Port Orleans News

Port Orleans Riverside Lobby Refurbishment Commences, estimated to continue through to the first week in June. Alligator Bayou buildings 16 and 24 currently undergoing refurbishment too.

Work on refurbishing Port Orleans Riverside's stylish 'steamboat company' lobby area commenced yesterday and is expected to continue through to the first week in June. In the meantime, reception facilities will be temporarily borrowing part of the River Roost Lounge, and it is suggested that guests may find that using the online check-in system could speed up their arrival process. The work will include brand new carpet, refreshed paintwork and other details, but all staying true to the original design concept of the resort. I'm pleased to say that one of my favourite details, the gorgeous period and themed paintings and maps on the walls behind the check-in desks, will be staying.

The Alligator Bayou guest room refurbishment program is also progressing well, with building 24 new well underway and building 16 commenced over the weekend. As the 'twenties' buildings are having roofing work done at the same time, and each one will not be re-opened until the scaffolding is down, it's possible that building 16 may reopen before 24. Building 17 will be the next to start work, this coming weekend. See http://www.portorleans.org/rehab.php for the latest updates.

The final 256 Royal Guest Rooms located in Port Orleans Riverside's Parterre Place reopened today, completing the refurbishment of the whole 1,024 room Magnolia Bend mansion building area.

Sunday 15 April will then see work recommence on the remaining Alligator Bayou Lodges - starting with building 24 and progressing with one new building started each week for the next three months. Currently the planned schedule is 24, 16, 17, 28, 15, 27, 18, 39, 25, 34, 35 and finally 26. Refurbishment work will take approximately two weeks per building so there will be some overlap with at least two buildings down at any given time. The "twenties" buildings could each be closed for slightly longer than two weeks to allow time for additional roofing work which has been scheduled to run in parallel with the room updates. See the top of the Reburbishment News Updates page for the latest progress information.

The Easter Sunday 2012 Recreation Schedules are now available, see the main Recreation Schedules page for more details.

It’s great see some character greetings at the resorts on Easter Sunday, especially for those who want a quieter start to the day and don’t plan on hitting the parks too early. There are lots of other fun and activities during the day too, many of which seems to involve various sorts of rather enticing confectionary... still, at least there’s some running around involved to get it!

Also, both of the resort gift shops (Fulton’s General Store at Port Orleans Riverside and Jackson Square Gifts and Desires at Port Orleans French Quarter) are offering pre-made and made-to-order Easter Baskets until Easter Sunday. These can be ordered in advance and held for pickup.

Denise and Jeff from MouseSteps and JeffLangeDVD have just uploaded the best series of in-room photos I've yet seen of the new Royal Guest Rooms at Port Orleans Riverside, including all the new details in the surrounding sections of Oak Manor. See http://www.mousesteps.com/index.php?opt ... Itemid=146 for the full set of photos.

They have also put together a nice Royal Guest Room video tour at http://jefflangedvd.com/2012/03/disneys ... and-video/ and there's also a video tour of a refurbished Alligator Bayou room further down the same page.

Their sites are both well worth regular visits from any Walt Disney World fan, why not bookmark them?

The April 2012 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 8:30pm and the daily campfires commence at 7pm.

There will also be various special activities on Easter Sunday (8th April) such as Easter Egg/candy hunts, cake decorating, Disney character greetings and loads of games for the kids. More details and a full schedule will be posted here once the timetable has been confirmed.