Port Orleans News

The Downtown Disney Marketplace ferry dock (located next to the Rainforest Cafe) will be closed from 22 February 2014 until the fall for construction work related to the new Disney Springs project at Downtown Disney. In the meantime, the Port Orleans river ferry boats will still run as normal, but they will use the Pleasure Island dock in the centre of Downtown Disney instead.

The temporary new routes will be as follows:

• Port Orleans River Cruise – Yellow Route
  Service between Downtown Disney Pleasure Island and Disney’s Port Orleans Resorts
• Disney Vacation Club Ferry – Blue Route
  Service between Downtown Disney West Side and Disney’s Old Key West Resort, Disney’s Saratoga Resort & Spa and the Treehouse Villas
• Internal Downtown Disney Water Taxi – Red Route
  Service between Downtown Disney West Side and Pleasure Island only

Port Orleans Riverside and Port Orleans French Quarter will be extending their Resort Airline Check-In Service to include guests travelling on International flights as from 24 February 2014.

As with existing guests travelling on domestic US flights, the Resort Airline Check-In Service allows guests to check in for their flight directly at their hotel on their day of travel, including retrieving boarding passes and dropping off checked luggage. This is part of a gradual roll-out, and all Disney Resorts will be offering the International Airline Check-In facility by 17 March.

The airlines which participate in the scheme are Alaska Airlines, American Airlines, AirTran Airways, Delta Air Lines, JetBlue Airways, Southwest Airlines, United Airlines and US Airways - which given that these are all internal US carriers does seem a little ironic, but at least many of them do fly overseas too.

The February 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 7pm and the daily campfires commence at 5pm this month.

The traditional plastic 'Key to the World' cards will be phased out at Port Orleans as from Tuesday 7 January 2014 as part of the ongoing rollout of Disney's new MyMagic+ system. When you check in after that date, each guest will automatically receive a Magic Band wrist bracelet only, with no backup plastic card supplied unless specifically requested.

The Magic Bands have been in testing for several months, and allow you to access everything that the old KttW cards did, and more - guest room door access, theme park admission, Disney Dining Plan credits, resort-wide payment facilities (charged back to your room account), FastPass+ pre-bookings for attractions, car park access, etc.

You can manage all of your bookings, customise your Magic Bands and make dining & FastPass+ reservations via a personalised account system called My Disney Experience, which can be accessed from the Disney website or via mobile devices or using terminals in the parks.

Guests who, for whatever reason, are not comfortable with the bracelet system can still request a plastic card which will do all of the same things - but it will simply mimic the tap-to-use operation of the Magic Bands (using its own RFID chip) rather than providing a magnetic stripe for swiping in the old-fashioned way. This means that you will no longer be able to reserve attraction times using the old legacy Fast Pass system - you will only have access to the new interactive FastPass+ variant. That sadly means that from now on, unless you have pre-booked you're probably not going to get a FastPass for the headliner rides such as Soarin' or Toy Story Midway Mania. Another nail in the coffin for spontaneity at Walt Disney World, I'm afraid.

The January 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 7pm and the daily campfires commence at 5pm this month.