Travel

Port Orleans Riverside

Have I mentioned how grateful I am for well marked road signs and the Disney My Experience App? Holy cow! How anyone can find their way around this place without them is beyond my comprehension. Disney World is massive!

Before I get too far, so you aren’t shocked by it, there is only one real downside to doing a split stay that I wasn’t able to find a way around. Our car was parked at The Caribbean Beach Resort in the morning and now we’re parked at Port Orleans Riverside so that means we got charged for parking at both resorts on this one day. At the time, it’s still less than $20 but it was still kind of a bummer that we couldn’t find a way around paying for parking twice. (If anyone has a way around out, leave a comment – I’d LOVE to hear your secret!)

So we easily find our room in the white columned mansions of the Magnolia Bend. My boys I think would have rather had a room in Alligator Bayou, but Mom did the planning so we got ourselves a Royal Room. It is so quiet and peaceful here – so welcoming. I open the door to our room and am immediately in LOVE! The headboards are a scene right out of the Princess and the Frog but they also have fiber optic fireworks in them. (I may or may not have caught my teenage son laying in bed that night pushing the button over and over to make them go off, just watching them!) The details…oh my gosh! Disney never ceases to amaze! All of the furnishing just scream royalty. The footstool is the dog from Beauty and the Beast, there is a letter welcoming us from Princess Tiana, Royal Crests, Princess and Prince pictures, the border is a Cinderella collage, the water faucet is the magic lamp from Aladdin – everything is just magical. I feel kind of like I’m in a fairytale.

Food…it’s been a long day and we are in need of sustenance. One of the cool things is that the Port Orleans Riverside has a sister resort, the Port Orleans French Quarter. While they’re similar, they’re both also uniquely their own experience. Staying at one though, gives you total access to the other one. Why not? Let’s scoot on over there for food. This would, easily, become our favorite place to eat!!!Sassagoula Floatworks is set up like an open food court with lots of options so everyone can get what they want. Our table was full of some of the most amazing morsels: Salmon, Gumbo, Shrimp Po’ Boys, Blackened Rib Eye (literally melt in your mouth tender!), Beans & Rice, Cornbread…and then there were BEIGNETS! OhLawdy!!! Most of our meals at the resort for the remainder of our trip happened here. It was amazing!!!

After this incredible feast, we return to the room to tackle the one thing we’d been ignoring – laundry. Fortunately, we were right next to the pool and the adjacent laundry room and quite frankly, the cost to buy laundry soap and dryer sheets in the laundry mat was reasonable and worth it. My youngest and I stayed behind to tackle Mount Laundry while my husband and oldest ventured out into the world beyond the Disney borders for some supplies. (Bless their hearts! They’d bring me back a new pair of shoes that didn’t leave blisters on my feet!)

While they were gone, my younger kiddo slipped into his swim trunks and was ready to swim. We went to the pool by our room and imagine our surprise when we walked in the gates and we were both handed a large bag of popcorn by a Disney Cast Member as two others were setting up a gigantic inflatable movie screen that covered the entire end of the pool. What is this??? Apparently the resort does something fun for the kids every day and this just happened to be them showing the movie “Up” in the pool. That absolutely took the sting out of missing the fireworks! One of the best resort experiences we had happened hanging out at the pool watching that movie. Again, Disney is the master of making an experience that is truly memorable.

We stayed a total of 4 wonderful nights here. In hindsight, I wish I’d scheduled a day to just stay at the resort and play. Next time I will. The grounds are gorgeous – the Magnolia were in bloom during our visit and I love that sweet smell. The Riverwalk was gorgeous. The Ol' Man Island is a massive, fun pool with a great waterslide. (Although my kids still giggle about going there during the late afternoon and it being full of “old men in speedos”!) The Medicine Show Arcade has loads of fun games including a giant Space Invaders game! The Riverside Mill had good food, but it couldn’t compare to Sassagoula. We didn’t have time to take advantage of a lot of things though: Boatwrights, Piano Bob in the River Roost, Horse Drawn Carriage Rides or the Boat Rides to Disney Springs. We just ran out of time. (I did manage to squeeze some shopping time in though! Ha ha!!)

Oh! And the Florida Monsoon season we'd heard so much about? Our very last day it poured! It was definitely a much-welcome relief from the unrelenting heat we'd experienced.

I loved both resorts we stayed at, but if I could only choose one to go back to Port Orleans would be my winner.

Psst...While you're still herecheck out my take on the infamous Mickey Beignets. I'm biased, but I think it's as close to the Disney Magic as you can get outside of Disney.

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