Now is the time, now is the best time for our trip report! June 12-20, 2017

[asamford23]

Now is the time, now is the best time, now is the best time for our trip report!

Hi! My name is Andy and my 15 year old daughter Gwen and I have now been on several Disney adventures together! This time we decided to take notes in hopes of making an awesome trip report!

I've been going to Disney World since 1981 when I was 5 years old, but I never stayed on property until my first trip with my daughter, 6 years ago, when we stayed at the Contemporary Resort, Garden Wing. We have since stayed at Contempory in the tower with both views, as well as the Polynesian, but this time we stayed at Port Orleans Riverside in a Royal Themed Room.

Gwen and I will be both be chiming in on the report, so we'll indicate throughout who is doing the "speaking".

Hope you enjoy our trip report!

DAY ZERO PART ONE - Travel Day/Disney Springs

We had a relatively uneventful six and a half hour drive from the suburbs of Atlanta down to the Port Orleans Riverside Resort. Along the way we got the text that our room was ready and we were excited! I'll let Gwen take it from here.


Gwen: Once upon a time (aka June 2017), a girl and her dad took a vacation to Disney World. Their trip was full of new rides and places to explore, and they had many adventures along the way. All in all, it was possibly their most magical Disney trip yet.

Obviously, I'm talking about my dad and me during our annual Disney vacation! We had a ton of fun in all four parks and got to experience Pandora just a few weeks after it opened, which was one of the coolest parts of our trip. We spent a total of nine days at Disney World, with seven of those days in the actual parks.

Our adventure begins at the Port Orleans Riverside Resort, which was the hotel we stayed at during our trip. We had the perfect room location: we were close to the lobby and two bus stops, and we had a beautiful view of the river.

We were staying in one of the Royal Rooms, which was perfect for me, because I love the Disney princesses! As soon as we walked in for the first time, I was already freaking out about all of the details in the room, like the light-up headboards and genie lamp shaped sink faucets. I took about a hundred pictures, and I discovered two Hidden Mickeys in the room during our trip. One was placed on the light above the desk where Tiana's letter was located. The other Hidden Mickey was on the shower curtain, formed in the bubbles coming out of the saxophone looking thing.

Once we were settled in our hotel room, we decided to take a boat to Disney Springs and get some dinner, since our first day wasn't a park day. We watched the Rainforest Cafe volcano erupt from our boat, and after we landed I spent an embarrassing amount of time trying to get a video before we explored several shops in the Marketplace section of Disney Springs, including World of Disney, Goofy's Candy Company, and Once Upon a Toy. We couldn't get a last minute reservation to T-Rex, but we weren't very disappointed because we had a great dinner at Earl of Sandwich instead.

After our evening at Disney Springs, we took a boat back to our hotel. The captain of our boat was a lot of fun, because he kept telling jokes and puns throughout the whole ride. (I may or may not have ruined one of his jokes by yelling out the answer…)

We then returned to our hotel room to get some rest before our big day tomorrow: rope drop at the Magic Kingdom and our first visit to Pandora!

 

[Kimmy]

I'm following! Great pictures. Port Orleans is beautiful. Can't wait to hear more. I'm going in June 2018

 

[dmea10]

Following!

 

[ariane37]

Joining in! Loving the pictures of the Royal Room, POR is one resort we've never stayed at. And as someone who lives 24 hours from WDW I'm super jealous of your drive time!

Sounds like a great arrival day; looking forward to reading more

 

[asamford23]

thanks all for reading, I'll be posting the report of our first full day in the parks soon! Between memory maker and my daughter we will have lots of great pictures to share!

 

[asamford23]

Having only stayed at monorail resorts in the past few years, I wasn't sure how it work out for us relying solely on the bus (I don't like to drive even though we have the car available, I'm on vacation!) at Port Orleans, but it worked great and we really loved the resort. If the choice is between 6 days at a deluxe or 7 days at a moderate like Port Orleans, then I think we'll choose the longer stay in the future. The boat to Disney Springs was a nice bonus, and other than having a door to the outside instead of inside, and a few special flourishes at the deluxe (announcing your arrival, leis at Polynesian, etc) I really found no substantial difference in the level of comfort between a moderate and a deluxe room. We spend most of our time out at the parks anyways.

 

[dmea10]

Having only stayed at monorail resorts in the past few years, I wasn't sure how it work out for us relying solely on the bus (I don't like to drive even though we have the car available, I'm on vacation!) at Port Orleans, but it worked great and we really loved the resort. If the choice is between 6 days at a deluxe or 7 days at a moderate like Port Orleans, then I think we'll choose the longer stay in the future. The boat to Disney Springs was a nice bonus, and other than having a door to the outside instead of inside, and a few special flourishes at the deluxe (announcing your arrival, leis at Polynesian, etc) I really found no substantial difference in the level of comfort between a moderate and a deluxe room. We spend most of our time out at the parks anyways.

I feel like you do and do not like to drive on vacation. I have never stayed at a Deluxe resort. We have stayed at POR and POFQ and Dixie Landings before they changed the name. We loved it there! It is so peaceful and the boat ride is a bonus. We loved the quiet pools late at night we would have them to ourselves. We are staying at Pop Century on our trip next month because it is my Granddaughters first trip and I thought she would love the theming.