Trip Report September 15-21

How was your stay at Riverside? Leave your comments or full trip reports here. Photos welcome.
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This forum is for Port Orleans RIVERSIDE Trip Reports, not for general questions. Please try to keep your reviews relevant, informative and useful to other visiting families. Thanks!
us4disneycrazies
Posts: 5
Joined: October 3rd, 2013, 9:01 am

Trip Report September 15-21

Unread post by us4disneycrazies »

We've now been to Disney World twice and both times we've stayed at Riverside. Our family loves this resort, especially dh and me.
We chose to do online check in which really helped. We arrived around noon and our room was ready, along with our customized Magic Bands. As the cast member checking us in was writing out our building (Magnolia) and room information, she noticed me watching and the disappointment that came over my face. She asked if there was another building I wanted and I told her that I was really hoping for something in Alligator Bayou. We're a family of 4, so I wasn't expecting too much, but with a 14 year old dd and 12 year old ds, the idea of an extra bed was preferred by us all. She graciously found us a room in building 37, which was right about where I was hoping to be. A very happy coincidence since I'd only asked for AB.
We were very close to a bus stop there and the walk to the pool and main building wasn't too bad as it's mostly shaded and beautifully landscaped. No fridge in our room, but we were expecting that (thanks to this site!) and had no problems making a couple trips to the ice maker each day to keep our drinks cold.
There were a couple of days where the bus service just didn't work in our favour going to the parks. It seemed that multiple busses would arrive for every park except the one we were going to. We chose to laugh it off as our own bad luck. It was helpful that we would leave well before we wanted/needed to be anywhere and there was always a cast member monitoring the busses when they were really busy to let us know the ETA of the next bus to our park, reason for the holdup, etc. Coming back from the parks, we always seemed to luck out. There was either a bus waiting for us or we were first in line with a wait time of 5 minutes or less (even right after the last parade on a MNSSHP night!).
The Magic Bands worked great for us! They really helped the kids be more independent and me less frazzled at the park gates. The fastpass+ was handy as well, though I found the MDE app to be kind of slow and difficult to manage in our room at times and some of the options found on the regular website seemed to be missing on the app. I much prefer the website on my laptop at home. Also, we ran out of fastpass+ options on our last day. Not sure why, I thought we were entitled to 3 per day?
The food court had multiple choices for everyone in our family, including our very picky ds. I found the staff to be friendly and helpful with all of our dining plan questions. We tried Boatwrights for our anniversary dinner, and while the kids stressed a little at first over the menu choices, we all found something we enjoyed...and enjoyed sharing with each other!
All in all, we had another wonderful stay at Riverside. I can't wait until next time!
WyoDisney
Posts: 71
Joined: June 12th, 2013, 5:43 pm

Re: Trip Report September 15-21

Unread post by WyoDisney »

Thanks for your trip report. What a good attitude you showed on your one bad bus day. We are looking forward to POR and Boatwrights for the first time in five weeks.
Trust in the Lord and lean not to your own understanding.


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Thorpy
Posts: 171
Joined: February 10th, 2013, 1:06 pm

Re: Trip Report September 15-21

Unread post by Thorpy »

I too have had good experiences in room assignments. When we haven't put a request in we seem to get a really good room, when we do put one in, we seem to get what we wanted.
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