Around 21st November 2017, Port Orleans Riverside's General Manager since August 2015, Suzette Noble, left the company after some 20 years of working in various management capacities at Walt Disney World. The General Manager of Port Orleans French Quarter, Punam Dayabhai-Jairambhai, briefly filled in to oversee both resorts before she too was transitioned away to become General Manager at Disney's All Star Movies.
Within a couple of weeks the existing General Manager of All Star Movies, John Berko, had been moved over to Port Orleans to take up a combined role overseeing both sides of the resort, Riverside and French Quarter. Ironically this had always been a joint management position in the past, most recently under the auspices of Valerie Bunting between 2009 and 2015 until she was transferred to a management role at the theme parks. For the past two years though there have been separate General Managers, Suzette at Riverside and Punam at French Quarter, but Disney appears to have decided to return the original combined structure with one General Manager overseeing both resorts.
Over the past few days, the in-room collateral has been updated to reflect last year's changes, and the Guest Welcome Letter is now signed from John Berko. Interestingly, and as far as I know for the first time, the letter also provides a dedicated email address, WDW.GM.PortOrleans@disney.com, which allows guests to pass on comments about their stay. The welcome letter assures guests that every email received will be read and personally responded to - either by John or one of his team - and he concludes by wishing guests a magical stay at Disney's Port Orleans Resort.
I'd like to take this opportunity to wish John well as he continues to settle into his new role at Port Orleans, and of course to Punam in her new position too. I would also like to extend my very best wishes and personal thanks to Suzette for all her work at Disney and for her help and support over the past few years.
