For the 1,080-room French Quarter hotel, the closing will be the second in two years. The inn closed for six months in November 2001, following the 9-11 terrorists' attacks on New York and Washington. Disney calls the French Quarter and the 2,048-room Riverside moderately priced hotels with average quoted nightly room rates of $100 to $200.

The Port Orleans resort closing represents about 14% of Disney's inventory of 22,000 rooms in 18 owned and operated hotels, according to previously published reports. Disney hotel rooms account for about 20% of Central Florida's total 111,618 rooms.

Disney is transferring the 1,000 hotel employees to jobs at its four theme parks. Disney's estimated construction/development cost of the 1991-built French Quarter and the 1992-constructed Riverside was $62 million or about $200,000 per room, area construction industry familiar with Disney projects, tell GlobeSt.com on condition of anonymity. Disney doesn't disclose construction/development costs or occupancy and attendance figures.