As far as Disney resorts go, Ive never understood the complaints by some people regarding one or another. I guess for our family, its just such a blessing to get to go every other year, that staying
anywhere on property is fine with us. My dream trip is to stay the Animal Kingdom Lodge, but that is so out of reach right now that I cant even fathom when it might come true.
On our first family trip to the World, our youngest was under 3 so we were still able to squeeze into a Value. All Star Movies to be exact. We loved it. Granted we didnt have a room facing the pool, so we werent plagued by noise at all hours, but our little 3-rd floor parking-lot view at the very back of the Love Bug building was perfect. I didnt mind the walk to the food court or the buses. Taking such a walk gives a person the chance to soak in her surroundings and enjoy the details and sights and sounds of a Disney resort. When youre always in a rush, hurrying from room to bus to park to pool
well, youre missing out. Life goes by pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.
When our family of five was no longer allowed in just one Value room, we turned our sights to Port Orleans Riverside and a room with a trundle bed. Seems folks either love or hate this resort. We love it. So much so that after one week-long stay, we were bona-fide POR snobs. French Quarter?
.oh yeah, weve heard of it. Supposed to be PORs sister resort, but it cant hold a flame to her. POR has lush, beautifully landscaped grounds, dripping with Old South charm that just begs you to take a deep breath and unwind. The fishin hole, the water wheel, the huge Live Oaks
.
*aahhh* FQ has a New Orleans/Mardi Gras theme. Meh.
So I was rather surprised with myself when, on our designated Day Off, I was all about going to the French Quarter for breakfast! Id heard so many raves about these delightful little morsels called Beignets, that I thought well, lets head over there for our breakfast today. The walk over along the river was really, really nice. And as we turned past the pool, I suddenly found myself in the midst of a beautiful, palm-lined avenue
.and it was
awesome! The iron railings, cobblestone streets
.could it be that this place, too, this lesser sibling to my beloved Riverside, was worthy of my devotion?!
Whooda. Thunk.
The huge scary clown faces on the ceiling of the food court were a bit disturbing, but overall the FQ was a delight and the Beignets did not disappoint. Ok, so its a little mini fried-dough. But its smothered in powdered sugar and absolutely melts in your mouth
. Worth the walk over from Riverside! While enjoying our breakfast feast and trying to avoid eye contact with the freaky clowns above, we all concurred that wed come spend our day off here at French Quarter, in that pool.
Ah yes, pool hopping
Gotta love the one and only place on Disney property where it is not only allowed, but virtually encouraged. Check in at either resort and you will be given a map that includes both sections and shown how to reach the other, should you want to visit at any time during your stay. As is your right. And if that werent enough , your Port Orleans refillable mug is
also good at
either resort! And, to further promote this blatant bending of Disney rules, they even provide a boat for your convenience that travels between the two resorts!!
The horror
But, its Disney and they can make up the rules as they go along, so we took full advantage of our right to use the French Quarter pool. We also took the boat over and back, and brought our refillable mugs.
**************
Our enjoyable day at the FQ pool was a lot of fun. DS6 became a slidin' fool and must have made that run down the dragon's tongue no less than 3,016 times. I spent considerable time just soaking up the sun on my lounge chair, and took home a beauty of a sunburn as a souvie.
Remembering to build in enough time for Disney transportation to get us there, we left POR about 2-1/2 hours before our designated check-in time for the Hoop-De-Doo Revue at Fort Wilderness. Fortunately the buses were running smoothly and we had not yet encountered The
Scooter People, so we got to the MK in good time. From there we took the boat launch to Fort Wilderness.
Alas, the Lawnmower Tree has been cut down!!....but you can still see just a little bit of the blade sticking out at the bottom:
We actually arrived quite early so we had a chance to just walk around that part of the Fort. It's really beautiful over there and I can't wait to live closer to the World so we can camp there again! DH and I did it once, "B.C." (Before Children), and it was great. If you like that sort of thing. If you don't, there's always the Wilderness Lodge.
Anywho, we took a tour of the horse barn (finally!!) and saw some pretty impressive equines. That had equally
non-impressive names. Like "Dave." There was a pair of white ponies outside that DS6 fell in love with.
I also saw what is one of the few remaining pictures of Mickey with a musket...
It's slowly being phased out and replaced with Mickey with a banjo. Which is quite lame. Davy Crockett certainly didn't open up new wilderness and fight to the death at the Alamo by pickin' the sun down.... Please.
Since we still had some time to kill, we wandered over to the Settlement Trading Post and looked for more ways to blow some cash. Didn't take long, although we got out without too much damage. DS8 and DS6 also found a checkerboard and immeditely sat down to a game:
We had a rousing good time at the Hoop-De-Doo and to my surprise, the kids LOVED it! They got the corny jokes and thought the characters were funny. All in all a very fun meal which we'd do again without hesitation.
It was the boat ride back to the Magic Kingdom that turned out to be the icing on our Day Off Cake. We had hoped to catch the Electrical Water Pageant, but only managed to watch it pass in silence and darkness on its way to the Contemporary. I did get this shot of the CR, and my apologies for the blur but the darn boat just wouldn't stay still!
What happened next made up for missing Fantasmic, Spectro, and the EWP all at once.... As we came into view of the MK, the fireworks show had just begun, and we were treated to one of the most spectacular displays I have ever seen at WDW. I don't know if it was different from the regular Wishes show, but it was
MNSSHP that night so it may have been different. Regardless, it was
amazing!!
Best ending to a Disney day.
Ever.
.
(which is another way of saying "I promise unless something more important comes along" 
).
I'm sure the non-plastic ones were hard enough. Great pictures! But I don't know if that's enough to call off the villagers.
). If youre TarzansKat, its watching your childs face light up over the simplest things and knowing in your heart it was all worth it. Cue the music in your head that really makes the memory come alive, and sit back to enjoy the journey.
This was setting a precedent yet unseen on any of our Disney trips, and DH was trying to figure out what to make of it. Another man moving in on his wife he can handle.... Fuzzy larger-than-life characters, that's something else entirely.
I am still SO glad we met, even for just 5 minutes under the monorail. 
