I wanted to post our experience - I apologize in advance as it will be a long post, but I wanted to be thorough...I stayed at POR from 1/25-29/2018, and we were in the 80 Acadian building. For some background as it is relevant, my DD11 and I were part of a larger group of about 20 rooms. Her dance company participated in a workshop with cast members on Saturday, then performed at Disney Springs on Sunday. I mention this part as it added to the obligations, needs, and stressors of the trip as it was not Disney “business as usual” for us. It was my first time traveling with just my daughter, as my DH and DS13 stayed home.
I had concerns about the new pet policy, mostly specific to my situation in that I was traveling alone with my daughter at an unfamiliar resort with exterior corridors. I was agitated about the rollout and short notice, as I did not have the option of changing resorts and really couldn’t cancel, although most of my concerns related to how I might effectively deal with an issue if something came up, since calling from the room doesn’t connect you to the front desk. This concern was exacerbated by confusion regarding the new Privacy Policy - it was like the “When New Policies Collide Trip”. Generally speaking, I was less concerned about the policy itself, but more about the “looseness” of the policy/rules and whether it would be enforced, and what I mentioned above.
And to preface, our experiences wouldn’t necessarily mean that I wouldn’t book another dog friendly resort. I love dogs and have owned them most of my life; the experiences didn’t have a significant negative effect on our trip, and I generally roll with things, especially on vacation. But I wanted to detail them as they definitely reflect some of my specific concerns before the trip, as well as other concerns I read, so I feel like I wanted to share them.
Our TA had made a blanket request to be placed away from the dog friendly buildings. I didn’t really give it any thought after that, since I knew about the request and couldn’t do anything else anyway. We saw no dogs our first three days, and frankly with all the craziness of the trip, I forgot about it.
On Sunday morning, we saw a man with a small child and a leased dog exiting the food court as with coffee and food "to go" as we were entering. After we had breakfast, we were walking along the path around the main pool back to the room. We saw them again ahead of us. It turned out we were going to the same building. The man stopped on the lawn in front of the building facing the river so the dog could relieve himself (ETA it's not a designated Dog Relief Area - I wasn't sure but since checked, just for clarity). He was still ahead of us and went into one of the rooms in our building. I was surprised as I knew about the TA request, although then I looked up a post on the pet policy sticky, and saw that the 80 building was one of the initial pet friendly buildings, I think. I mentioned it to the TA and she was upset, as apparently there were some issues with the room requests and she was led to believe the blanket request had contributed to Disney not honoring other guest requests. I had hoped that Disney would honor the TA’s request, but apparently they did not.
On Sunday afternoon we were headed to the food court after the performance around 3pm for some “lupper”. The kids hadn’t eaten so they were a mixture of hangry and exhilarated from their performance experience. We crossed the bridge and were on the path around the pool again. The girls saw a couple walking a leashed smaller dog. The girls start to make “Awwww, cute!” noises and such and in their excitement, my daughter’s friends turned toward to dog to pet it (my DD does not approach unfamiliar dogs without permission from the owner). The woman said “He nips” and something in her tone stopped the two other girls in their tracks, which was fortunate since in fact the dog nipped at them but didn’t connect as they were still far enough away.
The next day was checkout day. I heard a dog barking early about 6:30 am but I was already awake packing. It woke up my daughter but she needed to get up anyway. If it had happened the previous day it would have been unfortunate as she needed some extra rest for her performance. At that point, even if it had been an issue, there was a driving rain so I wouldn’t have gone to the front desk to address it in any case. At breakfast in the food court, we heard a dog barking several times. Eventually it became more of a consistent cry. I did not see him, but having had many pets, he sounded as if he was in some distress. When we moved into the lobby to wait for DME, we continued to hear him cry and “whine” (as opposed to bark), but I never saw him. I guess it could have been a different dog but it sounded like the same one. Another mom waiting with me at the time mentioned that she had seen a puppy running loose in the food court with a family a different day. She mentioned it as she was surprised about it as she didn’t know the resort was pet friendly. The change came after our booking and the TA had not told the larger group.
Again, nothing happened that had a significant impact on our trip and we loved the resort and had a fantastic trip, but we had experiences that ranged from safety, to rules, to Disney not honoring requests, so I wanted to share it.