Ten days to decide!!!! Would you change from POR to POP???

Value with DDP, or Moderate without DDP?

  • POP with DDP?

  • POR without DDP?


Results are only viewable after voting.
I say stick with POR and pay out of pocket for dining. Paying out of pocket may be easier than you think since it will be just you and your DH on this trip. A prepaid Disney gift card would be a great option for that purpose. The reason I bring up the month of travel is because April is still spring break season and April/spring seems to also be a busy time at the values for youth groups staying for competitions and tournaments; and based on what I've been reading, these groups have been staying at both Pop and the All Stars. If you were traveling in the summer or fall, I would recommend All Star Music as a good value resort choice for an anniversary trip. I think this is the go to value resort for couples traveling without children based on what I've personally witnessed and read here on the Disboards. We stayed at AS Music in a family suite back in August of 2011 and thought the resort was nice and quiet, and the theming was fun and vibrant but still appealing to adults. I noticed several couples there without kids during our seven night stay. Now for our upcoming trip we are staying at Pop and we expect it to be a little busier than the All Stars and the theming seems to have more kid appeal than All Star Music; but we know to expect that going into the trip and look forward to the new experience. I agree with other posters in that it seems like your heart is set on POR. Have a magical anniversary pixiedust:
 
I am going to respond to the group first, and then to a couple specific people in my next post.

Thank you everyone for your feedback! You all have been wonderful. I think I am going to leave it up to my hubby. He's the one paying for the trip (though of course as a stay at home mom, I can say I am paying as well! I certainly earn it taking care of 5 kids!), so it would probably be fair to let him have some say in what we choose. I plan every detail of every trip, so I will talk it out with him and let you all know what he says. I would say maybe we could do a split stay and have a happy medium, but I hate packing up and moving. Did it once, don't think I will ever do it again.

I honestly don't care where we stay. I would sleep on the cement just to be at Disney. :scared: We don't spend too much time in our rooms, so it probably won't matter so much, but I may get frustrated with long lines in the food court. I'm easy to please (though I know it probably doesn't sound that way. I think it was because I was so sick, and then had to take an hour long bus ride back to CSR), so I will be fine with whatever he chooses. I would probably be more comfortable at POR just b/c I have stayed there before, but I am just happy being there.

He just got home, so I will let you know what he says! I appreciate all of you!
 
I have severe asthma, and if I ever got a room with the slightest smell of smoke or mold, I would have to moved immediately. I am very, very sensitive to smells of any kind. Our room was lovely. It was roomy, clean, comfortable, and quiet.

We The only resort I didn't care for was CBR. We stayed there once and won't ever do it again. The room seemed dark and depressing and the resort was too big. It took forever to get anywhere on a bus after stopping at all the other stops.
I loved CBR! The funny thing is that you mentioned mold, and in September when we were there, our original rooms had mold all over the wallpaper border. As I mentioned before, with our lung stuff we had to move. My girls have worse problems than me and my mom has a machine and asthma as well, so it was necessary for us to move. They treated us really well and got us moved over to Jamaica. It was the BEST location. It was a short walk to everything, and beautiful. We also got a fastpass for our trouble. Thanks for the help!

I've stayed at both several times and would chose POR. There are still kids but usually less and it's def more romantic with the decor and carriage rides,boat rides etc. Food is yummy there too! Hope you have a magical anniversary!princess:
Thank you!

As for the dining plan, we have not done it and will not in the future...too much excess food. Don't need to overeat for 9 days and feel gross by the end of it, but that is just IMHO!

The value resorts are great, but if the decision is value or moderate, as DINKs we go moderate. Actually now we go DVC! :)
Inga
We share counter service credits, so we stretch one CS to two meals for the day. It works out really well. For table service, if we have too much food, we put it in the fridge for if we get back and are hungry. What is funny is that I LOST weight on our last trip! My pants were falling off on our last night for late night EMH!!!

We are going to go DVC when our house is paid off. We bought a foreclosure (see? Told you I was frugal!) last year, and will have it paid off in 9 years. We will buy DVC then!

Side note-my son is about to test for his brown belt in TKD.
Congratulations on your anniversary! Hope you have a great trip!
Thank you! That is awesome! Congrats on your son's brown belt! I used to teach karate, but had to quit b/c I was unhappy with how I was being treated. I am building a dojo in my barn at my house, and will be training my kids there! For now we are still at that studio...:crazy2: My husband and I are black belts, my two oldest children have their junior black belts in American Kenpo and are ready to test for their adult black belts. My middle daughter and second youngest are ready to take their junior black, and my littlest is a 2nd degree purple! Way to set goals and reach for them!

Since A poster above mentioned a Disney gift card, I think that's a great idea- you can get one before you go and use that strictly as a prepaid dining card.

If you are concerned about prepayment, I would go online to the menus at allears, figure out approximately how much you will spend, add a little extra and get a Disney gift card for that amount.

You both have good points about the gift cards. I already buy gift cards and only bring enough cash for tips and such. And...we did just what you said about getting menus and pricing it out! Thanks for your help!

Have a magical anniversary pixiedust:

Thank you!

If I missed anybody, thank you very much for all your input! You are all awesome!
 


I would forgo the moderate in favor of the dining plan.


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I didn't read all the replies, so maybe this idea is covered already. Perhaps you could do a split stay. Start at POP for a few days with the dining plan. Do your more expensive meals during that time. Then switch to POR.

If switching resorts isn't an option for you, then I'd stick with POR for an anniversary trip for sure.
 
For an anniversary trip I would never stay at a value. I have never considered one even with kids. They do not appeal to me and being away for my anniversary I would want something more romantic- Just my opinion

ETA: I would opt for the French Quarter if it were just me and the huuby! Have a magical time!
 


How much time do you spend at the resort, use the pool, etc? If you spend much time there, I would keep POR. If you will be in the Parks and/or dining and just crashing at the Resort, the value might be okay???

I would agree with this ... its really about how much time you spend at resort or not ....

If you are the type that leaves the resort shortly after you wake up, and you stay until wishes or illuminations .... then I would go value for sure.

POR looks awesome (staying for the first time in May) ... but we plan on spending some resort time.

The only other thing I would conider is checking undercovertourist for crowd levels, .... http://www.undercovertourist.com/pl...calendar_april-2013.html#disney-opening-hours ... hopefully that doesn't get pulled down ...

If you are earlier in the month, chances are values will be much busier, if you are mid month and beyond, values will be much less packed, and so you wont have to worry so much about the value experience.


Hope you have an AWESOME time ... out next trip is the celebration of our FIRST anniversary (and delayed 6 months at that !!!) We honeymooned at Dis in Feb 2012, and can't wiat for our next trip to the most ... romantic, awesome, special, perfect, lovable, place we have found !
 
For an anniversary trip I would never stay at a value. I have never considered one even with kids. They do not appeal to me and being away for my anniversary I would want something more romantic- Just my opinion

ETA: I would opt for the French Quarter if it were just me and the huuby! Have a magical time!

Problem with French Quarter is that the current promo of 30% off, does not apply. where as, 500 yards away at POR, it does ... request mansions @ POR for 30% off over POFQ in my opinion, if you decide to go moderate.
 
For an anniversary trip I would never stay at a value. I have never considered one even with kids. They do not appeal to me and being away for my anniversary I would want something more romantic- Just my opinion

ETA: I would opt for the French Quarter if it were just me and the huuby! Have a magical time!
I was just looking at POFQ with hubby. I did the math on it again for him, and it is only about $139 more to stay there. That is where we originally wanted to stay, but then we had friends decide to go and changed to POR to be with them. Then they decided they couldn't go right now. I love POR, so I left it, but am considering POFQ again! Hubby says he doesn't want to make a decision until we know if he is getting a side job he is checking out on Wednesday.

I would agree with this ... its really about how much time you spend at resort or not ....

If you are the type that leaves the resort shortly after you wake up, and you stay until wishes or illuminations .... then I would go value for sure.

POR looks awesome (staying for the first time in May) ... but we plan on spending some resort time.

The only other thing I would conider is checking undercovertourist for crowd levels, .... http://www.undercovertourist.com/pl...calendar_april-2013.html#disney-opening-hours ... hopefully that doesn't get pulled down ...

If you are earlier in the month, chances are values will be much busier, if you are mid month and beyond, values will be much less packed, and so you wont have to worry so much about the value experience.


Hope you have an AWESOME time ... out next trip is the celebration of our FIRST anniversary (and delayed 6 months at that !!!) We honeymooned at Dis in Feb 2012, and can't wiat for our next trip to the most ... romantic, awesome, special, perfect, lovable, place we have found !
Thanks for the input and for the link. I subscribe to Touringplans, so we are good there! We are going April 19-27, so the crowds aren't bad. We've handled worse!!! Think Hollywood Studios, level 9.8, on a Saturday, during Star Wars weekends, on Memorial day weekend, right after Star Tours opened up!! We don't usually get hoppers, but we sure considered them that day. Haha!

We usually sleep in, get to the parks sometime between 9-10, sometimes we will come back to the resort and swim or nap or both. Then we go back to the park and stay till close. We LOVE late night EMH. Most of our parks this trip revolve around them. Sometimes we do a night swim. This year we have the WPF&M length of stay passes, so we will also go to those parks, which will probably cut down our pool time.

Congrats on year one! We made it to 15, which we see less and less nowadays, so we are taking the time to celebrate. We are still relatively young too (35, 37), so we look forward to having some time without the kiddos. Well, now that I've typed our ages it doesn't look so young!!!


Problem with French Quarter is that the current promo of 30% off, does not apply. where as, 500 yards away at POR, it does ... request mansions @ POR for 30% off over POFQ in my opinion, if you decide to go moderate.
The promotion does apply to POFQ. I've tested it on the website, and a nice discount comes off. I believe it is 20% off moderates though. The resort listed as not qualifying under the discount is AoA Little Mermaid standard rooms only.
 
POR or POFQ are our fav moderates. They are beautiful resorts.
We have been finding the DDP is just too much food for us and we have started to go without DDP most if not all the time.

When we arrive at wdw, I'll load a gift card with what it would have cost me to get DDP, and use that card for all our dining. Don't have to worry about bringing cash, and it's just like having the DDP, just pay with the card.
 
Another thing I should add- when we stayed at POP- the beds were terribly uncomfortable. We had 2 rooms- 4 adults and we all woke up with sore backs. Never had that problem at any other resort. Beds are better at mods and deluxe.
 
we did POP this past xmas. I was less than impressed and had a few issues(we have done all the other all star resort having no issues). THe trip before we did CBR and loved it just not how spread out it was. I would go for POR, even more so for an anniversary. I know we are planning our next trip for xmas '14-our 20yr anniv/dh birthday/ds grad from hs and we are planning on POFQ....plan to use the resort a bit more, taking a break mid day to soak our feet in the hot tub! We did the ddp for the first time and I will admit, we will probs do it again-even if we have to pay for it. yes a lot of feed and desserts we never would buy, but felt better knowing it was all included and we could try things. we will be only going as a fam of 5 so we may do more sit downs, now sure, but will do the ddp again(dh is sold on it now)...just counting the days til we can book!
 
The promotion does apply to POFQ. I've tested it on the website, and a nice discount comes off. I believe it is 20% off moderates though. The resort listed as not qualifying under the discount is AoA Little Mermaid standard rooms only.

I should have been more clear, sorry. Its not that the discount doesn't apply at POFQ, but the discount is only 5% off the room at POFQ, at POR it is 25% off the room.

I believe both qualify for the discounted tickets portion but that is the smallest part.
 
I would stay with POR, and I was going to tell you to check out pofq, those would be my choice.

Just a warning, we went end of feb, Begining of march in2008, so your a little later, but see if you can find out if there is any cheer leading comps going on. When we went to POR for 10 days the cheerleaders were at pofq, I think some at POR. My only problem was every time we went over to pofq it was like a rally. Load and noisy, and mobbed with girls jumping and cheering. Which is fine in a larger resort, like POR or pop but when you put them all together at the smallest Disney hotel on site you really can not escape them. We paid for a quiet carriage ride and when we got over to pofq I felt we were in the middle of a Super Bowl. We were at POR so it was not to bad for us, but I would have hated it if we wanted a quiet queint romantic anniversary , with quiet strolls between the two hotels and a peaceful boat ride down the river and got 3,000 cheer leaders bouncing around me. I was told that pofq is used a lot by cheerleaders, and I hope I heard wrong since I do picture it as one of the most romantic and more adult hotel on site.
 
We have only ever stayed at Moderates before on our past trips with kids and extended family. We thought this trip we should stay at a moderate for the fact that they seem a little more peaceful and romantic.

You answered your question with this statement. Having stayed at both as 2 adults only, we are at POR this trip for this reason. We enjoyed Pop for what it is - if we were going to spend most of our time in the parks on a short trip, we would stay at PoP with no question. On a longer trip - POR all the way.....

I know this is not solicited...but....ddp - we love it too for the same reasons. I'm a spreadsheet freak, and with the price increases this year, it just didn't make sense anymore - we are going without it, dinning at all of our favorites, and will come out ahead without it.
 
I'd stick with POR and pay oop for dining. It will likely be quieter, you'll have queen beds if not a king, and a being able to take the boat to DTD will be really nice. The atmosphere is just so nice for some downtime with out the kiddies :)

I do like Sue_M's idea to load a GC with your dining budget.
 
I say Pop with the Dining plan! We went alone when younger DS was 18 mos and I was pregnant with DS2 and we had a great time at a Value! we stayed at ASMU and it was clean, pretty and we enjoyed the money we saved! Right now I am in sort of a similar dilema...we are paid in full and booked at POR, but pricing out ASMU could give us a chunk of change back! and we could use it towards other things....I think I have 1 day to decide!

Also not all areas at POP are loud and chaotic. The 80's section over by the Mr Potato head sculptures was quiet and the lake is right there. We are 2 big kids at heart and wouldn't hesitate staying at a value for an anniversary trip.
 
I would absolutely choose POR over POP w/ a dining plan. A dining plan does not interest me enough to make it worth staying at a value. And POR is so beautiful I think it's the perfect spot for an anniversary trip. There is more to do there and you have the boat to DTD. The overall theme is important to me on a trip though. Nothing at POP would interest me enough to make it worthwhile.
 
Well, considering that I just switched from 2 rooms at Pop to 2 rooms at CSR and canceled DDP (for now), I'd say stick with POR. The environment/atmosphere looks so kiddie at the values and if you're used to a mod, it could be a let down to stay at a value. Particularly for an anniversary trip. Besides, your tone sounds like you want to stay at POR. Go with your gut.
 

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