Visting Port Orleans Riverside with Pet Dogs

Pet dogs are permitted to accompany their owners staying at Port Orleans Riverside (not French Quarter) and also at three other Disney properties – Art of Animation, Fort Wilderness Cabins, and the Yacht Club. An initial one-year trail started on Sunday 15 October 2017, but in July 2018 it was announced that this was to become a permanent feature. The following is a summary of how the program now works:

• Guests staying at Riverside are allowed to bring up to two dogs with them, staying in their room. There are no size, weight or breed restrictions, but they must be properly vaccinated.
• Port Orleans French Quarter is not included, and pets (other than service animals) are not allowed in that resort.
• To register to bring your dog(s) on your upcoming visit, please call 1-407-939-7539.
• Each guest room participating in the program will have easy access to outdoor walkways for exercise and green spaces with pet relief areas.
• Initially all accommodation categories at the resort were intended to be dog friendly but that was quickly restricted to primarily building 24 where possible.
• If a guest booking cannot be accommodated in building 24, guests with dogs will predominantly be assigned to building 15 (Preferred Location) and the end-wing sections of Acadian House (80) or Parterre Place (95, for Royal Rooms). This should help maintain the rooms in other sections of the resort as relatively animal-free for the benefit of guests with allergies, etc.
• Guests are permitted to take their dogs with them around most of the public areas of the resort as long as the animals remain well behaved and on leashes, with the exception of Food & Beverage locations, the fenced pool decks, and Disney transportation. There are also designated “Dog Relief Areas”.
• Guests are requested not to leave their animals unattended in rooms for longer than seven hours at a time, and Disney requires that animals must be capable of being quiet during their stay to avoid disturbing other guests, stating “If noise is heard, you will be called to address the noise within 30 minutes.”
• Guests must sign a waiver which explains where pets can go, responsibilities of the owners, etc. A copy of this document can be DOWNLOADED HERE.
• There is a $50 per night per room fee for guests who bring a dog (or dogs) with them. This is partly required to provide for more intensive cleaning of the room after departure.
• Guests will get an amenity package delivered on check-in day with various items for their pet. “Pluto’s Welcome Kit” includes mat, bowls, a pet ID tag, courtesy plastic disposable bags, puppy pads and dog walking maps.
• Guests will not be able to receive housekeeping service while there is an unattended dog in the room, and a Pluto door hanger will be provided to indicate to hotel staff that there is an animal present. Housekeeping will liaise with guests to make suitable alternative arrangements.
• Other animal facilities – including dog walking, day care and other pet services – are available just over the road from Riverside at the Best Friends pet care facility. For details, please call 1-877-4-WDW-PETS (1-877-493-9738), or visit www.bestfriendspetcare.com.
• Pet merchandise is available at participating resorts.
• Any other guests who express a wish to be located away from dogs (such as for medical or allergy reasons, or noise concerns) will be assigned a room as far away as possible from those original four designated areas.

For more information, including for making booking and for other restrictions and policies, guests should contact 1-407-934-7639 (407-WDISNEY) or see the Port Orleans Riverside Dog Policy Agreement.

This informative trip review was posted by Sarah, who visited Port Orleans Riverside with her husband and their dog in January 2026:

My husband and I brought out 13 year old, 70lb dog to Port Orleans Riverside for 8 nights on a family trip in January, 2026. It was a last minute pivot since our dog is in her twilight years and we didn't feel comfortable leaving her.

Trial Program Update on 18 October 2017: So we are now a few days into the trial of the new Dog Friendly Rooms policy, and the public outcry on social media and via communications directly to Disney has taken everyone by surprise – it even took me aback, and I know how vocal Disney fans can be. I think it’s safe to say that Disney completely underestimated the passion that many people would have on this subject, and the initial plans are being modified and policies rewritten on the fly at the moment. This process will probably remain fluid over the next few weeks, and Disney is closely monitoring and listening to the feedback and will continue to adjust procedures to try to make this trial work for everyone.

Initially, as will have been seen from the printed Dog Relief Area maps, it was intended that all these happy fluffy pets (which everyone would surely like) would be permitted in any type of guest booking at Riverside, and the early announcements did state that the whole resort – barring certain areas such as food & beverage and swimming pools – would be canine accessible as long as the animals were kept under control and on a leash. However over the last 48 hours that intent has been severely trimmed back and they are now aiming to try to restrict dogs to only Standard and Woods (Garden) View rooms, and the current intention from the room inventory department at Riverside is to use building 24 as much as possible for any guests who book to stay with their pets. This building is well away from the common areas, is located right next to the parking lot to make getting pets to and from rooms easier, and has a nice grassy area nearby to allow dogs to be exercised.

However, although the telephone Reservations Center is now advising guests who wish to bring dogs with them that this will only be possible for Standard and Woods (Garden) View rooms, the initial announcements – and even the currently posted wording on the Disney website – do not require guests to book that way, nor to preregister their dogs. Thus it is entirely possible that people who have booked for other room categories using the Disney website, via travel agents, through Expedia, etc. will simply show up at the front desk accompanied by their pet(s) and ask to pay the daily fee. This could mean that, in the short term at least, dogs will still need to be accommodated in other areas of the resort in order to comply with existing bookings. This will of course be closely monitored and subsequent deep-cleans arranged for any affected rooms, but at this stage it cannot be guaranteed that other areas of the resort will remain completely dog-free.

I have reached out to my contacts at the resort who have said that so far (i.e. in the first three days of the program) they have not yet had a single dog staying at the resort. Over the next seven days there are currently just four one-night reservations with associated comments indicating that the guest plans to bring a dog with them, against more than 100 comments over the same seven day period asking to be assigned to a room away from the dog friendly areas. Those four one-night reservations are apparently all from local Florida residents, and personally I would not be at all surprised to find that some or all of them turn out to be from social media aware guests, or even bloggers or website owners, testing out the new policies for themselves. If there have been any booking cancellations because of this new policy then they have already been replaced with new reservations, as Riverside is either sold out or very close to it for the rest of the month.

Original Trial Program Update on 21 October 2017: A copy of the waiver document which guests need to sign when they check dogs in to the hotel can be DOWNLOADED HERE.

A few interesting new bits of information:

• So far, the room assignment department at Port Orleans Riverside has not been given any specific directions from Walt Disney World management to indicate that they should enforce the accommodation of all dogs into building 24 only, so they are still expecting that existing booking for other room categories will be assigned to one of the original four dog-friendly areas (buildings 15, 24, 80 and 95 on the map). Building 24 will definitely be their preferred choice wherever possible though. For example, if a guest had booked a Royal Room room six months ago, and they now state that they wish to bring a dog with them, they will be assigned a room in building 95 close to the originally marked Dog Relief area on the Dog Friendly Locations map. Similarly, someone who originally booked a Preferred Location room would be placed in building 15.
• Any guest who has expressed a wish to be located away from dogs will be assigned a room as far away as possible from those original four designated areas.
• As far as common areas go, at the moment dogs will be permitted - under control and on leashes - in all common areas of the resort except for Food & Beverage locations (such as Boatwright's Dining Hall, the food court and presumably the River Roost Lounge) and the fenced pool areas. The lobby and even merchandise shop are fine, as are all the public pathways. This policy is covered by the wording in point 12 of the waiver document.
• The maximum seven hour 'alone-time' rule will be mostly left to guests' honesty, but in cases where there is concern the electronic door-lock system can be interrogated remotely to prove how long a room has been left unattended. Similarly, Disney are aware that there may be situations where the required 30-minute return time to attend to a barking dog may potentially be difficult to enforce when guests are away from the hotel.