Disney's Pop Century Resort

We stayed at Pop Century in Sept. 2007. Our room was very clean, and our housekeeper made wonderful washcloth dolls every day for my 3 kids. She even made a special one for each child to keep before we left on our last day. My kids couldn't wait to get back to the room every afternoon and evening to see what surprise she would leave for them. She would even set their Mickey and Minnie dolls on the bed with the remote and watching Disney cartoons! They LOVED it! Our wonderful, wonderful housekeeper also always remembered that we needed extra towels and cups, we only had to ask our first day. I can't compliment her enough!

However, food court personnel were very lacking in manners and hospitality. No smiles here. Very un-Disney-like! The food was very good, though.

Waiting for the buses tended to be long, but it was a crowded week. The worst part was that Pop Century's bus stops at the parks tended to be the LAST one, so we had a loooong walk from the bus to the park gate entrances (especially at the Magic Kingdom). Next time, I think I will investigate to see which value hotel has the shortest walk from the bus stop to the gate entrance!

One final note, the bus drivers were all so very nice and helpful! I've read from some that they can be irritable, but on both of our last trips to Disney, the drivers were all smiles and seemed very happy to be driving the buses!

Last year, we received excellent rates for a deluxe resort, except for our last night. Since it was just one night, my husband thought we should stay at the POP to save money. We were very pleasantly surprised when we arrived. Strangley enough, besides the lack of slides, my kids prefer this hotel over any other. They love the brightly themed buildings and large Disney icons. My oldest son loved the squirting flowers in the main pool and both my boys loved Goofy's water playground. And don't even get me started about the arcade...I couldn't pull my boys out!

My hubby and I don't usually mind where we stay but we like the moderate and deluxe resorts because their grounds are so beautiful. Well Disney out did themselves on this value resort. The walk way by Hour Glass Lake is very pretty - especailly at night. This hotel is definitely a great Disney deal! This past trip, we stayed at the POP our entire vacation. We loved it, plus the money we saved allowed us to stay 2 extra nights and splurge a little at the World of Disney! :)

We had a delay on our flight so we didn't get to check in until 1:00 am. The gal who checked us in was so nasty. Her attitude was like, "hurry it up, it's late and I really don't want to be here." Needless to say our first impressions of Pop Century were not good. There was a mix-up on our reservation, made by our 3rd party travel agent, but that was nothing for her to fix. There was much more added effort when I got home to get the refund we were entitled to. Her manager was a doll. The rest of the staff was wonderful! First impressions though, not so good.

Happy place on earth? Yah right!

Our kids enjoy staying in the value resorts as opposed to deluxe. For one of our visits to the 'World' we stayed in the Animal Kingdom Lodge ( which was fantastic). My four year old daughter took one look around the foyer and said "This isn't Disney, there's no characters here!" Our second week we checked in to Pop Century and she proclaimed "This is better!".

Even though the deluxe resorts give that little bit extra and offer lots for the kids to do they don't have the theming that little ones love. The room was clean and comfy and was well worth the price we paid. We are going back in December 2008 and have chosen Pop Century again because it is centrally located in Disney World and why torture your kids to a half hour car ride, fight for parking and then at the end of the day when everyone is tired have to drive back to a hotel/villa when you can just jump on a bus and be back at your hotel in minutes?

We have been to Disney several times but this was our first at Pop Century. I thought our room was fine. We were in the 80's building which is a long way from anything BUT it was soooo quiet. We had a view of the lake and every morning there were ducks sitting out on the banks of the lake. We were not in our rooms very much so the long walk was not a real problem. If you have a problem getting around please don't stay in those rooms. We had washcloth animals made about every other day which my children really enjoyed. Our room was always cleaned well. Bus service was good. The front desk told us the Easter week is always one of the busiest of the year so considering all the people there I thought the service was good. The parks opened at 8am, with early magic hours beginning at 7am. We are early risers so we went at 7am and by 10:30 had rode everything at Magic Kingdom we wanted to ride. Then we would come back and swim in the pools. We had a great vacation. My only complaint comes from the last day we were there and we slept in, and went to the food court about 8:30, and it was terrible. You couldn't even move. So keep that in mind when you are vacationing there.