Frequently Asked Questions — Hints & Tips
This section will be regularly updated with various new tips, questions and user-submitted suggestions. Here you’ll find details of the best room locations, tips on how to request your preferences once you’ve decided, making dining reservations, swimming pool hopping, and lots more. Or if you still can’t find the information you’re looking for, why not ask in our Visitor’s Forum?
- I’ve decided I want to stay at one of the Port Orleans resorts — but which section should I choose? Help!
- How far apart are the two resorts? Can I walk between them, or use one of the other swimming pools?
- Where are the best room locations at Port Orleans Riverside?
- Where are the best room locations at Port Orleans French Quarter?
- Are Water View rooms worth the extra money?
- How can I make special room requests?
- There are five people in our group but we’d prefer not to stay in the Alligator Bayou section, can we ask for a Magnolia Bend room?
- I want to try some of Walt Disney World’s dining options, should I make reservations in advance?
- I’ve heard that the free bus service to the parks, especially when travelling from Riverside, can have long wait times and often be overcrowded - what’s the story?
- Can I see any of the Disney firework shows from Port Orleans?
Note: I’ve also created two simple general-purpose FAQ files, one for each resort, which cover all of the basic questions that people regularly ask. These FAQs are freely available for non-commercial websites to download and use to help their visitors. These files, and their Terms & Conditions, can be found on the Downloadable FAQs page.
I’ve decided I want to stay at one of the Port Orleans resorts — but which section should I choose? Help!
The first thing you need to know is that all of Port Orleans is lovely and you certainly won’t be disappointed with whichever section you finally decide to book. That said, what are the main differences?
Port Orleans French Quarter is relatively small (around 1,000 rooms) and fairly formally laid out with pleasant three-story buildings set along pretty New Orleans styled streets and alleyways. That can make it a bit easier to get around, plus the resort has a very cute dragon themed slide at its pool which some kids really enjoy. The room interior decor is quite fancy and ornate for a Moderate. The resort features one swimming pool, a shop, a food court and a single central bus stop.
Port Orleans Riverside is much bigger (over 2,000 rooms) but also has a lot more facilities — a larger food court and shop, a full table-service restaurant, boat and bike rentals, more activities such as fishing, horse-drawn carriage rides and boat tours, one large feature pool with a longer/faster slide, five more smaller swimming pools, one central and three outlying bus stops, etc. The sixteen two-story “Alligator Bayou” lodges sit in a lushly wooded area and are quite spread out, with secluded rooms that have a laid-back rustic theme (with wooden-hewn bedposts for example). The four larger “Magnolia Bend” mansion buildings are set in more formal gardens and feature fancier room decor more akin to the French Quarter section. Many people prefer the rather more secluded Alligator Bayou area (me for one!) but there are also plenty who comment that the rustic theming feels somewhat “basic” and they prefer the comparative plushness of the Magnolia Bend rooms.
The actual amenities included inside all of the guest rooms are pretty much the same in all of the sections by the way — see the Rooms page for full details — only the theming of the decor and the fittings changes. The only notable difference is that the Alligator Bayou section contains the only Moderate resort rooms on Disney property to officially sleep five people, as they feature an extra pull-out trundle bed located underneath one of the double beds.
Although the bus service is normally shared between the two resorts, French Quarter’s single bus stop can sometimes give time and convenience advantages over Riverside’s four stops, especially at busy times or when separate services are being run for each resort. At very busy times it is not uncommon to hear of buses arriving at Riverside with standing room only after having already picked up at French Quarter. When this happens Disney quickly add extra buses to the route, but some guests can be inconvenienced in the meantime.
If you still can’t decide, perhaps it would help to boil the choice down to a really simple one: French Quarter is smaller and more intimate but with less facilities, whereas Riverside is larger but with much more to see and do.
At the end of the day, bear all of the above in mind and then just choose whichever theme appeals to you most — you really won’t be disappointed either way! Oh, and don’t forget that whichever you do finally choose, you can always stroll over to the other resort in around ten minutes and make use of all the facilities there — including the swimming pools. Which brings us neatly to the next question...
How far apart are the two resorts? Can I walk between them, or use one of the other swimming pools?
Port Orleans French Quarter and Port Orleans Riverside are ‘sister’ resorts in that they operate under one management structure and share a number of facilities. Although they may appear to be some distance apart on a map or when you’re driving or taking the bus, in fact the dividing line between the last building of French Quarter (Building 7) and the first of Riverside (Parterre Place) is merely a narrow road bridge. It’s a very pleasant short walk alongside the Sassagoula river bank between the two resorts, and you can comfortably stroll the 875 yards from one food court to the other in around 10 minutes.
Other options include taking the Sassagoula Water Taxi which runs every 20 minutes or so and takes around five minutes to travel between the two docks. You could even use the Disney buses, as most of the bus services departing from French Quarter make their next stop at Riverside — but do check with the bus driver first, in case the bus you are trying to catch is going straight on to its final destination!
Because the two Port Orleans resorts are linked, anyone staying at either resort is able to use all of the facilities at the other — including (unusually for Disney hotels) the swimming pools. Indeed, the walk between the two main feature pools is just 985 yards should you wish to try them both out in one session. There is probably more incentive for guests staying at French Quarter to travel over to Riverside though, as many of the major facilities are located over at the somewhat larger Riverside resort. These include the only table-service restaurant (Boatwright’s Dining Hall), bike and boat rentals, evening horse drawn carriage rides, the fishin’ hole and the five quiet pools. On the other hand, the French Quarter food court is the only place to get beignets!
Where are the best room locations at Port Orleans Riverside?
Riverside is a very much larger resort than French Quarter and is split into two distinct sections of 1,024 rooms each. Which section you prefer is very much a case of personal choice, and while I tend to advocate Lodge 14 in Alligator Bayou, there are many people who adore the romantic sophistication of the Magnolia Bend mansion buildings.
Magnolia Bend consists of four three-story mansion buildings with beautifully manicured gardens and landscaping, constructed around lovely courtyard areas with pleasant seating areas and fountains. In addition to the main swimming pool on Ol’ Man Island (located just across the river from the mansion buildings) there are also two quieter pools within the Magnolia Bend area.
Rooms located on the river-facing side of the mansion buildings are generally preferable as they give easier access to the facilities, and the views are simply outstanding. The other sides of the mansion buildings are more convenient for quick access to the parking lots and the East and North Bus Depots, but the parking lot views are rather less enticing.
Acadian House and Magnolia Terrace are located closest to the Ol’ Man Island swimming pool via a wooden bridge, and you can walk straight across the island to get to the main building for the lobby, shop, restaurants, etc. They have convenient access to the North and East Depots respectively. Oak Manor and Parterre Place are a little further to the south and share the best access bridge to take you straight over to the main building, with an easy walk to the South Depot bus stop, main building and ferry boat dock.
Alligator Bayou represents the less affluent areas of the antebellum Old south, with sixteen rustically themed two-story Lodges nestled amongst a sprawling series of informal streams, pools and lush vegetation. As these buildings are smaller and more spread out they do tend to be somewhat quieter and more relaxed than the Magnolia Bend mansions. The Alligator Bayou section also features three additional quiet pools, which can be handy as it can be quite a walk from some of the furthest buildings over to Ol’ Man Island.
There is a clear advantage to requesting Lodge 14 in Alligator Bayou as this is right next to the food court and just a short walk through the nearby car park to the main South Depot bus stop. It’s an equally short walk to the nearby quiet pool, or you can stroll over the main bridge to the swimming pool on Ol’ Man Island. Lodges 15, 16, 18 and 27 are the next best as they are all still relatively short walks from all the facilities. In a perfect world, my own choice would be for the row of river-view rooms closest to the food court numbered from 1409 to 1416, or perhaps the row above those if you prefer the upper floor. A corner room such as 1412 would be about as good as it gets.
A little further away, in a slightly quieter area of Alligator Bayou, are Lodges 24, 25, 26 and 28, which have their own quiet pool and easy access to the West Depot bus stop.
Finally, there is another cluster of buildings on the other side of Ol’ Man Island. Lodges 34-39 are the most remote and are situated between the West and North Bus Depots. A number of these rooms have parking lot views, but others do have pleasant views overlooking another quiet pool. It’s not easy to particularly recommend any of these buildings as they are all a good walk from the main facilities and when you’ve just returned from a long day at the theme parks, another ten-minute walk back to your room is probably the last thing you need.
Where are the best room locations at Port Orleans French Quarter?
Port Orleans French Quarter is the smallest of the Walt Disney World Moderate resorts and as such there really aren’t any bad room locations — even the rooms which overlook the parking lot are mostly protected by lovely garden areas and trees rather than directly overlooking the cars. Notionally, the resort is split into the South Quarter (buildings 1-3) and the North Quarter (buildings 4-7) but there is really very little to differentiate these two charming New Orleans themed sections.
Building 5 is generally considered to be the most convenient for the facilities — it’s the closest to the main building, the Doubloon Lagoon swimming pool and the ferry boat dock, but it still has fairly easy access for the bus stop and the parking lot. Some water views in building 5 look out over the swimming pool and can thus be a little noisy at times so you may wish to request a room on the other side of the building.
Building 2 to the south of the swimming pool is also very conveniently located, and possibly a little quieter.
The best locations for quick access to the car parks without being too far from the centre would be buildings 3 and 4, with building 4 also offering the closest rooms to the single bus stop at the resort.
For the quietest, most remote rooms, try buildings 1, 6 or 7 — with the river views from building 6 being especially pretty. However as this is such a small resort even the furthest rooms in building 7 are still only a 350 yard walk from the main facilities so you can still get back to the food court within five minutes.
If you choose buildings 1, 3 or 7 you may wish to check that your room does not overlook the parking lot as there may not be all that much separating you from an expanse of concrete.
Are Water View rooms worth the extra money?
Opinions vary tremendously on this one. You have to remember that the Moderate resorts have no internal corridors so you access your room via a shared outside walkway which runs all the way around each building. This means that you don’t have a private balcony outside your room and many people say that it’s therefore pointless paying an extra $15 per night for a view which they feel you have nowhere to sit and enjoy.
Also, the term “water view” is interpreted rather literally by Disney and could mean any room which even partially overlooks the river, a swimming pool — or even a fountain! You can request a specific type of view, but such requests cannot be guaranteed — especially when the resort is busy. Again, do you want to pay extra for the privilege of looking out of your window at fountain?
All of the above notwithstanding, there are some big plusses to water view locations. First, there are some really lovely views to be had when you are just outside your room — and each walkway rarely serves more than about a dozen rooms so they are never busy and create a kind of “poor man’s balcony” area. Indeed, it’s not uncommon for guests to take their room chairs outside, especially in the the warm Florida evenings, and enjoy a pleasant glass of wine on their “patio”. Just be prepared to make way politely if someone comes along with a double-stroller after a long day at the parks - or why not offer them a drink!
Also, as the Port Orleans resorts do not define any “preferred” room locations in the way that some other resorts do, a Water View booking will at least guarantee that you will not get a room overlooking the parking lot. At Riverside in particular, many of the best-located rooms in terms of view and ease of access to the facilities are those overlooking the river.
Personally, I would be happy to pay the extra dollars for a nice River View location at French Quarter, Riverside Lodge 14 or 27, or Parterre Place / Oak Manor — but definitely not for a pool view in Alligator Bayou Lodge 36, or simply overlooking a fountain at French Quarter.
How can I make special room requests?
Firstly, it’s very important to remember that any room requests are just that, requests. Disney will not guarantee to fulfil any special requests apart from medical requirements and any features that have to be be specifically paid for — such as water view room or King Size bed rooms. The other thing to be aware of, especially with Riverside bookings, is that the cast members who handle room allocations may have to allocate several hundred new guest rooms every day, each of which need to be ‘blocked out’ for the duration of that guest’s stay, so it simply may not be feasible to accommodate all of the special requests that they might receive. All this notwithstanding, it’s been my experience that the room allocators and Front Desk staff usually try their best to match requests where possible, and it certainly can’t do any harm to ask.
The first thing to do is decide what features are most important to you and have these added to your reservation in advance, usually when making your original booking. Don’t be tempted to ask for too much at this stage — a request for a second floor corner room with a blue door, next to an elevator, with a view of the river and a fountain, beside the car park is quite likely to be ignored! If you’re celebrating a special event — perhaps a birthday or an anniversary — make sure the relevant details are noted too. There is no need to specify that you require a non-smoking room or to request a refrigerator as these options are both now standard.
Apart from the general location of the room (see above) one feature which many people seem to like is to be allocated to a room situated on an outside corner of one of the walkways. These corner rooms include a second window next to the table, which makes the room feel much lighter and more airy. This is especially true of rooms in the Alligator Bayou section where the room decor and fixtures are already somewhat darker than in the other areas.
Another common request with multiple-room bookings is for Connecting or Adjoining rooms. Connecting rooms include an internal (but lockable) door between the two rooms, while Adjoining rooms are merely located next door to each other — or quite possibly just somewhere near to each other. If you really do need to be directly next door, always ask for Connecting rooms.
Your booking will be held on Disney’s central reservations system until about five days before you arrive, at which point it is transferred over to the resort’s own local computer system which can allow rooms to be pre-allocated where necessary. Any time after this — perhaps 3-4 days before you check in — it might be worth reinforcing your original request with a quick phone call to the resort’s front desk, or perhaps a short fax.
| French Quarter Front Desk Telephone: | 1-407-934-5000 |
|---|---|
| French Quarter Fax: | 1-407-934-5353 |
| Riverside Front Desk Telephone: | 1-407-934-6000 |
| Riverside Fax: | 1-407-934-5777 |
Anecdotally, success rates do seem to vary using this approach, with some people reporting that their exact requests were met while others don’t seem to end up in even the general vicinity of where they wanted. However, again — what have you got to lose by trying?
If you do decide to fax the resort, please be polite and considerate in what you write — no cast member will take kindly to a list of demands when they’ve already got 200 other rooms to plan that day. It also can’t hurt to mention why you are making these requests, and say how much you are looking forward to your special stay at this wonderful resort.
Finally, when you first check in to the resort ask to be shown where your room is located on a map. If you find yourself looking at a ten minute walk over to Alligator Bayou Lodge 36 you can always ask the front desk cast member whether they might be able search their system to find you something a little closer to your original request. Again, please work with them rather than just moaning — you’re far more likely to get what you want by being polite and enthusiastic than by ranting.
Over the past few years, the resorts have switched to using a “Ready Room” allocation process, which means that when you check in the system scans for any rooms that are currently flagged as being ready to occupy — i.e. they have already been vacated and cleaned and are available for you to move straight in. This has the advantage that even if you check in before 3pm, the system may still be able to find you a room which is available for you there and then. However the downside is that at any given moment, the system only shows rooms that are available NOW, rather than ones which are still due to be cleaned and which otherwise might match your requests better. If you don’t mind waiting a while for your room to be made ready (you can store your bags at Bell Services in the meantime) then you may have more luck in getting the specific location you requested. Again, work with your Front Desk cast member to see what’s possible, and be patient if they need to refer to a back-room supervisor to check for further availability.
Note: To discuss special room requests based on medical grounds, or other special needs, please call (407) 939-7807 well in advance of your stay and the cast members will do their best to ensure that your individual needs are met. The TTY number for the hearing impaired is (407) 939-7670.
If you’ve got any comments about your favourite room locations, or regarding your experiences in getting special requests fulfilled or otherwise, please let us know via our Visitor’s Forum. Many Thanks.
There are five people in our group but we’d prefer not to stay in the Alligator Bayou section, can we ask for a Magnolia Bend room?
Alligator Bayou is the only section of Port Orleans which includes an extra ‘trundle bed’ designed to slide away underneath one of the main double beds when not in use. The resort does also have a limited quantity of wheeled fold-up ‘roll-away’ beds which can be moved into other rooms on request, but these tend to take up quite a bit of floor space even when folded up during the day.
Disney very much prefers to allocate parties of five people (all aged three or older; under-threes do not count) to the Alligator Bayou section as those rooms are already set up with the required number of beds. However they do sometimes use Magnolia Bend rooms when Alligator Bayou is full, so it’s certainly possible to accommodate five people there without breaking any regulations, but it’s definitely not the preferred choice.
So there’s certainly no harm in making a request for Magnolia Bend if you wish, and even asking again at check-in, however you might find the cast members are a bit reluctant.
I want to try some of Walt Disney World’s dining options, should I make reservations in advance?
Walt Disney World has more than 70 table service restaurants spread around the theme parks and hotels, plus any number of counter service and snack-food locations — surely it can’t be that difficult to eat on the spur of the moment can it? Well, that used to be the case a few years ago but recently Disney has introduced their “Disney Dining Plan” which effectively enables guests to prepay for all their meals for the duration of their stay. This means that there is now a large number of people who have already paid for their food before they even set foot in the resort and naturally this has created a massive increase in demand, especially at the full service restaurants.
To make this situation even worse, during otherwise slower times of the year (for example mid-August/September) Disney has started offering the Dining Plan for free to accompany certain types of resort booking, and at these times the better restaurants can get booked solid many months in advance.
While it may still be possible to walk up to some of the less frequented locations at off-peak meal times and get a table, if you want to eat in any of the more popular restaurants at anything close to a normal meal time, it has unfortunately now become essential to make reservations in advance. If you try walking up to somewhere like Le Cellier in Epcot, or character dining locations such as Chef Mickey’s at the Contemporary Resort, they will most likely tell you they have absolutely no availability for several weeks to come.
Luckily, making Advanced Dining Reservations (or ADRs) is very easy: just call Walt Disney World on 1-407-WDW-DINE (1-407-939-3463) and tell them where and when you would like to eat, and if there is space available they will allocate you a reservation number. Apart from a couple of signature locations you do not need to pay anything in advance and you can always cancel without penalty if you change your mind or find yourself planning to be somewhere else on the day.
ADRs can be made up to 180 days in advance of your planned dining date [which was changed from 90 days as from 27th October 2009]. Disney hotel guests also have an extra benefit of being able to telephone 180 days prior to their arrival date and then book restaurants for the whole of their stay, up to a maximum of ten more days. You may see this referred to as simply “180+10” on many websites, but remember that the +10 rule is based from your resort arrival date. For some restaurants, such as Cinderella’s Royal Table, you really do need to call that maximum number of days out as they can sometimes sell out within hours.
So please don’t assume that you can just wait until you check in at Port Orleans and then decide your dining choices for the week, or you may end up disappointed. It may not be as spontaneous as it used to be but unfortunately, with demand so high, you either have to plan a little or accept that most of your Disney meals will be counter service or fast food.
I’ve heard that the free bus service to the parks, especially when travelling from Riverside, can have long wait times and often be overcrowded - what’s the story?
This is one of the most common criticisms levelled at the Port Orleans resorts, however it’s also one of the hardest to get any definitive information on. For every online posting saying “we had to wait over an hour for a bus, not everyone could get on, there was a virtual mutiny at the bus stop” there are just as many people who say they stayed at Port Orleans for two weeks in July and never experienced any problems with the buses. While serious complaints are admittedly rare, there does seem to be a worrying element of inconsistency regarding the bus service.
Suffice to say that waiting for an hour is NOT the norm — if it were, the Disney complaints department would be mobbed by now. Ideally you should never have to wait for more than 20 minutes for a bus to anywhere, and often a good deal less. Disney tracks all of its buses by GPS and can adjust the services and the routes according to demand. They can also add extras buses at short notice to cater for peak times.
Normally, buses will call at Port Orleans French Quarter first and if they do not fill up immediately their next stop will be Port Orleans Riverside’s South Depot. Before 10:30am, these buses will then go straight on to their final destination, while separate buses handle the other Riverside Depots. After 10:30am, all buses continue round the Riverside South, West, North and East Depots. If a bus is filled to capacity and has had to leave guests waiting, another bus should be despatched to make the remaining calls. It has also been reported that separate buses are often used for the Magic Kingdom runs, rather than the same bus picking up at both French Quarter and Riverside.
Please see our Bus Service page for more information, details of the specific routes and stops, etc.
Can I see any of the Disney firework shows from Port Orleans?
Not in any great detail as the theme parks are too far away. You can glimpse and hear the higher bursts of the Illuminations show over Epcot at around 9pm, but you probably won’t be able to hear much of the music or see any of the other show elements, which rather defeats the point.
