The Royal Guest Room at Disney's Port Orleans Riverside Resort.

When originally conceived, the Port Orleans – Riverside resort at Walt Disney World was called Dixie Landings and was themed to resemble the deep south, from the Cajun bayou country to the antebellum mansion.

Currently the resort is slowly being upgraded building by building and while most of the original theme will still be used, two of the mansion buildings (Oak Manor and Parterre Place to be precise) are being outfitted with a new type of themed room called Royal Guest Rooms.

Another View of the Royal Guest Rooms

These rooms are themed like castle rooms, with regal touches like gold and crystal accents, custom linens and drapes, and banners featuring princes and princesses. The new queen beds will also feature specially created headboards with fiber optics and scenes from the Disney film The Princess and the Frog.

Like the Pirates rooms at Disney’s Caribbean resort, these Royal Guest Rooms will be priced slightly higher than regular rooms, starting at $189 per night during value season (versus $159 for non-Royal rooms). The Oak Manor building is said to be opening first, with a target date of February 17, 2012. The Parterre Place building is said to have a March 2012 opening with the new rooms.

For those wondering, the Alligator Bayou rooms, when renovated, will still feature a fifth-person bedding option in some rooms. However, instead of the child-sized trundle bed that the resort previously used, there will be some sort of fold-down bed that will be wall-mounted and then pull down on top of a lower, wider drawer unit.

At any rate, I’m kind of liking these new Royal Guest Rooms, and I’m sure families with pre-teens will like them, too. I mean what young boy or girl wouldn’t love to feel like they’re sleeping in a castle room.

[Photos courtesy Walt Disney World]