Questions on Port Orleans French Quarter

[M&M mom]

Can someone explain to me the deal with Port Orleans? I understand there are the French Quarter and Riverside. Are they considered 2 different resorts or one resort divided into 2 sections? Do they both have their own pool with water slide, restaurant, gift shop, etc or do they share? I love a small resort. Which would be best for my family of 4? If I choose to stay at French Quarter do I need a preferred room or is everything really close to the main pool? I would appreciate any information you can give me. Trying to decide on a place to stay. We stayed at CBR last year but my family thought it was too big.

 

[Lynne M]

POR and POFQ are considered 'sister resorts.' They're two separate resorts, you have to specifically book one or the other, but they share pools and other recreational facilities. They each have their own pools (with slides), food courts, check-in areas and gift shops. POR has a table-service restaurant. They're very close together, so you can easily walk between the resorts, and are allowed to use the pools at both resorts.

If you're looking for a more compact resort, POFQ is the smaller of the two. It's an easy walk from any building to the main building and pool. POR is much larger, but I don't believe it's quite as spread out as CBR.

I don't believe either resort offers 'preferred' buildings.

 

[M&M mom]

In comparison to the ASMovies how much bigger is POFQ? Are they pretty close in size?

 

[MineMail]

We stayed at POR a few years ago, right before it was renovated. The resort was empty, yet they put us in a building very far away from parking, the pool, the reception building, and even the laundry. Every building had at most 2 rooms in use, which made no sense to me - just put everyone in one area.

Going anywhere on the property involved hiking, or biking, or dodging the bicyclists. The buses to/from the parks were ridiculously slow because of all the transfers and other resort stops so the idea of "go back to the hotel midday" went out the window when you thought about adding 2-3 hours and miles of walking onto that short break.

The pool was nice, albeit chilly in January, and the kids loved the water slide. I don't think we ever tried the snack bar/restaurant - it wasn't worth the hike.

I wasn't thrilled with the theming - the little bayous along the walking paths screamed "mosquitos" and "west nile virus." It was very dark outside at night because of all the trees, and frankly, it was creepy to be the only people in a building so far from the main office.

 

[Kae]

In comparison to the ASMovies how much bigger is POFQ? Are they pretty close in size?

Resort Grounds size I am not sure but POFQ felt way smaller. Room size the mods are bigger but not by much. We were in Building #1 which of course on the web forums people say is the worst building, we thought it was great. Loved POFQ. We are staying at CSR this trip but First choice was POFQ.

Kae

 

[M&M mom]

Do they have preferred rooms at POFQ?

 

[Lynne M]

Do they have preferred rooms at POFQ?

I just checked, no, they don't. CBR is the only moderate with a Preferred booking category, because of the size of the resort.

POFQ doesn't need that category. I stayed in building 1, which is probably the farthest out from the main building and pool, and it couldn't have been more than a 5 minute walk. It's a very compact resort.

 

[M&M mom]

Thanks so much for the information. Last year when we stayed at CBR I heard so many complaints about the long walk that I didn't want to do that again. I have ASMu booked but now with the 4/3 deal on moderate resorts I am considering changing because values only get 5/2.

 

[kaffinito]

In comparison to the ASMovies how much bigger is POFQ? Are they pretty close in size?

POFQ is tiny and a lot smaller than AsMo. It's the smallest WDW resort.

The buses to/from the parks were ridiculously slow because of all the transfers and other resort stops so the idea of "go back to the hotel midday" went out the window when you thought about adding 2-3 hours and miles of walking onto that short break.

I wasn't thrilled with the theming - the little bayous along the walking paths screamed "mosquitos" and "west nile virus." It was very dark outside at night because of all the trees, and frankly, it was creepy to be the only people in a building so far from the main office.

Did you stay at POR or a set from Psycho?

Seriously, POR isn't that big nor scary. The paths are all very well it at night with both overhead and landscape lighting. The resort isn't that big to have miles and miles of walking, and only has 4 bus stops. I'm kind of gathering you didn't like it there much?

Oh and for anyone here who is worried about mosquitoes, they spray the properties so that there are no mosquitoes. Maybe they have a few at FW, but I haven't seen any anywhere else.

Do they have preferred rooms at POFQ?

No preferred rooms, they aren't necessary. The resort really is that small. There is a ferry boat that will take you from POFQ to POR for the food court (one of the best on WDW property) and also to DTD for those dining options as well.

POFQ does have its own food court, but it is a little limited, along the line of a food court at deluxe resorts. There is one bus stop at POFQ, but sometimes (although I haven't had it happen to me yet) the bus will stop at POR as well. If you are looking for a small resort, then POFQ is a good choice, and is the favorite of many.

 

[Mrs Grumpy]

We are looking at staying at POFQ for our next trip in 2011. We have only stayed at POP and love it but think the small size of POFQ might be a nice change.

 

[ROEDISNEY]

Do they have preferred rooms at POFQ?

Yes they do. Just had a preferred one. They r called water view rooms. That does not mean the pool it means the water/lake.

 

[maxiesmom]

Did you stay at POR or a set from Psycho?

No kidding! I'm going back to POR for the 4th time next month, and that post scared me!!

OP--I have stayed at both POR and POFQ multiple times, and POFQ is much smaller than POR. But there are a few trade offs for that. POFQ only has one pool, and POR has one big pool and four quiet pools. POFQ only has a food court while POR has a larger food court and a sit down restaurant. However if you stay at POFQ you are more than welcome to use any of the facilites at POR.

Also, there are not prefered rooms at the Port Orleans resorts. They have a water view catagory which does cost more than a standard view, but it does not guarantee you being close to the main resort areas.

 

[crazyfordisney2000]

We just got back from POFQ on Friday and we were in building 1. It was MAYBE a 3 minute walk to the pool and a 4 minute walk to the main building/food court etc. We LOVED it there. We did go over to riverside once and found that their main pool was smaller than FQ, just IMO. But riverside does have 4 other pools. We never found the pool crowded at all and we did swim every day, twice midafternoons and every night from 7 or 8 till 9 or 10:00.

 

[MineMail]

Did you stay at POR or a set from Psycho?

Seriously, POR isn't that big nor scary. The paths are all very well it at night with both overhead and landscape lighting. The resort isn't that big to have miles and miles of walking, and only has 4 bus stops. I'm kind of gathering you didn't like it there much?

Oh and for anyone here who is worried about mosquitoes, they spray the properties so that there are no mosquitoes. Maybe they have a few at FW, but I haven't seen any anywhere else.

I wouldn't stay there again if it was free. It was exhausting and stressful with three young children, a tired husband, and two suitcases of dirty laundry.

We were on a long vacation and I HAD to do laundry or none of us would have had clean undies. I finally decided (after I found the onsite laundry) to just do the essentials, then I loaded the rest in the car and found an offsite laundromat. It took the same amount of time since I was able to use multiple machines offsite.

My idea of 'roughing it' is a Days' Inn, so all the greenery and wildlife (fishing, really?) was lost on me.

As I said, they were getting ready to renovate -- probably why the resort was so empty. It was about 8 or 9 years ago. The staff put us in the building as far away from anything that you could imagine, all by ourselves in the building.

There were no direct paths, just wandering lanes and no, they were NOT well-lit at that time. Glad to hear they cleaned it up and added better lighting (the only overhead lighting was on the buildings), but I doubt they changed the meandering pathways.

We had intended to use WDW transportation, but it was (no lie) a 15 minute walk to get to the bus, then we waited for 45 minutes to board. There were only TWO stops at the time. Getting back after closing out a park? It was over an hour-and-a-half ride and we had to stand for the first 30 minutes. I remember everyone groaning as the bus detoured into one of the closed water parks, complaining that no one was waiting there. The driver couldn't deviate from his route.

After that WDW Transportation daymare, we drove to the parks to save time and aggravation. We made the most of it, but I was disappointed in the hotel and kicking myself for not researching it better.

 

[maxiesmom]

I wouldn't stay there again if it was free. It was exhausting and stressful with three young children, a tired husband, and two suitcases of dirty laundry.

We were on a long vacation and I HAD to do laundry or none of us would have had clean undies. I finally decided (after I found the onsite laundry) to just do the essentials, then I loaded the rest in the car and found an offsite laundromat. It took the same amount of time since I was able to use multiple machines offsite.

My idea of 'roughing it' is a Days' Inn, so all the greenery and wildlife (fishing, really?) was lost on me.

As I said, they were getting ready to renovate -- probably why the resort was so empty. It was about 8 or 9 years ago. The staff put us in the building as far away from anything that you could imagine, all by ourselves in the building.

There were no direct paths, just wandering lanes and no, they were NOT well-lit at that time. Glad to hear they cleaned it up and added better lighting (the only overhead lighting was on the buildings), but I doubt they changed the meandering pathways.

We had intended to use WDW transportation, but it was (no lie) a 15 minute walk to get to the bus, then we waited for 45 minutes to board. There were only TWO stops at the time. Getting back after closing out a park? It was over an hour-and-a-half ride and we had to stand for the first 30 minutes. I remember everyone groaning as the bus detoured into one of the closed water parks, complaining that no one was waiting there. The driver couldn't deviate from his route.

After that WDW Transportation daymare, we drove to the parks to save time and aggravation. We made the most of it, but I was disappointed in the hotel and kicking myself for not researching it better.

Wow. Honestly, it sounds to me like your lack of research caused you tons of problems.

First off, there are laundry facilities by every quiet pool, and each of them has multiple machines. So I'm not sure why you found it faster to drive off site and find a laundrymat.

Second, there always have been 4 stops at POR. North, South, East and West. So I'm not sure why you thought there was only 2 at the time. My first POR stay was in 1995, and there was 4 stops then, and 4 stop during my subsequent stays at POR. Whoever told you there were only 2 gave you bad advice. Which does happen. Heck, during my last stay a maid told me there was only 1 stop. But with 4 stops you are never more than 5 minutes or so away from the one nearest to your room. I can imagine it would be quite a hike if you got off at the South Depot and had to walk all the way around.

I do find the paths a bit confusing, but I am on vaction, I don't have to go directly from point A to point B with no time to stop and look at the flowers. I do enough being on the move at the parks, so I like a resort with lots of shrubbery. All of that greenery makes me take a deep breath and relax. I'm sorry the outdoorsey beauty of the resort was lost on you, but that is why there are so many different types of Disney resorts. Hopefully you will pick one that more suits your vacation style next time.

 

[Hopefully]

POFQ is my favorite Moderate Resort. It is the smallest of the mods. Even the farthest buildings are a short walk from the pool, Food Court and bus stop. If sharing buses with POR, it picks up first in the morning (there are seats) and drops off first at night (Home quickest).
I loved the themeing, it is lush and tropical. There is a water view category overlooking the river, but all rooms are nice.
Have a Great Trip.

 

[TillyMarigold]

Yes they do. Just had a preferred one. They r called water view rooms. That does not mean the pool it means the water/lake.

1. "Preferred" and "water view" are not the same thing. "Preferred" is a specific type of room that means "closest to the food court/gift shop." Only the largest resorts (the values and CBR, as someone said) have "preferred" rooms. POFQ has only "standard," "king bed," and "water view" rooms.

2. At a moderate, "water view" can mean *any* water view, including (at POFQ) the river, the pool, or sometimes one of the fountains (although if they give you a fountain as "water view," usually you can get the rater reduced back to standard).

 

[ncc1701]

We have stayed at the POFQ 3 times and are planning to go back soon.
We like the fact that it is a short walk from the room to the main area even staying in Building 7 .DH had stay at CBR before we married and prefers POFQ
due to the closeness to Downtown Disney and POR.(I had previously stayed off -property on my trips).We enjoy eating at WGPuck Xpresss and Cooke's of Dublin.(we split a Fish & Chips and a Chicken piefor lunch or dinner)
in Downtown.
Make sure you wonder up to POR to catch Bob at the RR lounge.The path is well lit at night and a nice romantic stroll.

 

[dopeynme]

Hi! We have stayed at FQ 3 times. Twice we were in bldg 1, standard room. It is a very short walk to main building and if you have a car, it is short to parking. We love the feel of the resort......miles more luxurious than All Stars (we've stayed there 3 times). Beautiful landscaping, fine food court, nice pool. We talked about going to the quiet pools at POR but never bothered!

Boat transportation is great to DTD, very relaxing....but note that they stop running if there is lightening!

Our most recent trip, we were in bldg 6, upgraded to water view room (of the river). It was fabulous! Corner room, so more space and very quiet, because it was not on anyone's route anywhere. I think it was room 6223....This was our favorite! But bldg 1 was very nice, too!

Have fun and enjoy whichever resort you choose!

 

[Dsny4fun]

Yes they do. Just had a preferred one. They r called water view rooms. That does not mean the pool it means the water/lake.

Actually Water view can be the river or the pool. I have had a waterview room at POFQ and it was overlooking the pool.