NEWS: what hotels are opening when!

[KarenG]

Yes. It was shut and other construction projects were delayed / stopped. As Andre said, this seems right now to be much worse than 9/11 aftermath so I said a few weeks ago I thought they’d mothball a number of resorts

[jobelly]

Originally Posted by KarenG

Yes. It was shut and other construction projects were delayed / stopped. As Andre said, this seems right now to be much worse than 9/11 aftermath so I said a few weeks ago I thought they’d mothball a number of resorts

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Can’t believe I stayed at one half of the resort and didn’t know the other half was shut, although I think they were separate resorts then.
I can remember the parks being empty then as it was the first time we’d been and we couldn’t believe how long it took to walk round the barriers for the empty queues and commented on how long you must have to wait with people there. This was only about 2-3 weeks after 9/11 though. If I can’t go this year I’m put off rescheduling for next year as I think it will be mobbed with all the people who cancelled this year plus the 50th celebration.

[Andre]

Originally Posted by jobelly

Can’t believe I stayed at one half of the resort and didn’t know the other half was shut, although I think they were separate resorts then.

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Not completely relevant to the current situation, but as we're discussing it, here's a bit of history of the two resorts from my website about the merger and what happened after 9/11:

On 1st April 2001, Port Orleans and Dixie Landings officially merged to form one large resort. In fact, the two sections had always shared the same management team but this process completely removed all vestiges of the old Dixie Landings terminology, even down to changing some of the road names. The reason for the merger has never been made completely clear, but many think it was largely due to the inferred racial and slavery undertones of the Dixie Landings cotton plantation backstory.

The combined resort was now to be called Disney’s Port Orleans Resort, with the area formerly known just as Port Orleans changing its name to Disney’s Port Orleans French Quarter and the area formerly known as Dixie Landings changing its name to Disney’s Port Orleans Riverside. The combined resort now spanned some 325 acres and featured a total of 3,056 guest rooms, making it the largest in Walt Disney World.

After the terrible events in New York in September 2001, the subsequent drop in tourist demand meant that Disney needed to urgently reduce some of its resort capacity. From late November 2001, French Quarter was completely closed and Riverside’s capacity was severely curtailed to around 350 rooms. Guests who had bookings were contacted and offered alternative resort choices. The Sassagoula River Cruise was also taken out of service for several months. As demand picked up again, French Quarter was reopened for new bookings starting from 31 May 2002. Disney apparently used the six month downtime to undertake renovation work on the food court.

A year later, with demand presumably still lower than normal, French Quarter was once again closed for more extensive update and renovation work to all guest rooms from 4 May 2003 until 21 March 2004.

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With the current mob-mentality madness going on, I rather suspect that if Riverside was still called Dixie Landings today, it would have been ransacked and hurled into the Sassagoula River by now though...

Andre

[jobelly]

Originally Posted by Andre

Not completely relevant to the current situation, but as we're discussing it, here's a bit of history of the two resorts from my website and what happened after 9/11:



With the current mob-mentality madness going on, I rather suspect that if Riverside was still called Dixie Landings today, it would have been ransacked and hurled into the Sassagoula River by now though...

Andre

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Thank you that explains why I didn’t know it was shut, because it wasn’t when I was there as it was immediately afterwards.
What website do you have?

[Andre]

Originally Posted by jobelly

What website do you have?

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I guess I must have made the link in my signature a bit too subtle - or probably you've got sigs turned off for mobile viewing. It's portorleans.org anyway, originally conceived right here on the DIBB just over 13 years ago in fact, where has that time gone?! https://www.thedibb.co.uk/forums/sho...30#post1337430

Andre

[jobelly]

Originally Posted by Andre

I guess I must have made the link in my signature a bit too subtle - or probably you've got sigs turned off for mobile viewing. It's portorleans.org anyway, originally conceived right here on the DIBB just over 13 years ago in fact, where has that time gone?! https://www.thedibb.co.uk/forums/sho...30#post1337430

Andre

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Yes I’ve seen that before and it’s a great site. I looked at it for this year as we were going to do port Orleans and it actually helped me decide not to as there are 5 of us and it would have been my eldest who got the 5th bed and as a 15year old boy it would have been too small.
I do love the resort though and was gutted it didn’t have a full day bed. We’ve been just to use the good court before.

[toots82]

Originally Posted by Andre

I guess I must have made the link in my signature a bit too subtle - or probably you've got sigs turned off for mobile viewing. It's portorleans.org anyway, originally conceived right here on the DIBB just over 13 years ago in fact, where has that time gone?! https://www.thedibb.co.uk/forums/sho...30#post1337430

Andre

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No way is that yours? It's an amazing resource.

[returnplanning]

Originally Posted by Andre

I guess I must have made the link in my signature a bit too subtle - or probably you've got sigs turned off for mobile viewing. It's portorleans.org anyway, originally conceived right here on the DIBB just over 13 years ago in fact, where has that time gone?! https://www.thedibb.co.uk/forums/sho...30#post1337430

Andre

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That site is amazing! What a good job you have done.

[KarenG]

Originally Posted by jobelly

Can’t believe I stayed at one half of the resort and didn’t know the other half was shut, although I think they were separate resorts then.
I can remember the parks being empty then as it was the first time we’d been and we couldn’t believe how long it took to walk round the barriers for the empty queues and commented on how long you must have to wait with people there. This was only about 2-3 weeks after 9/11 though. If I can’t go this year I’m put off rescheduling for next year as I think it will be mobbed with all the people who cancelled this year plus the 50th celebration.

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Same here, I remember the parks were deserted and all the CMs thanked us for visiting from the U.K. as many Americans just wouldn’t travel. There were loads of (understandable) cost cutting measures I do remember, park hours, reduced transport and so on.

[Andre]

Originally Posted by jobelly

Yes I’ve seen that before and it’s a great site.

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Originally Posted by toots82

No way is that yours? It's an amazing resource.

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Originally Posted by returnplanning

That site is amazing! What a good job you have done.

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Thank you everyone, glad you find the site useful. Well, when the resort is actually open anyway - there's not a lot I can do just at the moment.

Andre