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Celebrating 25 Years of Disney’s Port Orleans Resort

Posted: May 17th, 2016, 4:00 am
by The Sassagoula Sentinel

Celebrating 25 Years of Disney’s Port Orleans Resort


17 May 1991 - 17 May 2016



In 1982, Walt Disney World Executive Dick Nunis proposed a new development near to the Empress Lilly steamboat-inspired restaurant in the Lake Buena Vista Shopping Village area (today known as Disney Springs). The expansion was to include an intricately-themed hotel complex designed to evoke the relaxing laid-back feel of the city of New Orleans, reminiscent of Disneyland’s New Orleans Square. Surrounding the ‘recently docked steamboat’ would be a variety of themed buildings, with affordably priced guest rooms on the upper levels and restaurants and retail outlets on the ground floor.

Sadly this plan never materialised during the turbulent early eighties, however in the world of Imagineering good ideas never really die and the two-level resort hotel and shopping/dining district eventually reappeared in the mid-1990s as Disney’s Boardwalk Resort.

In the meantime, as part of massive expansion plans brought about by new Disney chief Michael Eisner, the New Orleans resort concept was resurrected from the vaults — but instead of being situated within the rapidly expanding Disney Village Marketplace area, it was relocated to create an entire new themed area to be accessed via a specially built waterway, the Sassagoula River.

So it was that Disney’s Port Orleans Resort first opened its doors to the public on 17th May 1991. Originally featuring just 432 guest rooms in three buildings, the room count was soon increased to 1,008 as construction work on the remaining four buildings was completed. Nine months later its sister resort, Disney’s Dixie Landings (now Port Orleans Riverside), opened — and the rest, as they say, is history!

For more background on the resort, and fun facts and trivia details, please see our History and Trivia pages.

As a special Anniversary treat, we’ve just made available for downloading a complete early copy of the official eight-page Port Orleans ‘resort newspaper’ The Sassagoula Sentinel as a fully detailed PDF file. Enjoy!


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Re: Celebrating 25 Years of Disney’s Port Orleans Resort

Posted: May 22nd, 2016, 10:11 am
by tnstruax
How long will the anniversary events be going on? Is it just for the week, month, or a number of days? Our family has a visit to PO:FQ in June and we are wondering if this is something we will be able to partake in or not.

Re: Celebrating 25 Years of Disney’s Port Orleans Resort

Posted: May 22nd, 2016, 8:07 pm
by Admin
Was just for a short event that day, nothing long-lasting I'm afraid.

Andre