Disney's Port Orleans Resort - Riverside in Orlando, FL

This is a HUGE resort with plenty of pools, plenty of housing complexes, plenty of parking lots… just a lot of beautiful, relaxing rooms all done with the Disney excellence. Within walking distance of all rooms is gardens, pools, restaurants, and just about all you will want to make your vacation experience excellent. The food in the restaurants, and food court is above average. There is transportation to various Disney Parks. Service is over the top. Pricing is above average, but not unreasonable. The Disney app is excellent.

We absolutely loved our stay in one of the Royal Rooms in Magnolia Bend at Disney's Port Orleans Resort, Riverside. Here are pros/cons from our stay: Pros: - The resort is really immersive. You really feel like you are in the Deep South. - The entire place is peaceful, beautiful and scenic. It felt like a nice respite and escape from the crowds and overstimulation of the parks. It really enhanced our experience and trip. It was as nice being at the resort as it was at the parks. - The Royal Rooms are magical and a lot of fun and make it almost feel like you are staying in an attraction with all the themed touches. My favorite touches were the princess portraits on the walls and the headboards that lit up in fireworks. - The room was quiet. We rarely heard sounds from adjoining rooms during our stay. The loudest sounds were from the cleaning staff as they rolled their cars around as they went back and forth. - The rooms were clean, the towels were pristine, the bedding and pillows were comfortable, the rooms were pitch dark, and the AC and heating in the rooms works surprisingly well. We got great sleep each night. - The resort was pet-friendly. You get a Pluto Bag with goodies and a special tag with a dog on it for your door to indicate to housekeeping that there is a pet inside. It is a different "do not disturb" tag than the one for folks without a dog. All cast members and guests were nice and happy to see my dog and the resort itself with all the green and river was great for walking the dog. - All the cast members were friendly, polite and nice. I'm actually confused by the reviews that say otherwise. They all went out of the way to ensure you are having a good vacation and experiencing the Disney magic. They stay in character so to speak. - The boat to Disney Springs is lovely and would definitely recommend making that trip on your travel day, rest day, or even in lieu of the parks for dinner one evening. Cons: - The technology in the Royal Rooms was dated. They hadn't renovated them and so the safe is so small it will not fit a laptop (only at best an iPad) and closed with an actual key, there were no USB-B or USB-C ways to charge (just a few regular outlets), there was no outlet for the coffee machine, and the TV was small and old. - The Royal Rooms still had dark carpet which was a bit "ick". - They do security checks on all the rooms every single day. This may be in the form of housekeeping (which they do every other day) or they will check on your room during the day. If you have a dog, you will need to schedule this security check every single day of your stay. They only came half the time when we had scheduled and otherwise came 1-2 hours late after the scheduled time which can interfere with plans. We had to come back mid-afternoon to spend time with the dog and rest anyways, but the security check felt like a big to-do every day. - The buses to the parks are plentiful and frequent. I would say 80% of the time we would have to wait less than 10 minutes, but 20% of the time it took a much longer time (like 15-35 minutes even). It felt like morning buses to Magic Kingdom had the longest lines/wait or full buses. If you are planning on taking full advantage of early entry, I would not recommend the bus to Magic Kingdom in the mornings. You are better off Ubering. Like transport one morning took an unexpected 50 minutes (wait + bus ride) and we missed most of early entry that day. - Please note this resort only has buses to the parks. Other Disney resorts have skylines, boats and the monorail and/or are walkable to one or more parks which is not something I had considered when booking as this was our first time at WDW. It may be something you may want to consider particularly if you are planning on park hopping a lot or going to a park in the evenings.

First time at the Port Orleans Riverside and what a wonderful surprise! This was a Mother / Adult Daughter trip and we both loved our stay here after a Disney Wish Cruise! It was so peaceful and wonderful!! We had a Royal Room in the Magnolia Mansion and it was such a cool room!!! Took the boat to Disney Springs and also to Port Orleans to get an order of Beignets. Truly loved the feel of this resort so much I already am booked to bring my husband there! I heard they are starting to do renovations and really hope they do not take away the heavy theming of the Royal rooms, they are so fun for small and big alike. :)

Loved our 5 night stay at Port Orleans Riverside! We were in the Magnolia mansion room 8549. The room itself is a bit tight for 2 adults and 2 teenage children but we made it work and spent most of the time away from the room anyway. If you want to spend more time in the room, you may want to try a resort with larger rooms. Our building was a close walk to the Ol Man Island pool/bar as well as the lobby, restaurants and boats. We ate lunch and breakfast at the dining hall a few times and found the food to be overall good, nothing special but good. As far as transportation goes, we really enjoyed the boat rides to Disney Springs and had no problems taking the busses to/from the parks, never waited more than about 5 minutes for a bus. The theming of this resort is amazing with beautiful landscaping and it's a very peaceful way to begin/end your day after a hectic day at the park as the resort was very quiet most of the time. Would definitely stay here again.

The best thing about our stay was when we accidentally left my daughter’s favorite necklace behind, we contacted the hotel and the housekeeping found the necklace in the room and they shipped it to us at no cost. The stay was great. We will be back. We liked the room, the food court, gift shop, and lobby area.