Please remember that maintenance plans and dates are subject to change at any time, and often Disney does not release details of scheduled work until around three months prior to its commencement. Updates will be posted here as and when further information or dates become available, so it would be worth bookmarking or watchlisting this page.

Only major projects will be listed here. Other smaller routine works can be expected during any visit, especially during the off-peak winter months, as that’s how they keep the place looking so beautiful for you! For completed projects, please see the Refurbishment Projects Archive page.

Special thanks to regular Port Orleans guest John “RiverRooster” Schmidt who has provided invaluable photo updates during his trips. For lots more of his photos, please see his Guest Photo Gallery page.

Port Orleans Riverside Room Refurbishments, May 2025 – August 2027

Riverside’s Magnolia Bend mansion buildings are due to commence guest room refurbishment early May 2025 [was originally announced as early April] and work was projected to last until the end of February 2026 [was January]. Exact dates are subject to change as snagging work over at French Quarter continues, but the latest estimate is that work will begin on or around 5th May with building 90. As with previous refurbishments, work will be carried out one building at a time, during the daytime only, so guests should not be significantly impacted.

There had been much discussion about how the Royal Room refurbs would progress (the original “soft goods only” concept from 2020 having long since been abandoned) and it can now be confirmed that the current 512 Royal Rooms will be reduced to just 256 rooms, all located in Parterre Place (95). All of building 90 will return to regular-style Magnolia Bend mansion rooms during the 2025 refurbishment.

It is expected that there will be a period from January 2026 until the start of April 2026 when the sole Royal building (95) goes down for refurbishment – at which time there will be no Royal Rooms open at all, and any pre-booked guests will need to be relocated.

After that, there will be a short pause before work commences on the 16 Alligator Bayou lodges in late summer 2026, lasting for about another year.

Update Sunday 5 April 2026

The Royal Rooms in building 95 reopened today, to sadly somewhat underwhelming reactions, see News Page. This means that the whole of Magnolia Bend is now complete, and work will commence on the Alligator Bayou buildings late summer.

Update 5 January 2026

Building 95, Parterre Place (all of the Royal Rooms) was reported as being closed for its refurbishment work as from 5th January 2026. It should be re-opening late March/early April. They will then commence work on Alligator Bayou late summer.

Update 13 December 2025

Guests are starting to be allocated to mansion building 80 from today, just in time for Christmas. Next, first thing in January, building 95 will be closed for about three months while its Royal Rooms are refurbished. After that, there will be a short pause before work switches over to the 16 Alligator Bayou lodges in late summer 2026, lasting for about another year.

Update 19 November 2025

The Walt Disney World website has extended the projected end dates for the current room refurbishment program until August 2027. Once building 95’s Royal Rooms are finished by March/April 2026, there will be a short pause and then they will move on working on the sixteen Alligator bayou lodges after the peak summer period.

Update Saturday 4 October 2025

Riverside building 85 (Magnolia Terrace) reopened for guests today after its refurbishment, with a short opening ceremony by cast members. Building 80 (Acadian House) has been closed for a short while now.

Update Friday 8 August 2025

Riverside building 90 (Oak Manor) reopened today after a ten week refurbishment program. Building 85 (Magnolia Terrace) is still undergoing work, which will be followed by 80 (Acadian House) and finally 95 early in 2026 (Parterre Place, the only one that will still contain Royal Rooms).

The new rooms look very similar in layout to the recent French Quarter updates, featuring a very nice – although strangely woodsy – painting behind the bed heads, and walk-in showers in many of the rooms.

Update early August 2025

The inventory restrictions on Royal Room bookings have been modified again, now allowing for new stays up until 31st December 2025. However 1st January until 5th April 2026 still has no Royal Room availability at all, so I assume it’s now fairly certain that building 95 is not expected to be closing for refurbishment until at least the beginning of 2026, which will be a relief to anyone holding existing bookings up to the end of this year.

Update 16 July 2025

Building 85 (Magnolia Terrace) now has construction barriers erected all around its perimeter in readiness for refurbishment work to commence, so currently only two of the four mansion buildings are available for guests, 80 (Acadian House, regular rooms) and 95 (Parterre Place, Royal Rooms).

Update early June 2025

Port Orleans Riverside building 90 (Oak Manor) was closed for the start of room refurbishment work at the end of May 2025. When the building reopens in a few months, it will feature updated regular mansion building rooms, rather than Royal Rooms (which from now on will only be available in building 95). The blackout for making any bookings for Royal Room stays has been modified again, now covering the period starting from 14th August 2025 until 5th April 2026 inclusive.

Update 17 May 2025

Work on building 90 has still not commenced, but general availability of Royal Room inventory now seems to have been extended until 1st August 2025, after which point they are still blocked out until the beginning of 2026.

Update 22 March 2025

As of March 2025, there was no new inventory available on the Disney booking website for any Royal Room categories from 8th June 2025 until at least the end of 2025. I’m pretty sure that at least some of those blocked-out dates are precautionary as they can’t know for sure which buildings will be closed for how long, so they are just erring on the side of caution to avoid accidentally overselling the available 256 Royal Rooms and thus having to disappoint too many guests.

French Quarter Lobby Refurbishment Work, 25 August 2025 until the end of September 2025

The main registration lobby at Port Orleans French Quarter will be undergoing renovation work from 25th August for about a month. There shouldn’t be anything that will impact on availability of any facilities for guests, but there will obviously be some sections of the lobby closed off while the work is carried out, and potentially some indoor noise during the daytime.

Work was completed shortly before the end of September, and consisted mainly of modifying some of the desk areas to make them less formal and providing a dual-level tabletop and seating area with power points for guests’ use, and adding several large rugs with comfortable sofa and chair seating, somewhat reminiscent of the Riverside lobby.

French Quarter Room Refurbishments Commence May 2024, probably lasting until February/March 2025

The work on all buildings, including the snagging revisits, was completed by the end of May 2025. There has since been additional repair work carried out to fix some cracked concrete walkways which were damaged when using/moving construction equipment.

Update 16 May 2025

Building 2 reopened today, so just building 1 is still closed for snagging work at the moment. Can’t be much longer now.

Update 14 April 2025

Building 3 is now open again, and apparently building 4 too. Building 2 has started snagging work, and building 1 was not far behind it. We don’t yet know whether buildings 6 or 7 will require any further work, or whether the additional issues were identified and remedied during the original refurbishment work.

Update 31 March 2025

Building 5 has now re-opened. It seemed to happen in stages, as some rooms were reported to be open last week. Also, currently buildings 3 & 4 are temporarily closed again for snagging/remedial work

Update 11 March 2025

Building 5 is still closed, and there are reports of other buildings (currently 3 & 4) being temporarily closed again for snagging/remedial work to tackle issues that have been noted by guests and/or cast members since the refurbished rooms were first reopened. Expect the same to happen with the other earlier buildings once 3 & 4 are reopened.

Update 14 February 2025

Building 7 is now reported to be open to guests, staged over the last week or so. So now only building 5 is closed, with the rest of the resort now reopened with refurbished rooms.

Update 30 January 2025

Building 5 is now reported to be closed, so that›s finally it for the previous room style. Buildings 1-4 & 6 are now fully reopened with refurbished rooms, and building 7 must be nearing completion too by now.

Update 18 January 2025

Building 6 re-opened today, leaving just building 7 closed at the moment. Building 5 is currently the only location remaining with old-style rooms but expect that to commence its refurbishment very soon, at which point only newly refurbished rooms will be available at the resort.

Update 24 December 2024

Building 7 is now completely closed, along with building 6 which has been closed for a while. Buildings 1-4 are open with refurbished rooms, and building 5 is the only one remaining with old-style rooms.

Update 11 December 2024

Some parts of building 7 are now reported to be closed for refurbishment; most of the river facing rooms are still available. Building 5 will be the final one to close.

Update 26 November 2024

Building 4 is now reported to be open. So 1-4 are now open with new rooms, 6 is closed, and 5 & 7 still have the previous room design.

Update 10 November 2024

Building 3 construction barriers were removed on 5 Nov, and the first guests were admitted on Sunday 10 Nov. Building 6 was closed as of 4 Nov. So currently buildings 1, 2 and 3 are open with refurbished rooms, 4 & 6 are closed, and 5 & 7 remain the last ones open with the previous room design.

Update 28 September 2024

Building 2 has now re-opened. So currently buildings 1 & 2 are open with all-new rooms. Buildings 3 & 4 are closed. Buildings 5, 6 & 7 are still open with the previous room design.

Update Thursday 19 September 2024

Building 4 is now closed as they prepare to refurbish the rooms there. So currently building 1 is fully open with all-new rooms. Buildings 2, 3 and 4 are closed. Buildings 5, 6 and 7 are still open with the previous room design.

Update Friday 30 August 2024

Port Orleans French Quarter Building 1 is now open! After a three month "hard goods" refurbishment, Cast Members held a short opening ceremony at 9:30am on Friday 30th August, led by resort General Manager Kelly Kline.

The first guests will be assigned to the building from around 3pm this afternoon, and about 60+ guests should be sleeping in one of the new rooms by tonight. Buildings 2 and 3 remain under construction, and as more buildings are completed the remaining buildings 4-7 will be worked on. There is now a slightly delayed estimate of February 2025 for the whole resort to be completed.

The new rooms offer a cool blue theme with brown accents and a longer white marble effect countertop, and feature solid sliding doors to both the vanity and bathroom areas, and a glass shower door rather than any curtains. Three "Princess and the Frog" pictures adorn the walls, but otherwise there is no in-your-face Disney detail - although there are subtle New Orleans musical instrument references in much of the patterned decor. There is lots more storage than before, which will be welcomed by families in particular. A bench seat (NOT an extra bed) is provided beside the table in regular rooms, or two chairs in corner rooms where the bench seat would not fit under the second window.

Fold-out reading lamps are by each bedside, and there's a small wall-mounted table for the guest on the far side of the bed. USB-A and USB-C ports are provided alongside each power socket. The rooms now feature beverage coolers not mini-fridges, which is not a move welcomed by most guests but seems to be a general trend at Walt Disney World. There's a cute little wooden step in the vanity area for kids to reach the basins - and for adults to reach the very high safe! Some rooms will have walk-in showers instead of tubs, but I'm not sure how many as yet.

Lots more detailed photos will follow when I get home and can upload content from my DSLR camera, but in the meantime the first look pictures taken on my phone are on our Facebook Group. Many thanks to Kelly for her time and for the sneak peak access.

Opening ceremony photos
First in-room photos

 

Original Information, May 2024

The Port Orleans French Quarter guest rooms have commenced a resort-wide refurbishment program. Entire buildings will be closed for guest use during the work to reduce impact on other guests, and building 1 was shut as from the end of May 2024. It is expected that each building will take 4-6 weeks to complete, with buildings 2 or 3 being the next in line and due to start work sometime late June/early July.

Disney has not released any advance details of what the new rooms will look like, but we do know that this will be a full “hard goods” refurbishment. This means that everything will be stripped back to bare walls and floors, and all existing fittings will be replaced. From brief glimpses into work in progress rooms, it seems like the wall between the bedroom and the vanity area has been removed for possible installation of hard shuttered doors to replace the current privacy curtains.

The last French Quarter refurbishment program ran from 6 Jan 2018 to 10 July 2018, which included new hard flooring, larger TVs, raised beds, new soft fittings, and some other details such as an illuminated vanity mirror and the fitting of multiple USB ports.

French Quarter Pool Closure, 16–21 December 2024

The Doubloon Lagoon feature swimming pool at French Quarter, presumably along with the children’s splash play area, will be closed for maintenance for a few days from 16 to 21 December 2024. All of the Riverside pools will remain open and guests can use those in the meantime if they wish.

Port Orleans French Quarter “Doubloon Lagoon” pool closure, January–April 2024

Plenty of advanced notice on this one. The main Doubloon Lagoon feature pool at Port Orleans French Quarter will be closed for refurbishment during the opening few months of 2024. More specific dates will presumably be made available closer to the commencement of works.

Guests will still be able to use any of the six pools over at Port Orleans Riverside, which is a ten minute walk away or can be reached using the ferry boat service or shuttle buses. When this sort of work has been undertaken in the past, the resort has always provided a free local shuttle service to get guests to and from the alternate pool.

Update: the pool closed on 22nd January 2024 – including the splash play area, pool bar, and the hot tub (slightly earlier on 17 January). The main pool reopened 30 March 2024 just in time for Easter, with the hot tub available a little earlier. Final work on the Mardi Grogs extended seating area was completed a few weeks later.

Port Orleans Riverside Guest Room “Soft Goods” Refurbishment (started late Summer/Fall 2018)

All of the guest rooms at Port Orleans French Quarter (see below) and Port Orleans Riverside’s Alligator Bayou and the regular Magnolia Bend mansion buildings (80 and 85, Acadian House and Magnolia Terrace) were refurbished just prior to the extended shutdown due to COVID.

Work on the two Royal Room buildings was slightly delayed but was finally scheduled to commence just after Easter 2020... but of course the impact of COVID caused those plans to be indefinitely postponed. There is currently no firm indication of when this final phase of work will commence, but it definitely won’t happen during the current Disney financial year. So hopefully work may commence sometime fairly soon after after October 2023?

When work does eventually start on these last two Port Orleans Riverside buildings, the process should take around three months to complete and the area will be closed section-by-section – for example one wing at a time, all floors at once – to minimize disruption to other guests while still allowing other parts of the buildings to remain in use.

Building	Original Estimated Start Date	Status
80	Completed end Sept 2019	Work commenced 8 July 2019. First rooms re-opened early August, some work still continuing in the southern section. Now complete (end Sept 2019)
85	Completed mid Oct 2019	Work started on southern half of building 85 on 13 Aug. Completed second week in October.
90	Nov 2019 [postponed indefinitely]	Following the Coronavirus closures, there are currently no imminent plans to resume room refurbishment work.
95	Dec 2019 [postponed indefinitely]	Following the Coronavirus closures, there are currently no imminent plans to resume room refurbishment work.

 
 

During the Alligator Bayou work, the 20s leisure swimming pool (the one closest to building 24) was closed for fairly extensive maintenance work, including re-skimming the interior surface, starting from 13 Aug. The pool re-opened to guests on 29 September. The 30s pool (next to buildings 35 and 36) was also closed for a few days from 7 Aug to 10 Aug for minor routine work on the decking area.

In advance of this work, the second week in May 2018 saw the start of installation of the new style wall-mounted amenity dispensers (body wash, shampoo, etc) in the bathrooms of the Riverside mansion buildings, starting with Parterre Place and working round to Acadian House over the following month or so.

Building	Original Estimated Start Date	Status
37	Completed by 30 Aug	Work commenced 21 July. 30 Aug first guest reports from new rooms.
38	Completed by 3 Sep	Work commenced 4 August, first guest stay reported on 3 Sep
39	Completed	Work commenced 11 August. Now Reported as Completed
36	Completed	Reported as Completed
35	Completed	Reported as Completed
34	Completed	Reported as Completed After this building, work was paused until April 2019, pushing schedule back by six months
24	Completed	Work commenced beginning of April 2019. Now Reported as Completed
28	Completed	Work commenced April 2019. Now Reported as Completed
26	Completed	Reported as Completed
25	Completed	Work commenced April/May 2019. Now Reported as Completed
27	Completed	Work commenced May 2019. Now Reported as Completed
17	Completed	Reported as Completed
16	Completed	Reported as Completed
15	Completed	Completed end of June 2019
18	Completed	Reported as Completed
14	Completed	Completed start of July 2019

 

Port Orleans Riverside pool slide on Ol’ Man Island closure, 2-6 Dec 2019

The slide at the Ol’ Man Island pool will be closed during the week of 2–6 Dec for maintenance. There will be a free shuttle to French Quarter that picks up by the Gazebo near building 85 (Magnolia Terrace) and takes guests to the Doubloon Lagoon Pool during that time. There may also be intermittent pool downtimes associated with the work, but there are no official dates or times.

Magnolia Bend Quiet Pool Closure from mid September until late October 2019

Update: The Magnolia Bend quiet pool was reopened on 31 October 2019.

The quiet leisure pool located in Magnolia Bend between buildings 80 (Acadian House) and 85 (Magnolia Terrace) will be closed for maintenance and refurbishment work from mid September 2019 until late October 2019. The closure includes the laundry building next to the pool. This work broadly aligns with the current guest room refurbishment process that is underway in the same general area. The main feature pool on Ol' Man Island, and the other four quiet pools around the resort, will remain open as normal.

Port Orleans French Quarter Guest Room “Soft Goods” Refurbishment [Now Complete]

The planned dates for the upcoming Port Orleans French Quarter guest room soft-goods refurbishment project over the first half of 2018 are as follows. Please remember that this schedule is tentative and may be subject to change as the project progresses. Currently each building seems to be re-opening around a month behind its target date, and the revised completion estimates were provided at the start of April.

Location	Original Schedule	Completion / Estimate	Progress
Building 2	Jan 6 – Feb 9, 2018	Completed 1 March	Top floor re-opened 8 February. Building fully completed 1 March.
Building 3	Jan 23 – Feb 25, 2018	Completed End of March	Work commenced 1 March. Top floor re-opened 18 March, middle floor by 20 March. [Building now fully re-opened]
Building 1	Feb 10 – Mar 13, 2018	Completed mid-April	Top floor closed and being prepped for work as of 17 March. Update on 31 March: work now underway on all floors. [Now fully re-opened]
Building 5	Feb 26 – Mar 31, 2018	Completed early May	Update on 2 May: Floors 2 and 3 reopened for guests. Floor 1 almost complete. [Now fully re-opened]
Building 4	Mar 14 – Apr 16, 2018	Completed end of May	Update on 1 May: Top two floors now being worked on, ground floor was still in use. 15 May: All floors now being worked on. 23 May: Top floor re-opened to guests, 2nd floor nearly ready. [Now fully re-opened]
Building 6	Apr 1 – May 4, 2018	Completed by 22 June	15 May: Work has started on top floor, lower floors are still occupied. 27 May: More floors started work. All floors being worked on by start of June. Reported completed as of 22 June.
Building 7	Apr 17 – May 20, 2018	Completed by 10 July	16 June: Work progressing on upper floors, ground floor still in use by guests 22 June: All floors now closed to guests and being worked on. 7 July: Top two floors now re-opened, ground floor almost done. [Now All Complete]

 

Refurbished Rooms Report, 3 March 2018 For the latest photos of the new rooms, please see our French Quarter Refurbishment Gallery Page. Lagging somewhat behind the originally planned schedule, the first of the refurbished rooms in building 2 at Port Orleans French Quarter were re-opened to guests on 8th February 2018. Initially only the top floor rooms were opened while work continued on the rest of the building, the remaining floors being completed and the whole building re-opened by 1 March. Workers then moved on to building 3. Guests arriving in June and July have reported receiving emails warning them of possible construction disruption during their stay, so obviously there are concerns that this work will seriously over-run the original provisional timescale. The new room design is very understated – some on Facebook have even gone so far as to say it’s a bit bland. The colours are more muted and the refreshed curtains are much more subtly ‘New Orleans’ themed than they were before. The old venetian blinds have been replaced with net curtains, providing a somewhat more limited degree of privacy unless you also close the blackout curtains which will cut out any external light completely. The lovely decorative borders along the ceiling edges are all gone too, just plain walls now. Sadly there is still only plain white bed linen, rather sterile in both the good and bad senses of the word. However on the plus side, the beds themselves are now raised on legs rather than solid metal bases though, allowing about 14 inches of extra space beneath each bed for storage of luggage, etc. Hard wood flooring with an attractive inlaid design effect has replaced the old carpets (which will now be much easier to keep clean) and the chest-of-drawers features a new top panel including power and USB sockets, and the chairs have been reupholstered. The over-bed lights have new oblong shades with subtle fleur-de-lys designs, and the switches have been replaced throughout. There are some nice new touches such as a larger single main mirror and a repositionable round shaving mirror in the bathroom, and a larger wall-mounted TV (sadly with obtrusive white plastic conduit concealing the cables, shame they could not have channeled the wall during the refit). The wall safes are now larger and have combination locks rather than physical keys. Toiletries are now provided as large wall-mounted dispenser bottles in the bathroom rather than the small individual bottles which somehow always seemed to end up in guests’ suitcases... Most other fittings appear to have remained unchanged, such as the bed headboards, green bench seat, bathroom tiling and shower, hand basins and counter-top, coat rack, Cuisinart coffee maker (not Keurig), and the Imagineering painting on the wall. Many thanks to Jenni Lee over on the Port Orleans Magical Guide Facebook Group for her first photos on opening day:

 

Original Background Information

In order to minimise disruption the work will be undertaken on a floor-by-floor basis for each building, starting on the third floor and working down to the ground floor. There should be very little impact to guests staying in the other buildings, and no one will be allocated to a room on a floor that is currently under construction. However it is possible that guests may be allocated to rooms on other floors in the same building, depending on occupancy requirements at the time.

No further details or photos are available as yet, but the work will most likely include changing out the carpeting for hard wood-effect flooring, possibly adding a shutter of some sort between the bedroom and the vanity area, and other general decor and soft goods replacements including the addition of a larger Smart TV hung on the wall. I would be most surprised if we didn’t also see some of the added features that have been popping up at other resorts (for example Pop Century) such as USB charging sockets, extra storage options, etc. And if we are really lucky, perhaps something a little less stark than the plain-white bed linen that recently appeared at the resorts. Only time will tell.

[Update on 9th January 2018] A poster in the excellent “Disney’s Port Orleans Resorts - A Magical Guide” Facebook Group observed that work has now commenced on the upper floor of building 2, as we revealed a few months ago. They saw carpet being pulled up and mattresses, furniture, TVs, chairs, etc being removed. Pressure washing of the outside of the building was also taking place.

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Previous Major Maintenance and Refurbishment Projects

For details and photos of some of the previous major maintenance and refurbishment projects that have taken place over the past few years at the Port Orleans resorts, please the please see the Refurbishment Projects Archive page. These include:

• Riverside Mill Flooring Replacement Project (Completed September 2017)
• Port Orleans French Quarter food court refurbishment (Re-opened 19 November 2016)
• Port Orleans Riverside Leisure Pool Fencing Project (Completed November 2016)
• French Quarter Children’s Aquatic Play Area (Opened 7 March 2016)
• Riverside Magnolia Terrace Roofing Refurbishment Work (Completed mid-July 2016)
• French Quarter Children’s Aquatic Play Area (Opened 7 March 2016)
• Riverside Ol’ Man Island Pool Maintenance (Completed 5 March 2016)
• Riverside Oak Manor Roofing Refurbishment Work (Completed 18 July 2014)
• French Quarter Doubloon Lagoon Pool Refurbishment Work (Reopened 4 March 2014)
• Refurbished Campfire Locations (July–September 2013)
• French Quarter Registration Lobby Refurbishment (Reopened 18 July 2013)
• Riverside Registration Lobby Refurbishment (Reopened 26 June 2012)
• Guest Room Refurbishments (2010–2012)