Port Orleans French Quarter

On this trip to Disney World we stayed in a Moderate resort for the first time -- Port Orleans French Quarter. One of my primary motivations for this decisions was that French Quarter is a small resort so we were guaranteed a short walk to the food court and buses, which I knew I'd need if my CFS got bad. But it also meant a bunch of other improvements over a Value resort which I appreciated.

Firstly, the theming was a little bit more sophisticated. Still a definite Disney feel about the whole thing, but more of an immersive theme like in World Showcase or Animal Kingdom rather than a bright and cheerful kid-friendly theming. It's themed to the French Quarter of New Orleans (from what I've read, the main difference is it's a lot cleaner :) during Mardi Gras.

The resort is also set on a river which is supposed to represent the Mississippi. Some of the rooms look out on to this river which I think would be very pretty. However, you have to pay more for a 'water view' and you aren't able to guarantee that the water in question is the river rather than the pool. Plus the river-view rooms are the furthest from the food-court and the bus, which would somewhat defeat the purpose of staying at a small resort.

We went for a standard room and got a 3rd floor room over looking a courtyard with a fountain. I don't recall any equivalent of this courtyard in either of the Value resorts we've stayed at so I guess that's another bonus of the Moderate resort. It made for a nice view and in nicer weather I think it would be a nice place to sit around and relax (in June it's a little too hot to be outside if you don't need to be).

The rooms are a little bigger than in the Value resorts although not really noticeably so. It was nice though to have 2 basins so that Mum and I each had our own little space. And it was good to have the curtain separating the basin area from the bedroom because it gave us plenty of room to get changed in relative privacy. And like the outside, the theming in the rooms was a bit more subtle (although with plenty of Hidden Mickeys in the bedspreads). Was also good to have a fridge incorporated into the room rather than having to rent one squashed in a corner. We used the fridge a bit to store leftovers. The resort could do with a refurb though -- the cupboard that housed the fridge didn't shut properly and the drawers would occasionally roll open by themselves.

Another difference between the Moderate and Value resorts is that the pool has a slide. However we never had time to take advantage of it. It looked kind of fun though, although maybe aimed at kids more than adults.

French Quarter is right next door to Port Orleans Riverside. This is a bigger resort with a table-service restaurant. It had 4 bus stops so most of the rooms would have been pretty close to a bus but I think some of them would be a long way from the foodcourt so I'm glad we chose French Quarter.

The theming at Riverside was very stylish and I think it would have been a nice place to stay apart from the distance issue.

I also preferred the transportation at French Quarter to what we were used to at Value resorts. When we were catching a bus into the parks the crowd was small enough that we didn't have to queue. Most of the time we could even sit down while waiting for the bus and we always got on the first bus that came for our park. Coming back was not quite as good -- we had to line up in switchbacks like the Value resorts and at closing there was a decent line that took more than one bus to empty. The only drawback was that when we went to the parks during the day the bus stopped at all of the Riverside bus-stops before heading to the parks. In the morning we got our own bus though, and coming back we either got our own bus or French Quarter was the first stop.

Going to Downtown Disney we had another transportation option -- boat. This was a peaceful little ride down the river, more pleasant than catching a bus. The boat serviced both Riverside and French Quarter and didn't have that many seats so there was a reasonable queue to get on, but I think it probably ended up taking about the same amount of time as the bus. My only complaint was that it only stopped at Marketplace at the Downtown Disney End, so we had to walk a little while to get to Pleasure Island. We could have also caught the boat to get to Riverside but it was only about a 10 minute walk anyway.

Overall I definitely enjoyed staying at Port Orleans French Quarter. It was definitely a step-up from the Value Resorts and I really appreciated the small size on days when I wanted to crash.