Disney Vacation part 2
As promised, here’s the last photo I wanted to post from the last post (since it was getting chopped in half when I tried to post it yesterday):
Night time walkway
It’s a tad blurry, but I wanted to show how cute the place looks at night with all the street lights lit up.
So, after checking in, we got directions to our room, which was pretty close to the main lobby building. Our building was catty-corner to it, building number 5. That put us close to the food court (if we wanted to use it), the lobby, the gift shop (how convenient!), and the bus stop. We had a standard room with a standard view, which in some cases can have you looking out at the scenic parking lot, but we really lucked out and got a corner room overlooking a large, pretty courtyard. The corner rooms are great because they have 2 windows as opposed to the standard one, so it was nice and bright in the room when we had the blinds open. Here’s some pictures of our room:
Our room! (Building 5, floor 2, room 48)
The next set of photos has our little tradition of Chris hiding and poking his head out from a random part of the room, so find Waldo:
Looking into the room
Most of the rooms have 2 double beds. Coming from a king size bed, double is damn small, but we’re on our anniversary trip, so extra cuddling never hurts! They do have king rooms for a bit extra though. Anyway, I thought the decor was really cute and the beds/pillows were comfortable enough (I didn’t notice a difference between these and the ones at the Grand Floridian), but then again, at Disney World, you’re typically so tired at the end of the night, you could fall asleep comfortably on a slab of concrete. 
Looking into the bathroom area
No problems with the bathroom. There’s even a curtain in that doorway to block some of the light in the morning if you don’t get up at the same time. Another bonus of POFQ over POR from what I’ve heard is the double sinks. Apparently POR only gives you one sink. Ick. I mean, it’s only 2 of us, so I can only imagine how tough that is with a whole family.
Shower
This was the little toilet/shower room. That toilet was mega powerful and super loud when it flushes. That’s the only thing we heard from other rooms, though. This could also be due to the somewhat loud AC unit. It’s white noise though, so it didn’t bother us. I think hearing people in other rooms would be worse. The shower was fine, though I always wish they had bigger towels. I also liked the lighting in here. I don’t know if it was on purpose or if it was actually a problem, but the light started out somewhat dim and got brighter after a minute or so. That’s nice in the morning when you wake up in a room artificially darkened by the nice light-blocking curtains.
Looking towards the door (I don't think Chris is in this picture)
Yes, that door leads outside. No interior hallways here like at the deluxes, but I didn’t mind at all. No bugs got in and we didn’t see that many people walk by. Those that did didn’t look in. We closed the blinds and curtains at night and when we napped or showered, but otherwise, leaving the blinds open definitely wasn’t a problem. Maybe it would be more so on the ground level, but I’m not sure. Most of the rooms are back far enough from the little roads (not to mention having trees and bushes in between) that people walking around the resort to the pool or something really couldn’t see in. If you like having a balcony to sit on and drink your coffee or something, this setup might be a negative, but we were happy.
2 windows! Yay corner room! (He's not in this one either)
View out of window 1
View out of window 2
Folded Mickey towel left for us
We only got a folded towel on day 1, but that’s ok. I don’t think we got towel animals everyday at the Grand Floridian anyway (we did on the cruise though). This does remind me of probably the only major difference I noticed between deluxes (and maybe even just concierge level deluxe) and moderates: no turndown service except on your last night. Again, to us, this wasn’t a big deal. The maids still came around during the day to tidy up, so your bed is still crisp when you get in at night, but I do kinda like those chocolates and the cute little cards they leave on your pillow. A few other small things that were different, but we didn’t really care about were the fewer and slightly lower quality bath products in the room (no uber-moisturizing lotion or peppermint foot rub) and the TV wasn’t a flatscreen (I think this is just a future upgrade though – I think one or two of the other moderates just got a renovation with flatscreens and queen size beds). Overall though, we really liked the hotel and the room, so we’d definitely like to stay here again.
Next up, the traditional shower cap pictures. I don’t know when I started this, but at some point I decided that at every hotel I stay at, the first thing I do is go look for the complementary shower cap (none at this hotel, blasphemy! Good thing I brought my own!) and take a picture with it on. So, Chris has joined in as well, with his own twist to it:
Traditional shower cap photo
Not so traditional shower cap photo (he doesn't always do this pose. Sometimes he wears a hat with the shower cap or puts the shower cap on his face and proceeds to gasp for air - no worries, he's ok. I guess...he is a bit crazy...)
Free anniversary pins for us!
We both wore these everyday to the parks, as you’ll see in the upcoming posts! It got us lots of attention! Tomorrow: Remainder of day 1, Magic Kingdom. 
Disney Vacation part 1
Since I have so many pictures, I think I may split up our vacation into several posts. Today’s post: the hotel! We stayed at Port Orleans: French Quarter, which apparently used to be Dixie Landings. It’s the first moderate that we’ve tried and we absolutely loved it. It was so cute and the room was quite comfortable. Also, of the two Port Orleans hotel options (the other is Riverside), I think we definitely made the right choice. Riverside is HUGE. From what I could see of it, it looked pretty and there were 4 themes to it, which is cute, but I like the more intimate size of French Quarter and I LOVED the little tree and street-lamp lined mini-roads that were laid out between the buildings. Here’s my photo tour of the hotel:
POFQ lobby
Jazz lounge looking into the lobby looking into the registration area. Though not in use at this moment, there was, in fact, a jazz band that played here periodically.
We had a small issue getting into the hotel parking lot – apparently at some point our reservation was made under the last set of names we gave them when we booked ourselves (when Chris booked the honeymoon), which was correct for Chris, but completely incorrect for me. Not only was my last name listed as my maiden name, but my first name was misspelled (is it really that hard to spell Melissa? Who spells it Melesa??). But anywhoo, we got in once I mentioned my maiden name (I’m glad at least they’re strict about who gets in – go security!). Check-in was quick and easy. We got a really nice CM (cast member, which is what Disney employees are called) named Matt, who recognized our WoW shirts and joked around with us, even trying to get us room 1337 (leet in leetspeek). We politely requested a room upgrade, which they’ll sometimes give you if you ask nicely (and sometimes surprise you with), but they were totally booked in the nicer rooms, but it didn’t matter at all because we got a great standard room, which I’ll talk about in my next post.
Sassagoula food court
We didn’t actually eat in the food court, but it seemed fine. The decorations were a bit wilder here than anywhere else (other than the pool area) – there were some really creepy large Mardi Gras masks hanging from the corners of the room. The food selection is one of the main complaints I read about regarding POFQ, since they don’t have a table-service restaurant (you can walk to Riverside and find one though), but we never ate at the hotel (other than the breakfast we brought ourselves, which we ate in the room), so it really didn’t bother us at all.
Walkway out of the lobby, which is straight ahead. Food court is to the right, gift shop to the left, pool is down a walkway behind us.
We also didn’t check out the pool much since we were only there for 5 days, but it looks pretty fun, especially for kids. There’s a big dragon slide and the pathway leading down to the pool has big cartoony alligator statues.
Beautiful tree-lined street
This kind of landscaping was all over the resort. It was absolutely beautiful. I loved it. Very romantic and cozy. This was the main “street” that ran parallel to the main lobby building and lead to many of the room buildings. There were also lots of pretty courtyards, some with lots of trees, some with pristine grass and fountains, which can be seen in the next couple of pictures.
Our building!
Pretty pathway from the bus stop
Speaking of the bus stop, the buses were probably the only slight negative in my view. It definitely wasn’t enough to convince me not to stay there again (I would in a heartbeat!), but the buses were a bit slow. POFQ has one stop and on average we waited about 10-15 minutes for a bus going TO a park. Depending on when we left to come home, it could be a similar 10-15 minutes (leaving middle of the day) or 20+ minutes in a long line (at park closing). That, in itself, wasn’t really that bad. I can wait in lines – it’s a big part of Disney. The thing I didn’t like was that it was somewhat unpredictable when the bus would be stopping at both POFQ and POR (which involves 4 stops throughout the hugeness of Riverside and squeezing lots of people into the bus). It often seemed that when we were in a bit of a hurry to get somewhere (either to a park rope drop or home for a much needed nap) the bus decided to make all 5 stops. But it didn’t happen every ride or only to/from certain parks. I’m sure there’s a monetary reason for not getting separate buses for each resort, but it would sure be nice.
Courtyard and our building. There's also a fountain at the other end of this courtyard.
Street sign and our building (that's our room on the 2nd floor corner!)
River path
This was another really pretty area. Across the river was simply forest. You could take this path to get to either Port Orleans Riverside or the boat dock, where a small boat takes you to Downtown Disney.
Night time entrance
My last picture isn’t posting right, so I’m thinking there may be some sort of data limit per post, so I’ll go ahead and put that last picture at the beginning of the next post. Also, the main focus of tomorrow’s post: our room!
