We will be staying in POR in a preferred room in April. Any recommendations for either buildings or particular rooms? The cast member at time of booking told me all the preferred rooms were pet-free but the unofficial POR website says dogs are sometime in building 15 so I don’t know whether we should specifically request to avoid that one…
We went for a preferred room at the time of booking due to the size of the resort and we thought that would ensure we were close to the bus stop - since doing more research I now understand that we may find ourselves at a disadvantage as the buses are often full by the time they get to the south stop!
You know we have stayed at POR a lot and I be darned if I can remember which stop is first and which is last. Sometimes they change around. As far a where you stay it all depends on how quite you want it to be. Bus stops are pretty close to all the buildings. My wife and I like the antebellum type setting so we always request Magnolia Bend. Magnolia Terrace is the building we stay at. Alligator Alley is the other section and as we have never stayed in that section, I can’t tell you much about it. Never have had a bad room and Magnolia Bend section is where the restaurant, bar and store are. It is not hard to get around there and everything is less than a 10" walk. Now buses can fill up but it all depends when you wish to leave for the parks or come back from the parks. I can tell you this much, that if you leave the parks close to closing you are going to be standing on the bus on the way back. One other benefit staying at POR is the boats that go to Disney Springs and back. Hope this helps
We should be in Alligator Bayou from what I’ve been told as we’re a family of 5 and the murphy beds are only in this section. Also all the preferred rooms are in AB.
I would personally like to be in a more secluded section if possible so we can go to bed early but also so when we’re rope dropping I don’t worry about disturbing other guests - this is probably unrealistic in such a big resort at a busy time of year!
We are planning to rope drop EMH during our first week and the second week we would like to watch the evening shows so unless hours are extended we’ll probably be leaving with the masses apart from MK. Having commuted in and out of London for years I’m very used to being squashed in with no seats, grumpy smallish boys will doubtless moan whatever though
Most people are quite nice as men generally give up their seats for women and children. Not all mind you but it is the thing to do here in the States for many of us who grew up with manors. People do get tried though at the end of the night and just want to get back to their resort. But even at 69 years old and from the Central US I was taught that this was the thing to do. I am glad to see for the most part that many younger people are doing the same.
My mother brought us up to give up our seats as children for adults and my boys do the same. When they were younger they’d sit on our laps if there weren’t enough seats but I would certainly expect them to stand now. - My eldest will be 14 by our trip and is almost taller than me, so although a skinny one I don’t think I need to worry about him on a crowded bus too much!
We just stayed in a preferred room - building 18 , room 1843 - at POR. We were there the week before Christmas and yes, busses were crowded, but I don’t remember us ever having to wait for a second bus. As it got later in the week I did start using Lyft more.
As for disturbing anyone or being disturbed, I found POR to be super quiet. Probably the most quiet resort I’ve ever enjoyed anywhere. I stayed at Beach Club in 2017 and there was a lot of noise - probably just our location.
Questions for you…We will be in the preferred rooms Sep 21st - 27th. This will be our 1st time on property… so I need some tips. Original plans were to use only Disney transportation but with the opening of SWGE I am concerned of not making RD’s, ADR’s and waiting for maybe a second or third bus. With the crowds at Christmas time how long did it take to get a Lyft/Uber? My other thought was to use the bus to and from the Airport then rental a car from Disney’s Transportation Center for the Parks. Although, then I am paying an additional 20.00 for Hotel parking. Or should I just rent a car at the Airport and forget Disney transportation all together. This SWGE opening has really made my planning more difficult and being a newbie I am a little freaked out. Thanks and any other info or tips you can give me would be appreciated.
There wasn’t much of a wait at all for a Lyft. That resort is large so it would sometimes take them a few minutes to loop around to us. I also ordered the Lyft once we were at or just about at the main lobby - not to our lodging building.
I largely used the Lyft XLs as they weren’t much more than the regular Lyfts (I had a 10% credit on all rides that week). We did take a Minivan once (although not from POR) and that was a bit more of a wait (however that was a day with crazy weather - like, tornado warnings). If I had it to do over again I would have used a Minivan for our two Magic Kingdom days. We made it to both on time (before RD) but I was stressing over it so it’d be worth the $ to not stress.
We did not rent a car at all so I have no advice there. That’s just our personal preference - I simply prefer to not deal with it and just take a car service everywhere but my husband and I are city people who prefer to walk or ride share in general.
The boys and I missed (intentionally) our MDE back to the airport so we took a regular Lyft. That took 33 minutes and cost $31.83 including tip. Whereas the Minivan from the Poly to the Grand Flo (again, tornado day - monorail was down and we weren’t walking with the crazy weather, buses were jammed) took 4 minutes but cost $20.63 including tip. Only resorted to Minivan as I wasn’t sure they were allowing regular Lyfts/Ubers to pick up at resort (there was some flooding so access was limited).
