For my wife's birthday, we decided to sneak away, just the two of us, for a quick weekend getaway, thanks to some extremely low airfares from Spirit & Frontier, plus a bounce-back discount offer we received from our trip in December. This was our 24th trip overall to Walt Disney World, and our first time staying at Port Orleans French Quarter.
First, the good. This is a beautiful, peaceful and serene resort that was the perfect place for us to get away from some of the hustle and bustle of some of the bigger resorts. We really loved the decor, food court and atmosphere, and will likely stay here again in the future.
Now, unfortunately, the bad. We arrived late morning on Saturday, January 30th, checked in to our room (5229), and were able to go right away to our room and drop our bags. The room was better than we expected, nice and clean and had a pleasant view over the courtyard. I set the temperature in the room to 70, so when we got back it would be comfortable and not stuffy, then we left to go play in the parks. Upon our return that night at 1:15 in the morning, we found our room to be stifling hot, with the thermostat still set on 70, but the temperature indicating 85! I suspect it was hotter, but that seems to be as high as that thermostat would read. I turned off the unit and waited for a few minutes for it to reset, then turned it back on and set the temperature at its lowest of 65, only to walk over to the unit and still feel it blowing hot air. Still, I waited for a couple of minutes, thinking it might switch back to cooling mode, but it didn't. We called the front desk to see about getting it fixed, but were told that they couldn't send anyone this late at night. Instead they gave us some instructions/steps to try and resolve the issue, all of which we tried over the next 30 or so minutes. Eventually, we opened the room door, turned off the unit, and asked to be moved.
The staff at French Quarter were very hefpful, even at 1:30 in the morning and were able to find us another room, (3132), which was very nice and conveniently located as close as possible to the front. All seemed well with this room and the environmental controls, until our second night when it was just cold enough to need heat, and this unit seemed that it had the opposite issue from our first room, and we couldn't get it to warm up above 65 in the room, in spite of turning the thermostat up to 70-75. Fortunately, it didn't get any colder, and we were able to get by without really needing it to be warmer.
This being our 24th trip to WDW, and having stayed at many of the resorts on property, we've experienced a few minor issues from time to time, but generally they were easily remedied. This was our first experience with an issue that required us to change rooms, and then to have a similar issue at the second room leads me to the conclusion that this resort might need some attention in the area of environmental controls. We're pretty familiar with how the temperature controls in these rooms work, and that they have sensors to monitor when guests are in the room, however, I will admit that the thermostats in French Quarter are somewhat different than many of the other resorts. Still, I wouldn't expect these kinds of issues to happen, especially not in two separate rooms.
Overall, we still had a great, but very short two day trip, and would love to stay at French Quarter again in the future, so long as these kinds of issues are not encountered again.
First, the good. This is a beautiful, peaceful and serene resort that was the perfect place for us to get away from some of the hustle and bustle of some of the bigger resorts. We really loved the decor, food court and atmosphere, and will likely stay here again in the future.
Now, unfortunately, the bad. We arrived late morning on Saturday, January 30th, checked in to our room (5229), and were able to go right away to our room and drop our bags. The room was better than we expected, nice and clean and had a pleasant view over the courtyard. I set the temperature in the room to 70, so when we got back it would be comfortable and not stuffy, then we left to go play in the parks. Upon our return that night at 1:15 in the morning, we found our room to be stifling hot, with the thermostat still set on 70, but the temperature indicating 85! I suspect it was hotter, but that seems to be as high as that thermostat would read. I turned off the unit and waited for a few minutes for it to reset, then turned it back on and set the temperature at its lowest of 65, only to walk over to the unit and still feel it blowing hot air. Still, I waited for a couple of minutes, thinking it might switch back to cooling mode, but it didn't. We called the front desk to see about getting it fixed, but were told that they couldn't send anyone this late at night. Instead they gave us some instructions/steps to try and resolve the issue, all of which we tried over the next 30 or so minutes. Eventually, we opened the room door, turned off the unit, and asked to be moved.
The staff at French Quarter were very hefpful, even at 1:30 in the morning and were able to find us another room, (3132), which was very nice and conveniently located as close as possible to the front. All seemed well with this room and the environmental controls, until our second night when it was just cold enough to need heat, and this unit seemed that it had the opposite issue from our first room, and we couldn't get it to warm up above 65 in the room, in spite of turning the thermostat up to 70-75. Fortunately, it didn't get any colder, and we were able to get by without really needing it to be warmer.
This being our 24th trip to WDW, and having stayed at many of the resorts on property, we've experienced a few minor issues from time to time, but generally they were easily remedied. This was our first experience with an issue that required us to change rooms, and then to have a similar issue at the second room leads me to the conclusion that this resort might need some attention in the area of environmental controls. We're pretty familiar with how the temperature controls in these rooms work, and that they have sensors to monitor when guests are in the room, however, I will admit that the thermostats in French Quarter are somewhat different than many of the other resorts. Still, I wouldn't expect these kinds of issues to happen, especially not in two separate rooms.
Overall, we still had a great, but very short two day trip, and would love to stay at French Quarter again in the future, so long as these kinds of issues are not encountered again.
. WDW has none of these at the Villas at Wilderness Lodge, as of 11-2015.... but that photo will help us keep our eyes open 
