Disney's Port Orleans Resort - Riverside

“Not up to its usual standards”

I wish I could give 3.5 stars but three seem too low so I went with four stars. I’ve stayed at this hotel a number of times and this is the first time I did not give it five stars. While it might seem that I’m being picky about some of the things I was unhappy about, Disney has spoiled me and I alw… more

I wish I could give 3.5 stars but three seem too low so I went with four stars. I’ve stayed at this hotel a number of times and this is the first time I did not give it five stars. While it might seem that I’m being picky about some of the things I was unhappy about, Disney has spoiled me and I always expect everything to be perfect. There were a number of issues with housekeeping and I did speak to the front desk about it and they were apologetic. They only clean the room every other day and while they leave enough towels for two days, they don’t restock other things such as toilet paper and tissues. One day we had no toilet paper and I called the front desk and they said someone would bring some right away and no one ever brought any. I had to go out and look for housekeeping with the cart and ask them for a roll of toilet paper. Two days later, the same thing happened with tissues, and I had to go out and find housekeeping with a cart and ask for more tissues. If they’re not going to clean the room every day, they need to leave extra supplies. While I found the employees to be very friendly as usual, there was one night that I returned to the hotel at 10 PM and there were two employees in a golf cart right outside the rooms arguing about something. They were very loud and just didn’t seem to represent the Disney experience. Also, my car was in the parking lot and one day when I was leaving, an employee in a golf cart came off the sidewalk right into the parking lot and almost hit me. I stopped and he just put his hand up as if to say sorry. I’m sure they give training about this, but this could’ve gone bad real fast if it was someone walking there. I also had a number of issues at the food court. While the food is not amazing there, it’s always been fine and the employees have always been super nice, but this year was different. Every morning, I would get oatmeal which they serve in a paper bowl. For the first few days, they filled up the bowl. However, a few days later, they only filled the bowl up halfway, and when I asked them to fill it up, the employee said it was filled up and argued with me because it was clearly only half a cup, and she kept insisting it was a full cup. I did complain to the front desk about this because I have never had an employee speak to me like that at Disney and thought it was a one off, but a few days later the exact same thing happened with another employee. They raised the price significantly on the oatmeal this year and depending on who you get you may get half a bowl of oatmeal or a full bowl of oatmeal. This is just bad training. While all of this sounds bad, I do have to say overall, we had a really good time there. Aside from those few issues, the employees are super nice, the place is really clean and quite beautiful. Also, I don’t know if it was my imagination, but I think they added more signage to direct you where to go because in past years, I’ve always gotten lost and complained to my husband about the lack of signage because the property is huge. This year there was signage everywhere. Would I go back? Sure but if French quarter is available for a comparative price, I would stay there.

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“Beautiful”

Overall, this is a decent place to stay at Walt Disney World. It's quiet and honestly has beautiful landscaping and lighting at night. The standard room is about the same as a standard room at a value resort like one of the All-Star resorts. If you are wanting a quiet atmosphere with beautiful surr… more

Overall, this is a decent place to stay at Walt Disney World. It's quiet and honestly has beautiful landscaping and lighting at night. The standard room is about the same as a standard room at a value resort like one of the All-Star resorts. If you are wanting a quiet atmosphere with beautiful surroundings, this is a great resort for you. However, unlike most of the value resorts, this moderate resort doesn't scream Disney. It's definitely Disney quality, but it doesn't have that Disney theme and IP everywhere. If you're just looking for a place to sleep, I'd recommend just sticking to a value resort though. The price difference between All Star Sports didn't seem quite worth it to me to just have a prettier resort to walk around.

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“Average for a Hotel...below Disney expectations.”

I was surprised at how little I loved Port Orleans Riverside at the end of the trip. Our family was booked here as part of a Dance trip but looking at the photo's of the resort and with it being a notch above our previous Disney Resort ( Pop Century ) I had high hopes. We arrived early and were ch… more

I was surprised at how little I loved Port Orleans Riverside at the end of the trip. Our family was booked here as part of a Dance trip but looking at the photo's of the resort and with it being a notch above our previous Disney Resort ( Pop Century ) I had high hopes. We arrived early and were checked in with no real issues, we had a few hours until our room was ready so we decided to check our bags with the bell service and hang out by the pool. When we left the lobby we crossed the bridge to the pool but found it impossible to secure at least one available chair at 11am on a Sunday Morning. We eventually found someone willing to give up theirs and spent some time in the pool. Good size pool area but let down by a limited amount of chairs for the amount of people. We made our way to our room in the Oak Manor building and found it to be quite the hike from there to the main building, there was a pool that was a little closer ( Smaller ) so we spent some time there but found there to be no lifeguards on duty, Room was fine, clean with decent amenities. We found the on site restaurant ( Cafe not sit down restaurant ) to have limited choices of food and it gets VERY busy very often and I never saw more than 3 cashiers working at any one time...even though there were at least 6 registers. Last day was a let down, The previous afternoon I went to the front desk and requested a late check out the next day if it was available. I was told we were approved to check out at 12:30. The next morning I went into my Disney app and noticed that it still showed an 11am checkout, when I called the front desk they said they had no record of it and I would have to check out at 11am, I told them we already made plans that morning around the 12:30 checkout so they would have to honor it. 2 phone calls later I was told that due to our reservation being part of a group it normally wouldn't be allowed,but they would make an "exception". Look, if you weren't able to do that as part of a group maybe your desk staff should see that when they look up our reservation on their iPad and it shouldn't take 2-3 phone calls the next morning to get it sorted out. Annoying and honestly a pretty poor lack of communication. Would I stay here again ?? No. It's fine as far as Hotel's go but for me falls below the expectations the Disney experience should offer. Clean and fun in places but VERY spread out and with some glaring issues.

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