Port Orleans (Riverside & FQ) during Hurricane Matthew

[kcb1dizbksfan]

I stayed at POR Riverside unfortunately during Hurricane Matthew. While the hurricane never made landfall in Orlando, it was east of us, it caused some major disruptions for me:

1) Park closed at 5 pm on 10/6
2) All the parks were closed on 10/7
3) My flight home was cancelled two times and was stuck constantly on the phone to rebook another day and time (felt that vacation feel quickly disappear and stress taking over)
4) I had incur another nite cost and associated costs due to airport being closed on 10/7
5) My park plans on 10/6 & 10/7 had all changed due to the closure

At POR-Riverside I waited on a line that extended from reservations to the food court to the tune of around 3 hours.

I had to wait on another line after finally getting food for around 2 hours to see if I could extend my stay another nite given the flight cancellations.

Bus service to Disney Springs was not operating.
Bus service to any other resort was not operating.

I was basically destined to stay on property within POR Riverside and FQ, which is not bad, but after 10 round trips of walking to and from both of the connecting resorts in the rain, I was ready to see new vistas.

I brought my old Minolta SRT 101 35MM film camera anticipating the hurricane before leaving New York. I did not want to ruin my DSLR gear by walking in the rain and I also figured, I would not be benefiting from capturing any color during a hurricane anyway, so I figured B&W would probably be the best.

It gave me an excuse to spend more money at B&H photo in Manhattan and purchased some film and a new battery. I had not used this camera in over 20 years and was not sure of the results I would be seeing, but I was pleasantly surprized the camera worked at all.

When your given lemons you need to make lemonade and I certainly was not going to spend part of my vacation stuck in my room. I don't watch TV.

Believe it or not these photos were taken in the rain, but I was happy to just be able to capture some images during a very dreary and quite boring day at the resort.

I have to give alot of credit on a positive note to the CM's who had to stay on-site during the storm and I am sure they had to deal with alot of unhappy guests during this situation. Every CM was pleasant and professional . . .

 

[WDWNerd]

Great photos...thanks for sharing!

 

[SorcererHeidi]

Wow - fantastic pics. Thanx for sharing. And sorry you had to deal with that - but BRAVO to your optimism!

 

[samsteele]

Great pics . . . as always! Don't think I have used B&W film since the 80s so this was a treat. Of course, I was using a Vivitar 35 mm point & shoot.
Sorry for your Hurricane Matthew stay. I flew out of MCO 3 days before Matthew & was relieved to do so.

 

[kcb1dizbksfan]

Great pics . . . as always! Don't think I have used B&W film since the 80s so this was a treat. Of course, I was using a Vivitar 35 mm point & shoot.
Sorry for your Hurricane Matthew stay. I flew out of MCO 3 days before Matthew & was relieved to do so.

its been 30 years since using the 35MM camera and there is something very pure and true about shooting B&W in seeing an image in its raw form with a good tonal range and shades of grey.

 

[sweetpeama]

I am going to date myself here but back in the early 90's I used to carry 2 point and shoot 35 mph cameras just so I could take both black and white and color photos. What started out making sure that there were both for the college annual ( having taken the 4-H photography project for 2 years qualified me as the staff photographer, that and everyone else had 110 cameras) turned into a love of black and white photographs.

 

[disneyholic family]

love the photos!!!! they're gorgeous!!!!
thanks for sharing!!

way back in the 90's we were caught at WDW during a hurricane..
it was the only time i went to WDW with just the two kids (DH couldn't get away that year)..

we were at the all star music...
for us it was very much an adventure...
watching the lead up to the hurricane - the resort preparations...
how everything outside was completely removed ...not tied down, but removed..
that was a lot of stuff to get out of there...
and then afterwards the clean up - there had been quite a bit of damage - the hurricane actually did hit, leaving significant damage...it took days to clean up and some more outlying areas of WDW hadn't been cleared by the time we left....really lots of damage...many trees down, etc....but they worked so quickly and efficiently...
i was very very impressed..

and during the hurricane....it raged through the night and into the next morning....
the resort kept contacting us to make sure we were ok...
and to tell us to keep staying inside....no need to tell us, it was way too windy, rainy, stormy to even open the door, forget venturing out..

but our situation was much better than yours...first off, the parks only closed for half a day....
and we were there for 2 weeks, with this being somewhere in the middle i think...
so it was easy for it to be an adventure for us...(DD was 10, DS 8 at the time)..

on other occasions hurricanes have been a bit more disruptive to our holidays at WDW....
but still not as badly as it impacted your vacation..

the last one that impacted us, was hurricane sandy, that hit while we were on the Disney Dream....while we didn't go through sandy, like the fantasy did...we were definitely affected....the wind was so strong, that you could barely walk out on deck (we had to hold onto each other as we moved from place to place)...and the aquaduck was closed because of the high winds...
but still, we had a great time since after all, we were on the ship...so it really didn't impact our cruise much...

and before that, in 2011...we shortened our visit at WDW to get out in time before a threatened hurricane...we left 2 days early....in the end, it didn't hit, but we didn't want to get stranded and miss our flights (we live overseas)...

and now with all this hurricane talk, i'm thinking about the trip next summer...
our flight is on disembarkation day from the disney dream...here's hoping hurricanes don't throw a spanner in the works

 

[RustManFan]

I love B&W photos and loved the images I got in both B&W and color when I was using my film camera. Miss those photo days but my DSLR takes great pics too! I am too old-fashioned to resort to a cell phone photo collection....

 

[soniam]

I miss real film, especially B&W It took me a long time to find digital photography up to my standards. Great photos! Glad you were able to have fun despite the circumstances.