Room Upgrades

[slbowman2399]

Hello! I am staying at the Port Orleans Riverside resort in Oct. This is my first trip to Disney and I am sooo excited! We were able to get the free dining promotion after our initial booking (booked with a travel agent), but we were unable to keep the original room that we were booked in. We originally requested a river view room, but were changed to a preferred room when we received the dining plan. I was very upset about this and was told by our travel agent to ask at check in if any river view rooms were available and if we could be moved to one of these rooms. Has anyone had this happen before or have been able to switch to a different room classification when they checked in? Again, this is our first time at Disney so we have no idea if this is going to happen. Thanks for any insight!

 

[MMS1125]

since that is a separate booking category the chances of getting it are probably pretty slim. They only have so many rooms per promotion and as far as I know you are one of the few that could even get POR with FD without having to upgrade to a royal room. A preferred location will be closer to the main building, pool, or bus stop so it's not a bad location. No clue on the view though. Hope you have a great trip and don't let the view ruin it for you if they can't accommodate the request

 

[BWV2001]

I am not sure what you fear with the room change, but please rest assured that you will enjoy your stay at POR...especially with the free dining promotion. My family stayed there last October (just weeks before the POR-Riverside rooms were refurbished) and had a great vacation. We had a standard view room, but we weren't too far from the bus stops or the food court. The food court at POR was a great counter-service option. With this being your first trip to Disney, I would hope that you would have high but realisitic expectations, and that you will truly enjoy this moderate resort.

 

[debbiedoo]

The rule of thumb is a request is a request. They do try to fulfill as much of requests as they can.

Sent from my iPhone using DISBoards

 

[purple figment]

When Disney has a promotion such as Free Dining not every room in a resort is included. When your TA modified your res to include FD either the River View rooms alloted to the promo were sold out or not included in the first place. In order to get FD for you your TA had to choose a different room category. You could ask your TA if there's a different promo available - perhaps a room discount for River View instead of FD for Preferred.

As a last resort, when you arrive at POR you could ask if any River View rooms are available. It is a different room category from Preferred so if that category is sold out they wouldn't be able to accommodate you.

 

[WDW Obsessed]

I am not sure what you fear with the room change, but please rest assured that you will enjoy your stay at POR...especially with the free dining promotion. My family stayed there last October (just weeks before the POR-Riverside rooms were refurbished) and had a great vacation. We had a standard view room, but we weren't too far from the bus stops or the food court. The food court at POR was a great counter-service option. With this being your first trip to Disney, I would hope that you would have high but realisitic expectations, and that you will truly enjoy this moderate resort.

I agree with this poster! We are staying next month at POR and loved it there both time we stayed there. All the rooms are decent and fairly close to the main building. Either way you will be pleased.

The thing that we do the night before it call up and "request" certain buildings if available. They have worked things out as best they could and we were happy over all. Good luck either way!!

 

[Missytara]

Last year, Disney added several new categories to the moderates, based on the amount of requests they were getting. So now what used to be a request is a booking category and it is making it harder and harder to "upgrade" to another booking category unless you are willing to pay for it.

Unless someone cancels their reservation, you most likely won't get one. I would check at 45 days out from check-in and see if someone has cancelled.

 

[purple figment]

Last year, Disney added several new categories to the moderates, based on the amount of requests they were getting. So now what used to be a request is a booking category and it is making it harder and harder to "upgrade" to another booking category unless you are willing to pay for it.

Unless someone cancels their reservation, you most likely won't get one. I would check at 45 days out from check-in and see if someone has cancelled.

And it's possible that if a room becomes available, you won't be able to keep FD if there are no more FD rooms available within that booking category.

 

[lovesdumbo]

I would stick with preferred over river view. Preferred will get you a room close to food court and feature pool. With the exterior corridors I don't really see the value in a river view room at POR.

 

[Iamajoy79]

It can never hurt to ask to have one. Although, I agree with the previous poster that I do not see the value in the RV room over the Preferred. The whole resort surrounds the river. The preferred rooms are so much closer to everything and I think you will appreciate the shorter walk to everything.