Lisa, We were in room 8784 and we LOVED it. Just a couple minutes from both the pool and the food court. Often all the chairs right around the pool were taken, but there was plenty of seating in the alcoves around the pool. We always sat there so we could be in the shade. We could see some of the pool from there (ds is a good swimmer). We were mostly in the water.
The food court was ok. Lots of variety. One night at dinner, they messed up dh's pizza order and it took a looong time. We complained and the manager comped all our meals. There was also a small amount of grocery items in the gift shop. We bought milk there.
The buses were fine. The only problem was that the cast members didn't seem to know much about them. We went to Chef Mickey's for a character brkfst our first day and we were given incorrect info about when the bus would pick us up. There were 3 other families also waiting to go to bkfst and we were all given different info. We often drove to the parks, but we always took the bus to MK b/c it drops you off right our front. The drivers were friendly and funny. We never waited more than 10 minutes for a bus.
I didn't notice any smoking at MT. I did make a request for 2 bldgs before we arrived, but the front desk didn't seem to know anything about that. It didn't matter, however, b/c we could get either of the 2 we requested (MT was one of them)
We loved the pools. There's a laundry right next to the MT quiet pool. The quiet pools are open all night. On our last night ds and I put the laundry in and swam til after midnight. He thought that was really cool.
Enjoy you trip! You'll love POR!
