One of our “hidden gem” go-to hotels for a few years has been Disney’s Port Orleans Resort — French Quarter, a moderate resort at Walt Disney World. There’s a lot to like about this Disney hotel, and it’s one we’ve always enjoyed staying at. Read on to learn everything you need to know about Port Orleans French Quarter, including how it compares to other moderate options!
Basics of Disney’s Port Orleans — French Quarter
Disney’s Port Orleans Resort — French Quarter (“Port Orleans French Quarter”) is a moderate Disney hotel at Walt Disney World. If you’re considering French Quarter, you may want to read some of our other posts. We have a ranking of the best Disney World moderate resorts.
We also have a guide to all the hotels of Walt Disney World. And here are our reviews of all the moderate resorts (links open in new tabs):
Review of Disney’s Coronado Springs Resort (Separate Review of Gran Destino Tower)
Review of Disneys Port Orleans Resort — French Quarter (you are here)
The Cabins at Fort Wilderness fall into a similar price category, but aren’t technically considered moderate hotels. And if you’d like to see where this resort falls overall, check out our complete Disney World hotel rankings.
Staying at Port Orleans, you get the perks of any Disney stay. You’ll have access to free transportation (by bus, as discussed below) to and from the parks and Disney Springs. You’ll also have access to Early Theme Park Entry and the ability to book your individual Lightning Lanes at 7AM (as opposed to when the parks open).
Rack rates for standard rooms at Port Orleans French Quarter in 2024 range from $289 to $476 per night. This pricing is similar to what you’d see at other moderate resorts.
French Quarter vs. Riverside
We want to quickly clarify the difference between two similarly named resorts, Disney’s Port Orleans Resort — French Quarter and Disney’s Port Orleans Resort — Riverside.
Originally, French Quarter and Riverside were unrelated resorts. French Quarter was originally “Disney’s Port Orleans Resort” and Riverside was originally “Disney’s Dixie Landings Resort.”
In 2001, Dixie Landings was transformed, and the resorts were renamed “Disney’s Port Orleans Resort — French Quarter” and “Disney’s Port Orleans Resort — Riverside.”
Despite sharing part of their name, the resorts still operate largely independently. Each has their own restaurants, transportation (except a shared boat route), shops, merchandise, pools, and theme.
Boat launch at Riverside
Nevertheless, you’ll still see them considered together as a single “Disney’s Port Orleans Resort” for seemingly arbitrary purposes, such as this list of the largest hotels in the word by room count (#24!).
You can walk easily between French Quarter and Riverside. It’s about a twelve-minute walk lobby to lobby. Throughout this review, whenever we use the term “hotel” or “resort,” we’re referring specifically to French Quarter.
Booking Port Orleans French Quarter
We booked our French Quarter room the same day of our stay with the help of our stellar travel agent Lauren Quirk of Travel With Character LLC. Our most recent stay at French Quarter we paid rack rate of $389.25 per night for a standard view room.
For booking purposes, French Quarter and Riverside are treated as entirely separate resorts. It’s common that one will be included in a promotion and the other excluded.
French Quarter — Grounds and Theming
French Quarter is located near Disney Springs along the Sassagoula River (along which you can take a horse drawn carriage ride). Since Disney has ended their Magical Express shuttle service from Orlando International Airport you’ll have to find your own way from the airport if you’re flying in.
Both French Quarter and Riverside have an anteroom style lobby. In the case of French Quarter, you enter into a sort of outdoor-themed area with cobblestone-style flooring, a fountain, and French Quarter style light posts.
The actual lobby is less intimate, featuring columns and a large, arched roof.
French Quarter is one of the better themed non-Deluxe resorts. It helps that the architecture of the actual French Quarter is so distinctive, to be sure. We’ve complained that Caribbean Beach couldn’t really distinguish itself from other Florida hotels, and obviously French Quarter doesn’t suffer that problem.
Theming to a place really helps the resort. The pathways (streets) and building facades are pulled straight from the real French Quarter. The wrought iron elements are great. Street signs are added to give even more realism.
In a way, it’s hard as an adult not to enjoy the colorful whimsy of Port Orleans French Quarter. It shares that whimsy with the value resorts, but in a more adult, far less kitschy manner.
The lack of abrasive kitsch might make this resort less appealing to children, but the bright theming should keep them somewhat entertained. Okay…so there is a little kitsch:
Finally, French Quarter is pretty small, with the farthest rooms being about a five-minute walk from the main building. If you’re used to staying at the deluxe resorts or preferred rooms in the value resorts, this might not surprised you.
But the other moderate resorts are huge and set around bodies of water. Is there a huge difference between a room being five and ten minutes from the main amenities? Probably not. But it’s at least a small mark in favor of the hotel and, we’ll see later, the small size greatly improves transportation at the hotel.
Rooms at Port Orleans — French Quarter
Booking same-day, we arrived sometime close to the check-in time of 3:00 PM and quickly got a room. If you use Disney World’s online check-in service, you can go directly to your room, but we didn’t do that last visit.
My first reaction to our room at French Quarter was “great, something a little different!” Then I thought for a second and asked myself—was I too hard on Caribbean Beach, which I’d recently criticized for being more of the same minimalist aesthetic?
Really, what I think happened was that I was already so taken in by the resort that the room was just sort of the cherry on top of the sundae. Use the arrows to click through the gallery:
Most rooms at French Quarter have two queen beds, but there are king bed rooms available. Like almost all the moderate and value options, the rooms are “motel style” with doors facing outside.
On close inspection, French Quarter actually helped me narrow down that the majority of Disney rooms seem to confine their theming to very specific areas. Window curtains, shower curtains, and room dividers are the first area. And then there’s headboards, bed lighting, and a bedside painting.
I enjoyed the room at French Quarter more than the comparable room at Caribbean Beach, but I’m willing to say this is entirely because I was taken in by the theming of French Quarter.
It’s here where I remind readers that I’m a noted fan of the newest, most functional rooms at Disney World. In the moderate tier, these rooms are found at Coronado Springs. The French Quarter rooms are definitely not the worst in Disney World, but as renovations across the resort continue to happen, these rooms are going to fall behind.
French Quarter Restaurants
French Quarter does not have a table service option. Its only restaurant is the food hall—Sassagoula Floatworks and Food Factory.
Besides the standard fare (burgers, pizza, pasta), Sassagoula offers a few New Orleans specialties, such as po’ boy sandwiches, beignets, and jambalaya. Unfortunately the online menu is out of date as of this review.
The food court uses a traditional “order, receive food, go to checkout station” model.
As the same suggests, the food court is themed to a float storage/manufacture building. This sounds weird, but it’s actually really cool to be surrounded by oversized Mardi Gras items.
Unfortunately, we’ve only stayed here during the holidays (three times now!), when many of the items are replaced with holiday decorations.
The resort has two bars—Scat Cat’s Club indoors and Mardi Grogs outdoors. Mardi Grogs is a straightforward pool bar.
Scat Cat’s is nicer, but maintains an inoffensive plain, dark wood feel.
Port Orleans French Quarter Pool
The feature pool at French Quarter (actually its the only pool at French Quarter) is Doubloon Lagoon, and it primarily features a giant sea serpent, with Neptune atop, encircling the area. The serpent’s tongue serves as a water slide.
There’s also a play area nearby for smaller children.
Overall, this pool is closer to the quality of the value resorts than the more impressively themed Caribbean Beach pool. The difference isn’t so great that it would factor into our decision-making, though.
Shopping at Port Orleans French Quarter
Like every Walt Disney World resort hotel, French Quarter has a store—Jackson Square—stocked with vacation essentials, the latest in Disney fashion, and a few unique, resort-specific items.
Transportation at Port Orleans French Quarter
French Quarter is accessible from most of Walt Disney World only by bus and car. It is accessible from Disney Springs by boat, and from Port Orleans — Riverside by boat or walking. Guests driving at Disney World once again have free parking at the hotel, and parking at the theme parks is included with your stay.
Unlike Riverside, Caribbean Beach, and Coronado Springs, French Quarter utilizes a single bus stop. This means you’ll have to walk to the main building when you want to go anywhere (small bummer) but the bus won’t be making a ton of other stops (big HOORAY)! This makes it one of the better resorts for efficiently getting to and from the theme parks.
The resort isn’t huge, though, so we consider this to be a good arrangement. Relying on bus transportation is always a downside of many Disney hotels (and why we often recommend Uber at Walt Disney World), but at least you’re not suffering through multiple stops.
Obviously the resort’s location makes it theoretically ideal for sharing a bus with Riverside, but this has not been a practice our last few visits. I’ve been on the shared bus before, but only during way off hours (like coming home from Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party at 1AM).
If you’re headed to Disney Hollywood Studios or Animal Kingdom for rope drop, you’ll particularly want to consider avoiding the bus, as a small delay getting to these parks to start the day can really make a difference.
As for the boat to Disney Springs, this is not as big a “perk” as some people make it out to be. The boat runs roughly every 20 minutes and takes 15 minutes to get to Disney Springs. The last boat departs Disney Springs at 11:30. I suppose that beats the bus.
Seeing Disney Springs from the water is pretty cool, though, so travel time being equal I guess the boat has that going for it. And a part of me thinks there’s at least a perception that you’d rather take a regularly scheduled boat from the pretty conveniently located dock than throw yourself into the black hole of the Disney bus system at their gigantic springs depot.
Activities at Port Orleans French Quarter
Like every Disney hotel, French Quarter maintains a decent roster of activities. These vary day-by-day and month-by-month, but some highlights include:
Daily pool party
Weekly trivia night
Campfires (multiple times each week)
Movies under the stars (multiple times each week)
Here’s an old schedule to give you an idea of what to expect.
Disney’s Port Orleans Resort — French Quarter Conclusions
Having come fresh off our stay at Caribbean Beach, another moderate resort, we’re ready to say we prefer French Quarter. In terms of theming and design, the resorts are pretty close in quality. Caribbean Beach is newer in design, but French Quarter is a little more fun.
Our favorite quality of French Quarter, besides its theming, is its small campus and single bus stop. Transportation is a big challenge at Walt Disney World these days, but being able to quickly access a single bus stop definitely helps things.
What French Quarter really has going for it is its small size and intimacy. No matter what, the resort always lacks the chaos of the the larger resorts, particularly the value resorts but also the other moderate resorts.
It’s a big favorite for adults doing Disney World for this reason—it’s a decent price point without kids constantly zipping around. The proximity to Disney Springs also makes a big draw for adults.
Of course, it’s still Disney World and families will feel more than welcome. Kids should still get a kick out of the occasional alligator figurine and the scattered Mardis Gras theming.
At the end of the day, what French Quarter does best is doing nothing poorly. It’s only obvious “shortcoming” is the lack of a table service restaurant—you’ll have to walk to Riverside for that. That’s not to say it does everything best. It’s rooms aren’t my favorite, for example.
French Quarter benefits from not being a hotel where I have to say “it’s good for most people but…” or “I’d stay at this hotel for this kind of trip.” It’s a one-size fits all kind of hotel. And if what you’ve seen and heard sounds appealing, you can go ahead and book it without worrying about having a bad time.
Have you stayed at French Quarter? What did you think?
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