Back Again--FQ This Time!

How was your stay at French Quarter? Leave your comments or full trip reports here. Photos welcome.
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MardiGroggy
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Joined: August 11th, 2013, 10:30 am
Location: North Florida

Back Again--FQ This Time!

Unread post by MardiGroggy »

We checked in about an hour before the normal 3pm time--walked right up to the counter. No waiting. Our room was ready to move in. We paid for a king bed and I requested a top floor room, away from the pool construction. Darn near fainted when the CM (from Cambridge, England, btw) said we were assigned 1326!!! That is one of the best river view rooms of the entire PO resort (Riverside or FQ)! If ya' don't believe me, look it up elsewhere on this site. Go ahead, I'll wait for you here.

"Here," btw, is sitting right along the river on a fire hydrant--its a little breezy and still a bit chilly on the shady bench nearby--watching the boats go by. Doesn't get any better than this for an old geezer like me! The last of a storm front is moving out to the east, so it will be warming up nicely over the next few days.

My wife is napping before our dinner at Boatwright's, so I'll take the time to pass on a few observations:

The pool is enclosed by a wrought iron fence (as reported by others), but you can see into the area, if you are inclined to be a sidewalk super. The only real issue I see is the noise from the equipment moving around (beeping). It should all be over soon, anyway. I'm still glad that we are not overlooking the worksite, however. The shuttle cart is running regularly and has plenty of passengers.

Right now it is pretty quiet on the grounds, but that will probably change when folks return from the parks. I see a lot of fresh paint on railings, etc., so the place is looking very nice.

Our room was in good shape, clean, no issues. Well, OK, we requested some extra coffee packets for my wife, but that's normal for us. Our magic bands worked fine for check-in, the room and food court snack charges. We'll find out tomorrow if they remember the remaining days we have on our park passes. :)

I'll add more after we've had time to look around.
MardiGroggy
Aka: Steve

"Laissez les bons temps rouler!"
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Re: Back Again--FQ This Time!

Unread post by Admin »

Welcome home sounds like the right sort of thing to say now - sounds like you are in a kinda perfect place right now.

Andre
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scottstripp
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Joined: June 1st, 2013, 11:15 am
Location: Exeter, Devon

Re: Back Again--FQ This Time!

Unread post by scottstripp »

Sounds great, we go in less then 18 days and cannot wait!!!
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MardiGroggy
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Joined: August 11th, 2013, 10:30 am
Location: North Florida

Re: Back Again--FQ This Time!

Unread post by MardiGroggy »

Well, maybe not perfect, but we're certainly enjoying it so far.

Continuing where I left off...

We had supper Sat. night at Boatwright's. We had a reservation for 6:45 (earliest we could get at the time), but as I've noted in the past, we prefer to get in earlier, if possible, before it gets really crowded. We took the boat over and got there about 5:30, figuring on killing time at River Roost. I checked with the CM at Boatwright's and she smiled, said: "Give us five minutes" and handed me a pager. Five minutes later we were seated! The lesson here: it never hurts to ask. :) We both were in a "beef" mood, so we both had the NY Strip. Excellent choice! The meal was just what we wanted and our server (Wendy) was most helpful. We were on our way as the place began to fill up and the noise level began to build. (They seated a group of about 12 people right next to us just as we were finishing...time to bail.).

Now, however, we had time to kill until Yehaa Bob. Carriage ride maybe? First response: "Booked right now, but can do in about an hour." OK, the old folks will be waiting over here on the rockers on the porch. A few minutes later CM/Driver Kelsey called to us and said her 7:00 res. was a no-show, so off we went. Had a nice ride across Ol' Man Island and down the Mansions side of the river. It was getting a bit chilly by then, but we still could have handled a longer ride.

Back to the lounge for a therapy session with Yehaa Bob. Our favorite CM/Server (John) wasn't there. They said he was on a "another cruise." Imagine that, a Disney CM needing a vacation! We called it a night after Bob's first set, as we had an early-ish morning on Sunday. Took the boat back to FQ, as there was one waiting at the dock. So, we've been really catching the breaks. There is still some magic for those who dare. :D
MardiGroggy
Aka: Steve

"Laissez les bons temps rouler!"
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MardiGroggy
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Joined: August 11th, 2013, 10:30 am
Location: North Florida

Re: Back Again--FQ This Time!

Unread post by MardiGroggy »

We're back home now and I'll try to catch up. I had some posting problems while at FQ (long story, but just make sure you don't take too long composing your posts), so I wasn't keeping up each day. :oops:

Sunday we spent most of the day at MK. We took the Keys to the Kingdom tour and had dinner at Tony's Town Square. Not really PO related, so I'll skip this. I will mention that there is a HUGE crane set up next to the castle. Our guide said it was there to take down the Christmas lights. It didn't help folks who wanted to take photos of the castle. The buses to and from FQ were on schedule, but full. We did not share any stops with Riverside. The MK was really crowded by lunch time, with long lines at all the "E" attractions. Sunday evening we chilled at Scat Cat's. As I have noted before, Tom Casey is a good musician, but there wasn't much of an audience. Not like when Elliot was there. Sad.

Monday we spent at Downtown Disney. Again, not much PO related info, but since it is connected by the river and boats, I guess it is ok to post about it here. The boats were very busy keeping up with demand. We had to wait for second and even third boats on some occasions. They were literally lined up on the lake waiting for dock space. There is a lot of construction at DTD and not just the new parking garage. There are several large areas along the lake front, necessitating not just the usual construction walls but also a bunch of yellow containment booms in the lake itself. I'm sure it will be nice when it is finished, but it lacks visual attractiveness right now. We weren't taking photos of anything, so we only had to look at it once. I don't know what they are doing, or how long it will take, but seeing the announcement that the main boat dock will be closed for a while certainly doesn't surprise me.

Meanwhile, back at FQ, there was a lot of exterior painting going on. The railings in Bldg. 1 were "Wet" the whole time we were there and they were still working on it as we were leaving. That meant several large hydraulic lifts were in use, and there were occasional temporary closing of walkways to maintain safe working areas. I didn't get a chance to really look around the other buildings, so I don't know what stage of the sprucing up they are in, but they are sure working hard at keeping things looking good. There was also equipment moving back and forth to the pool area, but that should be finished soon.

After walking around a bit, and riding the boats up and down the river, I was impressed with the number of FQ rooms that have a clear view of the river. Many more than Riverside, and some of the Riverside rooms don't have as clear a view of the river because of landscaping between the buildings and the water. Just a thought for those who particularly desire a river view. As noted above, we got a great river view without even asking for it! All we wanted was a king room that didn't overlook the pool refurbishment. :mrgreen:

That's it for this visit, unless there are any questions. We hope everyone has as great a time as we did!!!
MardiGroggy
Aka: Steve

"Laissez les bons temps rouler!"
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Re: Back Again--FQ This Time!

Unread post by Admin »

Thanks for the updates, and sorry about your posting problems (as we've discussed, there is a one-hour session inactivity timeout to stop the server getting clogged up with dropped sessions, so if it takes longer than an hour to type something, it might be best to save it using copy-paste and re-login in the board).

Andre
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MardiGroggy
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Location: North Florida

Re: Back Again--FQ This Time!

Unread post by MardiGroggy »

:lol: Good point, Andre. If you're going to post, post! Don't get distracted. :oops:
MardiGroggy
Aka: Steve

"Laissez les bons temps rouler!"
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Re: Back Again--FQ This Time!

Unread post by Admin »

Not that it's easy to get distracted in WDW or anything... :lol:

The best solution if you want to continue to type on the go during the day is to enter all your notes into a simple local text editor of some sort, and then just paste the whole lot into the website later once you're done.

Andre
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