Port Orleans Riverside Tips?

[Dopey_1204]

We will be staying at the POR for 8 days next week. The only negatives I have read about the resort are that the bus wait times can be awful and that there is a lot of walking. We have stayed at PORFQ and ASM with no real bus issues in the past. My children are 11,5,and 4 so I attempting to plan for meltdowns in the hot afternoons. Any tips on buses or anything else to do with POR?

 

[nkereina]

The only negatives I have read about the resort are that the bus wait times can be awful and that there is a lot of walking.

Buses are subjective so take those reviews with a grain of salt. We don't consider the buses at POR any better or worse than any other resort.

POR is large, but the layout is elongated with several bridges connecting across the river. It makes it easier to navigate, compared to CSR or CBR where there's a big lake in the middle of the resort. We didn't have any problems with walking at POR. The boat to DTD is also fabulous.

We love the food court at POR but did find it crowded before park opening, so try to get there either early or late if you can.

 

[Dopey_1204]

Thank you. I think the way we plan to utilize the buses will keep us from having issues that other people may experience. We do not plan to visit the main building area other than maybe one time so as long as we are close to a bus stop I don't foresee any real issues with walking. We visited POR when we stayed at POFQ and it was beautiful. I personally enjoy the setting and layout but there are a lot of people who rant. I am going into the resort knowing that it will be large and spaced out so I don't anticipate it being a problem.

 

[GrandCalifornian]

I agree that it isn't that huge, and you can easily walk around the entire resort if you want, or you can take short cuts across Old Man Island and get anywhere fairly quickly. You can even walk down to POFQ to get some Beignets.

We had no problem with the buses, and as long as you realize it is up to luck whether you have a short wait or a longer one, and even if the first bus fills up before you get on it there will be another one before long. In general the buses going to a given park start with the same stop, so in a round trip to and from a single park you will likely visit each of the four bus stops. This is confusing for some because the buses for some parks start with the bus stop by the lobby, while other parks buses do this stop last. Either way, the route is consistent and clockwise, so you will get to your stop without having to repeat other stops in a round trip.

I would take the time to visit the Mill food court, especially if you can catch it at an off peak time, perhaps by getting off a bus that stops there first when returning from a park. ALso the boat to Downtown Disney is great, although like any other Disney transportation it can have a bit of a wait at peak times.

Most of all enjoy your trip and our favorite Moderate.

 

[loves to dive]

I didn't think the resort was large at all, I walked around the whole perimeter in about 10 min and that wasn't really fast walking. As far as the buses, I think if you get the feel of the stops on your first day you can figure out the best way to navigate them. I was in Magnolia Building, which has a bus stop right behind it. This was perfect for coming back from the parks, I think it was either the second or third stop and literally a few feet from my building. In the mornings I would walk over to the main stop as it was first so the odds of the bus being crowded were nil. Of course, then I had to ride through all the stops but at least I got a seat.

 

[Lucius Best]

We will be staying at the POR for 8 days next week. The only negatives I have read about the resort are that the bus wait times can be awful and that there is a lot of walking. We have stayed at PORFQ and ASM with no real bus issues in the past. My children are 11,5,and 4 so I attempting to plan for meltdowns in the hot afternoons. Any tips on buses or anything else to do with POR?

POR is our preferred moderate resort, we've stayed there numerous times. If you are out in the boonies of Alligator Bayou, it might be a long walk to the main lobby. On recent trips we have ended up in the mansions, and it wasn't that bad of a walk at all cutting over Old Man Island to the main lobby. We consider POR to have the best food court with in terms of variety, quality, and speed of service.

Buses were fine, but we usually go during low crowd times. Longest waits for buses was midday. Like previous poster said, the buses hit the resort bus stops in the same clockwise order. When we visited during busy times, we would sometimes walk to an earlier bus stop, to minimize the possibility of the bus being full by the time it got to our bus stop. Similarly, at night coming back from a park at closing time on a bus jam-packed, we would often get off at first stop and walk through main lobby to get to our room, it was more pleasant than taking the bus all the way around, especially if there was a scooter/wheelchair that needed to be unloaded.