terrace in February and loved it. It was very quiet. We never heard any of our neighbors. The only noise we heard was one morning when some kids were obviously very excited to be going to the parks. That was from the lawn area near the building. Their excitement was quite understandable. We were up already and were getting ready to head to the parks as well.

 

[tpoo]

Hi All,

, I just booked a mommy and me 5th birthday extravaganza weekend in a RGR. I am so excited, and unsure of how to keep this secret until January. So... Tips, tricks, thoughts on special touches? This is our first time saying at POR so I am all ears

 

[sktjcox]

I just wanted to thank Andre and Venom for the thread and advice (and Andre's great website). We checked in on Wed and received all our room requests (booked river view so i asked for bldg 27 on top floor). The resort is beautiful and I've certainly been well prepared to get the most out of it.

 

[Jen414]

Just back from, two weeks at POR. We were in room 1743 which we thought was a great location. Although we couldn't see the quiet pool from our room, it was less than a 1-minute walk to it. This pool was over 6 feet deep at one end, so that was nice. We did not have a fridge, but I was given a $15/night credit. I did have to ask for it and when I checked in for my two continuing reservations (I had three continuing reservations---why can't Disney fix this??????) I had to ask for it each time. We had a car for the first week, so we just went to Wal-Mart and bought a $30 color and kept filling it with ice. Honestly, it kept our drinks color than any fridge at Disney ever has.

We took advantage of the Magical Express pick-up from Downtown Disney. We checked our bags through to the airport, took our backpacks, went and ate lunch at Wolfgang Pucks, had a drink at Raglan Road, went to D Street one more time for the girls and then the bus picked us up right near Raglan Road. If we weren't able to check our bags all the way through to the airport, we could have checked them in to the luggage room and they would have been brought to DD and they would have been there for us. We were able to talk with the CMs who were at the bus stop. This new pickup spot is a test to see what guests think of this and it is only available to POR guests for now. We thought it was nice and would do it again. They said they had gotten only positive feedback so far. DD would like to expand it to all resorts. However, according to the one of the CMs who I believe was a ME manager, they do not have the facilities to store that much luggage there right now---not even close. Interesting facts he told us--on a slow day, 5,500 people leave Disney on ME. Yesterday, 11,000 did. He said DD really just has no idea that they will greatly have to expand their luggage storage. There are a lot of changes coming to DD in the next few years---more stores, parking garages, more restaurants, etc.

Buses were fine--I don't think we ever waited more than 10 minutes.

If anyone has any questions, ask away.

 

[sktjcox]

Park purchases are normally available to collect from the resort gift shop by 1pm the next day.

You've not had a lot of past experience of the Disney marketing machine I assume...? I would be most surprised if they didn't provide you with a great new opportunity to part with your cash.

Andre

Isn't that the truth! We are here now and my husband actually said these words today, "I feel happy here when I'm buying something, let's buy something every day" LOL! in his defense, he is an illustrator and Walt is something of his here. We spent 4 hours in HS in the animation section today.

 

[freckles04]

I just wanted to thank Andre and Venom for the thread and advice (and Andre's great website). We checked in on Wed and received all our room requests (booked river view so i asked for bldg 27 on top floor). The resort is beautiful and I've certainly been well prepared to get the most out of it.

How was the walk to the main building from building 27?

Just wondering, since we booked Preferred and it appears to be the furthest preferred building.

 

[jsw1114]

How was the walk to the main building from building 27?

Just wondering, since we booked Preferred and it appears to be the furthest preferred building.

Maybe 2 min not really far we stayed there last year

 

[Pixiedustspreader]

Does anyone know about linking travelocity tix? I've been trying for weeks, but can't get them to link.....Now if I could only get FASTPASS to work.... It keeps showing the same thing I read about others seeing...."We're sorry. The selected date must be within at least one party member's FastPass+ selection window." Anyone know how to get it to work???

The key here I think is to make sure the tix are actually linked first... I don't think magic bands and tix have to necessarily go hand in hand with each other... i.e. you could have a room only ressie and still have the magic bands assigned to you...that said I must admit I know nothing about Travelocity -do you get separate tickets? That is how my UT tickets came as well as the ones I got from the base. I punched in the number on the "link tickets page" and they showed up as linked. If you see them next to each member of your party's name then you're linked...if that is the case you should have the option to make FP ressies...or at least soon. Point being after this long winded comment... If tix are in fact linked... Your FP window will show up.

 

[lmhall2000]

We took advantage of the Magical Express pick-up from Downtown Disney. We checked our bags through to the airport, took our backpacks, went and ate lunch at Wolfgang Pucks, had a drink at Raglan Road, went to D Street one more time for the girls and then the bus picked us up right near Raglan Road. If we weren't able to check our bags all the way through to the airport, we could have checked them in to the luggage room and they would have been brought to DD and they would have been there for us. We were able to talk with the CMs who were at the bus stop. This new pickup spot is a test to see what guests think of this and it is only available to POR guests for now. We thought it was nice and would do it again. They said they had gotten only positive feedback so far. DD would like to expand it to all resorts. However, according to the one of the CMs who I believe was a ME manager, they do not have the facilities to store that much luggage there right now---not even close. Interesting facts he told us--I on a slow day, 5,500 people leave Disney on ME. Yesterday, 11,000 did. He said DD really just has no idea that they will greatly have to expand their luggage storage. There are a lot of changes coming to DD in the next few years---more stores, parking garages, more restaurants, etc.

Buses were fine--I don't think we ever waited more than 10 minutes.

If anyone has any questions, ask away.

I hope I am not alone! I check here everyday just to read posts like yours, those who are there now or just returned, gets us so excited!! Could you explain the ME from DTD a bit more? We will be flying out of there on the 17th and would love to stop at DTD before we go..do we leave our luggage with the resort? Then we ride the boat over to DTD and catch the DME from DTD to airport? Do we need to schedule our ride to the airport or does it just come every so often? Kinda confused on this new option Thanks so much for the tip on the pool, I love having depth when I swim...might try to look at the buildings around that pool, is it the pool closest to building 17? Thanks!!

 

[sktjcox]

How was the walk to the main building from building 27?

Just wondering, since we booked Preferred and it appears to be the furthest preferred building.

It's actually very close. I picked it as there is a bridge to the pool that is quick and a path to the lobby. It's about 3 min either way, depending on speed. I asked for it as my son loves the pools, bridges, fishing creatures of any kind and thought a Slight longer walk would give him. More of that. It does but is still really quick. I love it.

 

[Amanda999]

FYI to those with kids who love the nightly campfire (marshmallow roast) at our PO resorts as much as my kids do: POR's campfire as of yesterday is "down" for refurbishment. Seriously. No date given for when it will be operating again, but I check out 9/3 and they said it wouldn't be back before I left. (In case you've seen my other posts, I'm at POFQ now, moving to POR tomorrow (because I couldn't get free dining pin at POFQ - but I do love POR too).)

They are golf carting people to POFQ's campfire. And, POFQ has moved their campfire from the river view lawn area to a newly built firepit at the lawn area where they set up the movie. No benches surrounding the area like at the old area or like at POR (the is a low curb you could sit on, but most parents just stood). And, they are requiring parent presence if child is under 12 (understandable). Very nice location - beautiful lawn/ courtyard for the kids to run off some sugar energy).

 

[chrisc88]

We were also able to do FP+ on Thursday night and customize MB last night. We check in on Oct 18 and booked through TA but linked our reservation in MDE.

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