I've been planning this trip for over a year and I cannot believe I've missed this in the countless hours I've spent researching things!
We are booked for a week the first week of May. I thought we were staying at the Port Orleans French Quarter in a pool view room. We are actually staying at the Port Orleans Riverside in a Pool View room. We are using a vacation planner that is a friend and I realized that we always referred to it as "Port Orleans" and the original quote she sent me was for Riverside, not French Quarter. Not her fault, just mine.
I was REALLY looking forward to our stay at French Quarter because we have 3 kids under 5 and will be relying solely on Disney Transportation. Short walks to the food court, bus stop, and a room right next to the awesome French Quarter pool and splash pad sounded PERFECT!
Riverside isn't bad, but I'm worried about the walk to the Food Court and Pool now. Plus, the pool at Riverside doesn't wow me at all--we would probably walk all the way back over to the French Quarter pool. My kids keep talking about the water parks, but we didn't want to spend the extra money (and sanity) dragging small kids to a water park. So we planned to take the day off and enjoy the pool and Disney Springs instead.
So now I'm going crazy and considering maybe changing our reservation up while staying within a few hundred of our current cost. It looks like French Quarter isn't even an option now. I've always wanted to stay at the Beach club and try out Stormalong Bay, so I considered going to a value resort for most of our stay and switching over. However, it doesn't look like the Yacht or Beach Clubs have any availability that week.
So, after 2.5 hours of trolling the Disney World reservation site, I think I came up with something that might be more convenient for us, give us a better pool on our day off, and save us some money to boot. Tell me what you think...
Sun-Wed: Stay at the Contemporary resort. We are doing Magic Kingdom Mon + Wed and Animal Kingdom Tuesday, so staying in a monorail resort these days is VERY ideal.
Edited to add--We could also switch out the Contemporary for a Deluxe Studio Villa at the Wilderness Lodge for $100 more total. I've always wanted to stay there and my parents are camping at Ft. Wilderness during this trip, so that might be an awesome idea too! The boat isn't as convenient as the monorail to MK though.
We are booked for a week the first week of May. I thought we were staying at the Port Orleans French Quarter in a pool view room. We are actually staying at the Port Orleans Riverside in a Pool View room. We are using a vacation planner that is a friend and I realized that we always referred to it as "Port Orleans" and the original quote she sent me was for Riverside, not French Quarter. Not her fault, just mine.
I was REALLY looking forward to our stay at French Quarter because we have 3 kids under 5 and will be relying solely on Disney Transportation. Short walks to the food court, bus stop, and a room right next to the awesome French Quarter pool and splash pad sounded PERFECT!
Riverside isn't bad, but I'm worried about the walk to the Food Court and Pool now. Plus, the pool at Riverside doesn't wow me at all--we would probably walk all the way back over to the French Quarter pool. My kids keep talking about the water parks, but we didn't want to spend the extra money (and sanity) dragging small kids to a water park. So we planned to take the day off and enjoy the pool and Disney Springs instead.
So now I'm going crazy and considering maybe changing our reservation up while staying within a few hundred of our current cost. It looks like French Quarter isn't even an option now. I've always wanted to stay at the Beach club and try out Stormalong Bay, so I considered going to a value resort for most of our stay and switching over. However, it doesn't look like the Yacht or Beach Clubs have any availability that week.
So, after 2.5 hours of trolling the Disney World reservation site, I think I came up with something that might be more convenient for us, give us a better pool on our day off, and save us some money to boot. Tell me what you think...
Sun-Wed: Stay at the Contemporary resort. We are doing Magic Kingdom Mon + Wed and Animal Kingdom Tuesday, so staying in a monorail resort these days is VERY ideal.
- To make this work, I would need to book our 5 park tickets through this reservation in a package with a dining plan. BIG QUESTION--can I use these park tickets past our reservation for Friday & Saturday while we are at another resort? That is key to this plan! Is this going to mess with Fastpass+ Reservations?
- The BIG PERK--all the food courts will be closed in May and they are offering a $75/night gift card. We don't care about the closures. If we can use the rest of the 5 day tickets from the Contemporary stay, we can completely forgo a dining plan for the rest of the trip and use the gift cards to pay for our food.
Edited to add--We could also switch out the Contemporary for a Deluxe Studio Villa at the Wilderness Lodge for $100 more total. I've always wanted to stay there and my parents are camping at Ft. Wilderness during this trip, so that might be an awesome idea too! The boat isn't as convenient as the monorail to MK though.
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