Port Orleans News

The guest-room refurbishment process at Port Orleans French Quarter has now commenced. Work started on building 7 on Monday 1 November 2010, initially with floors two and three of the building which are now designated as hard-hat construction areas and are thus off-limits to all guests and resort cast members. A large area of the parking lot next to building 7 is currently fenced off for materials storage and dumping of scrap material.

The expectation is that each building will take approximately one month to update, with the whole resort being completed by April 2011. After that work will commence on the mansion buildings at Port Orleans Riverside and then finally the Riverside Alligator Bayou section. The whole process is expected to take between 12 and 18 months.

A test room — corner room 7116 — was completed a while ago, but the resort managers are not allowing any guests to view it at the moment (no matter how much you plead). Luckily the blinds were not completely closed, so it was possible to sneak a peek at some of the interior detail such as the expected flat-screen TV and queen size beds. The basic colour scheme appears to be in greens and yellows, with gold accents and dark wood furniture.

The new bedspreads are a fairly dark green with ornate golden flourish detailing, and the headboards resemble those in the Riverside mansion buildings. The carpet is a lighter green with yellow/gold details (again, much like the current mansion buildings at Riverside) and the curtains are pale yellow. The wash area retains the traditional twin-sink layout but with a shallow dark wood pelmet-style surround, decorated to look like drawers. The ornate detailing in the corners of the archway to the wash area has been retained.

More info as soon as anyone manages to get a better look (or photos!) inside a refurbished room, but we can certainly expect building 7 to be completed and available for guests sometime between the end of November and Christmas. Please remember that there are no guarantees that you will get any particular location, but it certainly can’t do any harm to put in a request...

French Quarter room rehabs are starting around now, as we already knew, followed by Riverside. Once the process gains momentum, two buildings may be done at a time for speed. The rooms will be completely gutted and fully renovated (including replacing bath tubs, basins, etc). New small cupboards with drawers will be added to the bathrooms. Flat screen TVs will be added on dresser-style units, with drawers underneath, and the old Riverside tall armoires will be removed.

I’ve also heard that the bedside tables will be made smaller (18 inches wide) to allow for... queen beds! From what I’ve gathered, the third-bed option in the Alligator Bayou rooms will be retained, but probably not in the form of the current trundle beds due to adverse guest comments about them being rather low to the ground. The talk I heard was of some sort of Murphy bed arrangement which might pull down from the wall, but I can't see quite how that would fit into the room layout, especially with connecting rooms. Time will tell on that one, I suspect.

This morning, a small group of Disney PhotoPass photographers was spotted taking posed sample shots around the grounds of Port Orleans Riverside. It seems that the portrait sessions currently available at several of the deluxe resorts, such as the Grand Floridian and Polynesian, are proving so popular that Disney is looking into the possibility of expanding their offerings into other locations, such as perhaps one of the moderate hotels.

One of the photographers indicated that Riverside was giving them some of the most photogenic backdrops so far, but of course nothing has been decided as yet and it may be some time (if ever) before the project is taken any further. Sounds like a great idea though.

LIVE VIDEO streaming direct from Port Orleans Riverside until 1 Nov 2010, see the Video page for details of when the feed is running, or visit EyesOnEars.com to join in the online fun.

A guest visiting the resort last week asked a manager at Port Orleans French Quarter about the rehabs and the possible new room themes. She was told that everything is still just conjecture at this point as far as the different themes go, but that if it did happen it would be only be a portion of the rooms, and that those rooms would be at Riverside rather than French Quarter.

The manager did however confirm that both resorts were definitely going to be refurbished and the work should take 18 months or so to complete. French Quarter would be started first (pretty much imminently) and would be completely finished by April 2011. She also mentioned that she had seen samples of the new carpet and it looked fabulous.