Planning Disney: Our Resort

This post details where we stayed. Here is great link for reviews of all the Disney resorts!

{all pictures are from the Disney website}

We stayed at Port Orleans- Riverside, which is a moderate resort. There are three categories of Disney resorts: Value, Moderate, and Deluxe. Of course, there is always the option to stay off property as well, and we did consider that. We thought about staying at the Double Tree near Downtown Disney so we could use our Hilton points and save lots of moola, but we decided for our first trip, we really wanted to stay at a Disney resort. People who stay on property can take advantage of the parks' Magic Hours {where the parks stay open late or open early} and you can also make your Fast Pass reservations 60 days out as opposed to 30 days. And the customer service at Disney properties is hard to beat {not saying it's not good elsewhere, but you know what you are getting at Disney}.

We had a certain budget we were shooting for, so our travel agent came up with several different options for us. As much as we would have liked to stay on the monorail, we knew that wasn't in our budget for this trip. I looked at pictures of all the resorts and Riverside just seemed to fit the bill. It's considered a Downtown Disney resort since it's closest to that area. The closest park is Epcot. Riverside is about a 15-20 minutes bus ride from Magic Kingdom and Hollywood Studios, and maybe a 20-25 minute ride from Animal Kingdom. It is a 20 minute boat ride from Downtown Disney. It's sister resort, Port Orleans- French Quarter, which is next door, and Riverside are the only resorts that have boat access to Downtown Disney, so that's a fun option. These boats do not go to any of the parks. You have to take a bus or a taxi to get to the parks from these resorts
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There are two sections of the Riverside resort, Alligator Bayou and Magnolia Bend. Magnolia Bend has more stately-looking buildings and pretty gardens, and the rooms are decorated in a Riverboat theme. Alligator Bayou has more lush, green trees and shrubbery, with little creeks and bridges, and the rooms are decorated with alligators/bayou things. Duh. :) What I liked about this resort was that it was not overly "themed." The resorts with loud, bright colors and characters just did not appeal to my sensitivities. :) I really loved that this resort was very pretty and peaceful.

This is one of the buildings in Magnolia Bend.

This resort has a motel type set up with room doors opening to the outside {it seems that most of the Disney resorts are similar in that regard}. The rooms at Riverside were nice and clean, but nothing overly special. I knew we wouldn't be spending much time in our room, so as long as it was clean, I was happy.

We stayed in building 17 of the Alligator Bayou. You can call 10 days ahead of your check in date to request a certain building or room {that is true of any Disney resort}. The type of room you have dictates where they will place you. For example, if you have a preferred room, you will be placed in a better building {prime location}. We had a Garden View room. I read this post that detailed our resort, and they listed the buildings were closest to the bus stops, which was a top priority for me. I should have requested building 16 (buildings 14 or 15 would have been even better but were not an option because of our room type}. The bus stop was about a 5 minute walk from our room. Not too bad but I wish we had been a tad closer, because it felt longer when carrying a heavy bag and rushing to catch an early bus. There are four bus stops at our resort, but I wanted to be close to the main one because I read that the bus may not always stop at all four bus stops {but it did during our trip!}. I also wanted to be close to the main building where the restaurants and gift shop were. If I were staying in Magnolia Bend, I would request buildings 90 or 95. They are right across the bridge from the main lobby and South bus stop.

A room in Magnolia Bend

Our room was on the first floor, and I was so glad! I wouldn't have thought to request that, but next time I will just to ensure we get that. I can't imagine having to lug a heavy stroller plus two sleeping kids up one or two flights of stairs. We pulled our stroller into the room each night, so it was very nice to be on the first floor. There were three little steps we had to carry it up, but that wasn't a big deal. And we never could hear footsteps above us. The hotel seemed to be well sound-proofed. We never heard any of our neighbors or noise from outside the room. I believe there are elevators on the Magnolia Bend side, so I don't think the stroller wouldn't have been an issue over there.

A room in the Alligator Bayou. The bathroom is behind that curtain {there is a door where the tub and toilet are}.

This is a picture of the Murphy bed where Curran slept. We left it pulled down all week and it was never in the way. There were three drawers underneath where we kept our clothes.

Our resort had one main pool and lots of smaller pools closer to some of the buildings. There was a pool right by our room, and the girls got it in for one minute but it seemed colder to them than the main pool, so we never used it. It wasn't too far of a walk to the main pool. There was also a fun little playground, a fire pit area, and a bar next to the main pool. They have an activities director who played games with the kids at the pool, have fishing poles you can borrow, and they also have movie nights around the campfire. We never did any of that, but it's nice to know there were so many fun options.

There were several laundry facilities scattered around the resort, and we had one right by our room. I took a couple of individual packets of laundry detergent {got them in the travel toiletry section at Target} because I thought it would be nice to do a few loads of laundry before coming home. The laundry rooms have vending machines with soap and quarter machines to get change. I ended up doing 5 loads of laundry {two of those were unexpected because of SC's illness}, and while it wasn't cheap, I was very glad to not have a ton of laundry to do when we got home. It was also nice for us to re-wear some things at Disney. Next time I won't pack a pair of pajamas for each night for the girls, because half of the time they slept in their clothes {gross, I know but I wasn't about to wake them up to change them} since they fell asleep on the way home. And the other half of the time SC just wanted to wear her new Minnie pj's over and over again, and I was not willing to fight the battle at 10:30 or 11 pm!

The thing I was most worried about was the buses. Having never been to Disney {except when I was 11 and I don't remember much}, I just had no idea how all that worked. We had so many early breakfast reservations, and I was worried about being able to get to those on time because most things I found said the buses don't start running until an hour before park open. But we never had a problem catching a bus when we needed to, and it was fairly easy to figure out how to get where we were going. For example, we had no idea how to get to the Polynesian for dinner our first night. We ended up taking a bus from our resort to the Magic Kingdom, and our plan was to take the monorail from the MK to the Polynesian, but the monorail was temporarily closed, so we took a water taxi. After dinner, we took the monorail back to MK and then took a bus home. All of the cast members are happy to help you figure out how to get where you're doing. We took a taxi two times to make our breakfast reservations but rode the bus for everything else. There was usually plenty of room for John to hold the double stroller folded up in front of him, even when the buses were crowded. We never really had to wait for more than 10 minutes for a bus to pick us up at the resort as well as leaving the parks. Only one time did it take a while {leaving Hollywood Studios}. Everyone always says it's so much better to be on the monorail, and while I would imagine the trips are certainly much quicker, they still seemed to get very crowded and the lines got long {I only observed that leaving the parks so I really have no idea}. Plus you can only ride the monorail to MK and Epcot, so you will have to take a bus at some point if you are planning to go to AK and HS. So FOR US, the monorail was not a huge factor in deciding where to stay; it was more about our budget. There was a TV projector at resort bus stop that told us when the buses for each park were due to arrive, and we found it to be pretty accurate.

We were very happy with Port Orleans- Riverside and will most definitely stay there again! I would highly recommend it if you are looking for a good moderate resort!