Port Orleans Riverside

AN UPDATED REVIEW CAN NOW BE FOUND HERE

For our Walt Disney World leg of the trip, we spent four nights at Disney’s Port Orleans Riverside. It falls in the moderately priced resort category and we absolutely adored it. We will definitely stay here again!

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The grounds are just gorgeous, indicative of the rural Louisiana bayou. We stayed in the Alligator Bend section, but loved strolling through the mansion side too!

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We were in building 16, which overlooked one of the quiet pools.

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We arrived very late Thursday night, so my pictures are quite dark. We loved the theming of the rooms and found them perfect for boys! There were so many cute details – the lights, the carpet that looked like wood planks, the pull out bed (sleeps 5, but our party of 4 loved that nobody had to sleep with the crazy baby), the wood shower tiles, the rope curtain rods, etc.

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Of course, the lobby was just lovely all decorated for Christmas!

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It was an easy walk to the Riverside Mill food court. We thought the ambiance was much nicer than some of the other food courts, and the food was pretty good as well.

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A quick jaunt on the boat will take you to Port Orleans French Quarter or Downtown Disney. The parks all require a bus, but we found the busses to be amazingly fast! They even had a flat screen noting when the next bus for each park was due to arrive. We didn’t even see anything like that at Animal Kingdom Lodge in September!

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Again, the grounds are really lovely. You cross a bridge to Ol’ Man Island, where you will find an old-fashioned swimmin’ hole and a sawmill slide. This is also where you’ll find hammocks, hot tubs, the campfire pit, a playground and a pool bar.

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Inspired by the story of Tom Sawyer, Ol’ Man Island even features a catch-and-release cane pole fishing hole. We were eager to try it out, but the littles were crushed when they received nary a bob on their lines.

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(Surely this didn’t scare all the fish away…)

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We dined one night at Boatwrights Dining Hall – a rustic shipyard themed dining hall featuring N’awlins favorites – and had a lovely time! We had reservations and I was glad, because it was slammed. Our food was good and affordable and the littles were smitten with the make your own ice cream sundae desserts. They also did a precious “zippety doo dah” birthday song for John that was worth the dinner alone for this mama. If you’re staying here, I’d definitely recommend a dinner at Boatwright’s. I probably would not travel from another resort, however.

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After dinner, we headed over to the River Roost Lounge for a delightful and memorable evening at the infamous Yehaa Bob cabaret-style show! We laid claim to our table around 7:30 for the 8:30 show time. We entertained ourselves with cocktails, hot chocolates and Go Fish.

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The birthday boy was so excited when Bob came by the table to say hello!

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Meanwhile, brother was underwhelmed.

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The show was SUPER entertaining and the baby perked right up. Even Honey agreed that it was a must-do! At one point or another every one of us was out of our seat! If you are wondering, we did dinner at 6:30 at Boatwright’s and had no trouble grabbing a great table at 7:30 afterwards.

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As mentioned, we enjoyed strolling through the fancy-pants mansion side of Riverside. The boys pointed out that it looked like somewhere for Mommy’s to stay. LOL.

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On one of our mornings, we had so much fun meeting up with bestie M and her brood at Port Orleans French Quarter for a beignet breakfast and some time on the playground!!

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Overall, we didn’t have a single negative thing to say about Riverside. There were tons of things to do, great food to be had, and the rooms were just as nice as in a deluxe, in our opinion. It doesn’t have the grand lobby that you will find in a deluxe, but it was awfully close. We will definitely be back :-)
xoxo

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18 thoughts on “Port Orleans Riverside

  1. What great information! I always love your posts about Disney because they are always full of such great information. I'm in the process of booking our lodging for a somewhat spur of the moment trip back to Disney for the end of January. I will look into Port Orleans after seeing your review. Thanks a bunch!

  2. I just stayed at Port Orleans Riverside for my 30th!! I had a Princess themed room, and loooooved seeing Yehaa Bob as well. Thanks for your throrough Disney updates, they are always so fun.

  3. I love Port Orleans Riverside. But I have never been there during the holidays. Thanks, for the great pictures. Looking forward to going back soon.

  4. Thanks for the info. on POR. We've never stayed there, but have heard really good things about it from several friends. How many bus stops are there to Magic Kingdom & were the busses fairly fast after the Christmas party? I know transportation on party nights can be brutal. We've stayed our last 3 Disney trips at monorail resorts, so we've been spoiled with quick transportation to MK. Thanks for all you Disney tips, keep them coming!

    1. Hi Teresa! They were pretty prompt after the party. We left around midnight and the POR line was SOOOO long. They sent three busses for us one right after the other and got everyone out fairly quickly. It's def worth trying with the price difference compared to deluxes :-)

  5. Another great Disney post! I too love POR- looks like you guys made the most of it! Can you believe I've never seen Yeehaw Bob?! It's definitely on my list. And even though I've stayed there three times, I've never once stayed in the Alligator Bayou section- it looks so rustic, lush and charming!
    BTW, nice photos in this post. :)

    1. I cannot believe you haven't seen him. Seriously. It was a lot of fun. Honey was thoroughly entertained too so J would probably like it :-) He's pretty quirky but you can't help but get into the show. Lots of cabaret style Disney songs too.

  6. Great post! POR looks lovely. We have always stayed at the Polynesian, but the too frequent price hikes have us looking elsewhere. Also, since our boys are now older a monorail resort is not a necessity. Have you ever stayed at the Beach Club? My boys have their eye on that pool.

    1. Nicolea – We have not done beach club but it's on our list for next year! We bought annual passes, but not the ones with water parks. So, I booked us a bounce back (for a really good price!) for BC thinking that with the awesome pool we could skip the water parks for a year. We also had a really good time in Epcot and I love the proximity to there. Excited!!

  7. We just got back from our 7 nights stay at POR. It was a wonderful place to stay. Really nice and the food court was great. The resort is close to the parks. We were pleasantly surprised to see Epcot firework from the parking lot it's so close!!

  8. We loved Port Orleans Riverside when we stayed there- we stayed on the Mansion side, and it was perfect for us- it was quiet, but close enough to the pool and food court. We also never saw Yeehaw bob because our little guy was ready for bed every night before Yeehaw Bob even got started.

    THe waits for buses for us were long when we went in May, though. I am wondering if it was busier or maybe they were trying to fine tune the bus situation? We loved that resort though. We were debating on that one vs. a deluxe resort next time… curious if you think it is worth the extra expense? We are saving for our next trip in either late 2015 or early 2016 before our son starts kindergarten. :)

    I love all of your recaps!!!

  9. I loved the place you stayed at. Outside of it was adorable… I also loved the Riverside Mill Food Court… How darn cute on the inside & outside both :) Glad you all had a wonderful time..

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