Port Orleans Riverside Q&A Thread 2014 (Please read first post for FAQs!)

[buckeev]

We were there a few months ago, and had no major WiFi issues while at POR. We weren't as lucky in some of the parks though. My guess there is that 30-40k of my close friends were trying to adjust/check/cancel/modify...etc...their FPs, ADRs.....

 

[alhurricane]

Since the topic of internet connectivity has come up, I am curious about the coverage of AT&T 4G LTE at the resort? I hear it is pretty good in the parks now, but haven't heard much about how it works at POR.

 

[Venomhatch]

Since the topic of internet connectivity has come up, I am curious about the coverage of AT&T 4G LTE at the resort? I hear it is pretty good in the parks now, but haven't heard much about how it works at POR.

That is great there along with Verizon 4gLTE, but tmobile and sprint that is a different story.

 

[uktivo]

Since the topic of internet connectivity has come up, I am curious about the coverage of AT&T 4G LTE at the resort? I hear it is pretty good in the parks now, but haven't heard much about how it works at POR.

I'm here right now an t mobile is useless, sometimes I can get 4g but it just drops even without moving.
The room wifi is also bad. I'd recommend AT&T, from my phone this is a constant and one I'd wished I'd picked up at the mall.

 

[Eeyore's My Favorite]

I'm here right now an t mobile is useless, sometimes I can get 4g but it just drops even without moving.
The room wifi is also bad. I'd recommend AT&T, from my phone this is a constant and one I'd wished I'd picked up at the mall.

I was there Sunday & Monday & had issues with my iPhone (ATT) & the wifi, especially in the Mansions. Everytime I'd get logged on it would drop out. Only place it worked decently was at DTD. I know that's unusual because last year I had no issues at all the 4 times we stayed at POR (in AB) using the wifi for my iPhone. We didn't go to any of the parks this time, so not sure about there.

 

[Venomhatch]

I was there Sunday & Monday & had issues with my iPhone (ATT) & the wifi, especially in the Mansions. Everytime I'd get logged on it would drop out. Only place it worked decently was at DTD. I know that's unusual because last year I had no issues at all the 4 times we stayed at POR (in AB) using the wifi for my iPhone. We didn't go to any of the parks this time, so not sure about there.

Iam sorry to sound like I am pitching VZ, I used to work for them, and I honestly believe they are the leaders in Cellular field! This is an expensive path but you can always get a prepaid Verizon hotspot from walmart. Its not to bad in price but it can handle 8 devices no poblem!

 

[hammie59]

Iam sorry to sound like I am pitching VZ, I used to work for them, and I honestly believe they are the leaders in Cellular field! This is an expensive path but you can always get a prepaid Verizon hotspot from walmart. Its not to bad in price but it can handle 8 devices no poblem!

I know exactly what you're saying. We had SPnt service for years and always had trouble connecting to wifi since their coverage at the the time was extremely poor compared to others, so we switched to VZ. The only issues we had on our last visit was with the DME app itself. Wifi onnections at POR were fine.

 

[andrewilley]

Wi-Fi has two issues, one is connection to the access points (which generally isn't too bad, but can be dependent on location within the resort/parks) and the other is bandwidth capacity into the access point itself (which can vary dependent, and can be affected by the total number of users and local activity levels).

I was able to ustream a live view from our river-view room last year with very few losses of connection (the stream would stay running for days on end) but that is not a guarantee of how well it would perform for someone else, even a few rooms away and picking up from a different access point.

Andre

 

[Alicatt]

Hello,

I just want to confirm that I can use my room charge or Disney gift cards at the resort bars. Is there any where we can't use them?

Thanks!

 

[andrewilley]

I just want to confirm that I can use my room charge or Disney gift cards at the resort bars. Is there any where we can't use them?

Yup, Magic Bands can be used almost anywhere on Disney property to charge back to your room. Gift cards can be loaded onto your room account, or used separately.

Andre

 

[abmitch01]

I think I might try to go laptop-less. Does anyone know approximately how many photos an iPhone 5s would hold? we don't take tons of pics because we've been so many times but I don't want to run out of space either. TIA

 

[Paula Sedley-Burke]

I think I might try to go laptop-less. Does anyone know approximately how many photos an iPhone 5s would hold? we don't take tons of pics because we've been so many times but I don't want to run out of space either. TIA

I don't know how many but mine has loads on it and I have never run out of space. The only thing I do find is running out of battery. So I bought one of those powergen backup battery devices works a treat! I also upload photos to photobucket. You could then make room that way if needed?

 

[GrandCalifornian]

I think I might try to go laptop-less. Does anyone know approximately how many photos an iPhone 5s would hold? we don't take tons of pics because we've been so many times but I don't want to run out of space either. TIA

Obviously it will depend on your phone's capacity and how much other stuff you have on it, but in my experience about 1900 pictures takes up 7.2 GB of space.

We have gone laptop-less the last two trips but took enough SD cards to store our camera's pics on there. We did wind up having Amazon ship another card to the resort, which beat buying one at Disney.

 

[Venomhatch]

I think I might try to go laptop-less. Does anyone know approximately how many photos an iPhone 5s would hold? we don't take tons of pics because we've been so many times but I don't want to run out of space either. TIA

There is no telling. It comes down to how many apps, how much room the apps take, how much room the iPhone originally came with, if you shoot with the full quality, if you take videos, music already on there. Really no way of telling.

Good luck without the laptop. I bring it more as a redundancy, to have back ups of our photos in case something happens to our phones.

 

[abmitch01]

I don't have a lot of apps on my phone, I'll clear out the photos before I go and I have no music on it. So sounds like we'll be ok.

one thing about the iPhone is I'm not too adept at quickly web browsing things like Disboards.

 

[GrandCalifornian]

I don't have a lot of apps on my phone, I'll clear out the photos before I go and I have no music on it. So sounds like we'll be ok.

one thing about the iPhone is I'm not too adept at quickly web browsing things like Disboards.

Yeah, if you don't have a lot on there, and don't take a bunch of pictures, you could be totally fine with even a 16 GB phone.

To check, go to Settings / General / Usage and see how much space you have available. Then you should hava an idea of the number of pictures that will fit.

For the DIS, I really like the DIS boards App. It is free and has its issues, but I find it very useful in making it easy to get to my favorite threads.

 

[ericstac]

I think I might try to go laptop-less. Does anyone know approximately how many photos an iPhone 5s would hold? we don't take tons of pics because we've been so many times but I don't want to run out of space either. TIA

goto Settings>General>Usage

and it will show what Storage Space you have available on the top left corner.

Since you don't take a ton of pics if you have a 1gb available then you will most likely be set.

Biggest issue like the PP said is the battery.. I take pics and VLOG on youtube using an iphone5 so I bought a hefty recharger that would recharge multiple phones, all day.. worked like a champ.

 

[Venomhatch]

Biggest issue like the PP said is the battery.. I take pics and VLOG on youtube using an iphone5 so I bought a hefty recharger that would recharge multiple phones, all day.. worked like a champ.

I use ones from http://www.newtrent.com/store/external-battery.html

The rugged ones hold up to rain, water, shock from dropping them, everything!

 

[andrewilley]

The rugged ones hold up to rain, water, shock from dropping them, everything!

I just carry a spare fully charged battery for my phone in my wallet which I can swap over to in a few seconds. And a decent sized Micro-SD card handles any amount of photos I might want to take...

... but then I also didn't buy an iPhone.

Andre

 

[abmitch01]

thanks!