Always our favorite Moderate....stayed last fall again and everything was fine. The grounds are beautiful, food great, entertainment, boats to DTD, and we really love the theming. A lot of people really like POFQ but I really like the 'old south' look and the lush grounds of POR.
Of course I think the original poster has completed the trip so we'd be interested to hear what he/she thinks!
Ok For my review of the Riverside after our stay, I will give it a 9 1/2 stars out of 10. My wife loved it and so did the kids.
It's still a beautiful resort, very relaxing, feels very remote and unbusy.
The reason I gave it 9 1/2 stars are really for only 3 reasons.
1st reason. We did online check in. Walked up to the desk and it took for ever for the cast member to find our reservation. Even with my ID in her hand she couldnt comprehend our last name. I will admit there was language barrier, we had to ask her several times to repeat herself. That doesnt bother me, what bothered me is we had the dining plan, she handed us a sheet and goes here is your dining plan, if you dont have reservations already at place your gonna get stuck at the places people hate. We got a room in the Alligator Bayou #26. This one is kinda in the smack dab of the middle of couple of buildings. Close to a bus stop, not too far of a walk to the main building, but honestly hard to find when your tired from the parks. I remember check in being a little more personable, more explanitive on the cast member part, and since we wanted to upgrade to the water park and more on our park hoppers thought it would be easy to do. When I asked how much it would cost for each of us she looked at me blankly and then said "but you have park hoppers and we have a 2 pools here." I left it at that and ask for directions to the room.
Reason #2 Our second night there, while watching the weather, my wife screamed and jumped off the bed. Crawling up the wall was one huge Cockroach. I grabed a class scooped it up and threw it out the window. My wife in the meantime was on the phone to the front desk. They were literallythere in minutes to spray the room and very applogetic. Never saw another bug IN the room from that point on.
#3 While I volunteered a few times on the bus, the amount of people that got ousted from the bus or not allowed on the bus because of people with scooters was outlandish. Literally there was only one time when we went to the bus stop that people didnt get forced off the bus or have to wait to get on the bus becuase of the scooters. I didnt mind if the people were waiting before we were, but alot of the time they would roll up with 6 or 7 people in their party just as the bus pulled up and people that had been waiting for the bus for some time were not allowed on. This also happened on the boat to Downtown Disney. There has to be a better way for this.
Overall the experience was really pleasant. The movies at night are a great touch. I was impressed with how often the boat left for Downtown Disney at night. The buses where pretty much like they said about 15 to 20 minutes inbetween each other for destinations. The activities at the ol'man Island like the trivia and pool party were a nice touch. The food court was clean, friendly staff, that would make kids feel special when they found out it was their birthday. Very clean grounds. Very nice housekeeping. If you can afford it, I honestly think its a better value than the delux hotels on the monorail route. I once thought about getting off at the east depot to see what the new royal rooms would look like. I found it funny every bus stopped there but no one was ever at the depot, but you could see the workers, busy as bees working on the rooms. Besides our small problems and being annoyed with the scooter situation, It was a great place to stay.
