First Visit 10 year Anniversary Trip

How was your stay at French Quarter? Leave your comments or full trip reports here. Photos welcome.
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kiligi
Posts: 4
Joined: April 17th, 2011, 8:26 pm

First Visit 10 year Anniversary Trip

Unread post by kiligi »

My husband and I stayed at Port Orleans French Quarter from May 3rd to May 7th. We have stayed at several other Disney resorts in the past (Floridian and Wilderness Lodge to name a couple) but we would rank Port Orleans to be our hands down favorite! We checked-in online before arrival which was smooth and problem free.

Pros:

We had reserved a King bed room in our original reservation. When we arrived at the resort around 3:30pm, we asked the check-in staff if they had any river view King rooms available. They did and upgraded us without issue or additional charge. We were in Building 1 (the building furthest south on the property) in room 1332. It was a corner room which meant that it also had windows on two sides of the room making it much brighter, and the view was superb. It was quiet and we could watch the sun come up over the trees in the morning. While we were the furthest building south on the complex, it was still only a 2 minute walk to the pool and a 4 minute walk to the main building with the food court and gift shop. It was about a 5-7 minute walk to the bus stop, but easy and picturesque.

If you are a couple on honeymoon, anniversary or romantic getaway - building 1 is fabulous. We never heard any other guest, and since we were on the 3rd floor, never heard any of the loud toilets that so many others have commented on. The renovated rooms were lovely, and we found the beds to be extremely comfortable.

Our mousekeeper (Juana) created different towel animals for us each day of our stay, and made our room immaculate! The first day we had a towel mickey on the bed waiting to welcome us, the second day 2 swans, the third day to baby elephants, the fourth day two love birds and the final day a cute little clutch purse decorated with confetti stickers. We did tip her $5 a day for mousekeeping (leaving $10 on the day we checked out), which was beyond worth it to come back to an amazing room and a little treat after 12-14 hour days at the parks.

We walked over to Riverside several times during our stay. It was probably a 15 minute walk door to door since we always took time to fill our refillable mugs on the way over. :) The river path between the two resorts is lovely and a nice way to unwind after a day at the parks. We took advantage of the refilling option for drinks at both resort Food Courts, so we made sure that we never got dehydrated during our stay.

We ate dinner at Boatwrights the first night we were there. Jenny was our waitress and she was just lovely! Helpful, friendly and quick to refill a drink that was running low. We would highly recommend the crawfish appetizer (delicious!), barbeque shrimp appetizer (yum!) the blackened fish main course (nice heat to it), and the bread pudding! The bananas foster angel food cake dessert was good too, but couldn't hold a candle to the bread pudding.

The gift shop at French Quarter was decent but nothing special. I didn't get a chance to check out Riverside's gift shop, but we ended up buying most of our souvenirs at the Floridian and in the actual parks. There were a couple of pairs of very cute Mardi Gras themed Mickey ears you could purchase at the gift shop, and a large swath of Princess and the Frog merchandise.

We also took advantage of the boats that travelled between Port Orleans and Downtown Disney several times. Each boat can accommodate approximately 32-36 passengers, and that number is split between Riverside and French Quarter guests. So, if you pick the boat up at Riverside to go to Downtown Disney, the captain will only allow up to 24 people at Riverside to board at one time so that they can board at least 12 people from French Quarter on the ride to Downtown Disney. And vice versa. We never waited for more than 15 minutes for a boat, even when it was peak times in the evening when tons of people were waiting to go the Downtown Disney. The boat captains were uniformly friendly, and some of them were extremely knowledgable regarding the flora and fauna along the river as well as the wildlife to be seen. The boats stop running at 11:30pm but as long as you are on the Downtown Disney dock by 11:30 - they will make sure a boat takes every passenger there home. They trip to downtown disney takes about 20 minutes from French Quarter, 25 from Riverside.

The pool at French Quarter was lovely, big enough to accommodate all the people there without ever feeling too crowded. The slide was super fun, and there were plenty of sun loungers and towels. Pool bathrooms clean and comfortable. Pool bar had very yummy frozen drinks (if you like that sort of drink). I can highly recommend the Pina CoLAVAs. Pina Colada with Raspberry Coulis (oh my goodness, delicious!). There is also a very cute little playground near the entrance of the French Quarter pool, but is geared toward younger children (under 10) I would say.

We didn't eat at the French Quarter food court all that often because we were on the Disney Deluxe Food Plan (it doesn't make sense to use the credits on quick serve meals on that plan). However, we did enjoy the beignets almost every morning before heading out to the parks. Those beignets are amazing! And a half order (3 beignets) are equal to a snack credit on the dining plan. Big enough for two people who prefer a light breakfast. You will not regret ordering those when you stay at French Quarter.

Buses came very regularly to French Quarter. We waited (at most) 15 minutes for a bus to arrive. And the only time the buses also went to Riverside before going on the the final destination was when it was before 7:30 in the morning. Otherwise, the buses went immediately to the final destination. Drivers super friendly, but also sticklers to families with strollers (making them collapse all strollers before entering the buses). It never took longer than 35 minutes to reach any park from the French Quarter and the buses were reasonably comfortable.

Cons:

The only con we could really point to as that our room's shower faucet was very weak. Which we decided didn't matter all that much because everything else was amazing! And I think it is a problem with that specific room's shower faucet, not an issue resort wide. If we had been in the room more often/longer, we would have asked to have it fixed while we were there, but we were too busy for that to bother us. And every other part of that room was a perfect 10, so we shrugged our shoulders and had a fabulous time!

The other slight con (and it is slight) is that the concierge service can take some time because they only ever have 1 person at the concierge desk. It just means you might wait 10-15 minutes if you want to talk to the concierge, so it really isn't a huge issue, just make sure you plan the time. The concierge took his time with each guest making sure they had everything they needed before they were finished, so just be patient. Rudolph was very nice and helpful!

I would highly recommend French Quarter to couples visiting Disney. I also think it would be fantastic for families whose children were old enough not to need a nap in the middle of the day because it is a distance away from most parks and isn't the most efficient transportation (due to it being on the bus system rather than the monorail). Rooms were lovely, affordable, and larger than I expected. Service was excellent and friendly. And Boatwrights was an unexpected treasure of a table service restaurant.

I hope this review is helpful, please let me know if anyone has any questions about anything I wrote. :)
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Re: First Visit 10 year Anniversary Trip

Unread post by Admin »

High praise indeed from people who have stayed at the Grand Floridian too! Sounds like you had a great anniversary trip, so glad it worked out nicely for you. Thanks for the very detailed trip report.

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