Port Orleans News

Port Orleans Riverside and Port Orleans French Quarter will both be taking part in a two-week trial of an innovative new time-saving checkin procedure for guests arriving between Monday 16 June and Saturday 28 June 2014.

To qualify, guests with arrival dates between 16 and 28 June will need to have first created a My Disney Experience account, and already received their Magic Bands at home (meaning that this test will only be available to domestic US residents). The guests will also need to have completed Online Checkin, and paid in full prior to arrival - including setting up a PIN number for their account. Basically, everything you would normally do while standing at the Front Desk needs to have been completed in advance.

Any guests who meet these requirements will automatically receive a notification email a few days prior to arrival to make them aware of the test, and then an hour or so before their stated arrival time they will get a further text message and/or email indicating their assigned room number. They are then free to proceed directly to their room without any need to first call at the Front Desk.

Anyone not wishing to take advantage of this test - or perhaps needing more information, or with questions or concerns about the location of their room - should simply show up at the Front Desk and check-in normally. There is no need to "opt out" if anyone does not wish to participate, this is purely an added convenience.

This is only an initial time-limited test at the moment, not a soft-launch, and it will not currently be extended beyond the trial period. The results will then be evaluated to decide whether this system could work for a more general roll-out at Walt Disney World at some point in the future.

The trial will not be advertised generally, nor promoted to guests who have not already met the above criteria, so if you'd like to participate just get yourself set up in My Disney Experience, do your Online Checkin, and wait for your email.


[Updates added on 6 June]

This trial system is not compulsory, I guess it's mainly for repeat guests who often ask about whether the Front Desk line will be shorter or longer if they do online checkin, or if they arrive at 10am or 11am, etc. Think of it as "FastPass to your Room" if you like, or "Checkin+". If you don't want to use it though, that's entirely up to you.

"Paid in full" happens automatically for packages at 45 days out (and I assume for room-only at 6 days?) so no need to do anything in those cases. If you want to check, or force a payment through so this system will definitely kick in, just call the Reservation Center in advance. The system will not apply to any bookings where an ID needs to be confirmed upon arrival (e.g. cast member bookings, etc).

Welcome Packs will not (for the trial at least) be sent to rooms in advance. If you need one - for example for a map, parking pass or other welcome collateral - you'll need to pop by the Front Desk at your convenience to pick one up.

MagicBands and all their paid features (park tickets, dining plan credits, etc) will go live once the reservation is centrally 'checked-in' on the system, which is also when your text will be sent advising you of your room number - so guests can go directly to a park upon arrival at WDW if they wish.

The room number will normally be confirmed and a text sent about one hour before your stated arrival time, but it could be as close as 15 minutes if a suitable room is not ready early enough. If a room is still not ready by then, a message will be sent advising of the delay but your band will still be activated for all the other features but obviously not for door-key access yet. A followup message will confirm the room number later, and you will be able to use the door-key feature after that.

There will be three other Walt Disney World resort hotels taking part in the trial at the same time.

The June 2014 Recreation Activities and Movie Schedules for Port Orleans Riverside and Port Orleans French Quarter are now available. See the main Recreation Activities Schedule page for full-size PDF versions, or click on the images below.

The outdoor movies will start at 9pm and the daily campfires commence at 7pm this month.

Our popular Port Orleans building floorplan layouts have just been updated to add even more detail. Not only can you check the various room types & categories, and the locations of all the Accessible rooms, but you can now see every pair of rooms that includes a Connecting Doorway too. While special room requests can never be guaranteed of course, it is now much easier for you to check to see if a particular room request might be realistic or not.

Around this time for a number of years, Walt Disney World has launched a free 'Disney Dining Plan' promotion for room with park ticket packages booked for the slower months of the Fall, usually starting in late August and often getting extended until mid-December. Previously, Port Orleans was one of the resorts included within the offer but unfortunately it appears that Riverside and French Quarter have perhaps become victims of their own success and Disney have opted not to include them in the promotion this year.

Forecasted occupancy levels are monitored regularly by Disney, and offer details can be changed with very little notice if they think they need to promote a particular resort which is not selling well - but unfortunately (for us anyway) Port Orleans' average occupancy level is dramatically higher than either of the other two Moderate resorts (Caribbean Beach and Coronado Springs) so there is currently not much likelihood of Disney needing to offer extra incentives for guests to stay there.

If you're interested in switching to another resort in order to take advantage of the offer, please see the various online discussion threads (such as http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=3271072) for more details. The dates are 31 Aug - 23 Dec with some lengthy blackout dates covering most of October and parts of November/December, and bookings commence on 2 May for Disney Visa card holders and 7 May for everyone else.

The May 2014 Recreation Activities and Movie Schedules for Port Orleans Riverside and Port Orleans French Quarter are now available. See the main Recreation Activities Schedule page for full-size PDF versions, or click on the images below.

The outdoor movies will start at 9pm and the daily campfires commence at 7pm this month.