POP vs POR - Sway me?

[Figaroo]

Thank you! What you said about big tour groups made me nervous. It’s one of the “cons” to Pop I’m afraid of. (I’m a teacher and spending my vacation with a bunch of loosely supervised teenagers will have the opposite effect that a vacation is supposed to have for me!)

The tour groups didn't interfere with our trip. We really only saw them in the mornings. Occasionally on the way back to the resort at night. But, POR does have a much more quiet, relaxed quality about it. POR is better for pool/resort and POP is better for transportation in my experience.

 

[LovesTimone]

We decided to leave a day early and all I could get was a room at POP, preferred for 1 night. The price was right and we only need to sleep and then check out and head over to our CRB for the rest of our vacation. DD loved to stay here, Pirates.. So we ended up leaving really early and making to WDW by 2:00pm and our room wasn't ready so we grabbed something to eat and the food court was pretty good. We got a text that the room was ready, so we grabbed our stuff and headed for the room, When we opened the door it hit the bed, the room had a terrible smell, like mold and stinky feet, the beds were not even made... blankets draped on the floor, and there was trash in the basket.. Then I started sniffling and sneezing...yep I have terrible allergies.............. DH was like I don't think so, So on the way back to the lobby we dropped all of our stuff back in the car. The CM was well that's the only room we have and I can have it cleaned again, and I was like I have allergies and the room smells like mold and I can't even begin to stay in that room even, DH was like I found a room at the Hilton at DTD, just asked for our money back.... Then the CM went to check with the supervisor... she came out to talk to us and sent someone to check the room, this all took about 45 minutes... Then the supervisors... supervisor came out and apologized, and was like we have a room over at CBR and at no charge we can move you over there, so we took it... We had to go down the next morning and check out then check in again...but luckily we did not have to change rooms.

It is a cute resort, if you want to save money then I would go with POP if your wanting to relax and have a bit more space the go with POR...

 

[starousse]

We've stayed on all levels, and I'm not a hotel snob by no means, however I can honestly say that I'd sleep in my car before staying at the POP again. Total chaos.... teenagers screaming and chanting in herds all over the place, poor customer service, filthy bathrooms with hair all over the place, cockroaches, just horrible on every level. The bus lines in the parks back to the hotel were laughable. We've stayed at POR and you can't even compare the two.

 

[athumann]

I'm having the same dilemma! I have stayed at both and really love POR but I can get POP for almost $700 less. I start thinking about how much I can buy with that saved money, especially right before Christmas, but honestly the only thing I love about Pop is the price. We will have a 2 year old in our travel party this time and I think he would enjoy PoP. I'm just so torn.

 

[Designed4dis]

Pop doesn't allow dogs

 

[Ensusieasm]

We currently have a reservation for March Break at POR. I was thrilled to find discounts, albeit small ones, available this morning. I'm travelling with my 17yr old DD and as our trip is shaping up it looks like we're not going to spend a whole lot of time at our resort. Trying to decide if we should stay with POR or down-grade to more inexpensive resort and apply the saving to our adventures. The savings are significant for us (like food for the entire visit for one of us).

Anyone willing to share what they think the advantages would be for one over the other (besides financial)? I don't know much about POP, but I've seen several reviews saying that it's their favourite value resort.

We're doing a Tue-Thu stay during March Break.
Day one: Check-in Exploring the Monorail Loop & Fort Wilderness (dinner at Trail's End)
Day two: Long Full day at Epcot & Boardwalk (early morning and late night)
Day three: Lazy morning & Lunch on the Boardwalk before heading back to Tampa

We like to walk so a resort with lots of walking paths was one of the attractions of POR. I will probably go for a walk before she even starts waking...

As of tomorrow POR will allow dogs . For me this tips the scale over to POP. POP does not allow dogs. Before this announcement, I would never have chosen POP over POR.

 

[apress]

OP, sorry to hijack your post, but I am also currently trying to decide between these resorts. We’ve stayed at Pop before and liked it when my kids were little. We’ve never stayed at POR (but POFQ is one of my favs.)
I am trying to decide if it’s worth the almost $600 upgrade to move to POR in a Royal Room for my February trip.
Our biggest priorities in a resort are cleanliness, transportation, and pools.
I’m going to assume a tie for cleanliness (or at least I hope.)
POR looks like the clear winner for pools (my kids love water slides, which Pop doesn’t have.)
Now I’m just trying to decide, who is the winner for transportation. Pop gets a plus for having only one bus stop, but a minus for it being uncovered (I’m super pale.) I just don’t know about POR having multiple bus stops and how long the transportation feels. We’ve only ever stayed at hotels with one bus stop before, so the internal loop has me apprehensive. (I have seen transportation times from the resort but can’t find how long the loop inside the resort usually takes.)
Any input or advice is welcome!

I will tell you from my experience I have had the opposite experience. We have waited long amounts at Pop and short waits at POR. Yes POR has multiple bus stops but I feel the resort is so centrally located to all the parks.

 

[MarBee]

I'm having the same dilemma! I have stayed at both and really love POR but I can get POP for almost $700 less. I start thinking about how much I can buy with that saved money, especially right before Christmas, but honestly the only thing I love about Pop is the price. We will have a 2 year old in our travel party this time and I think he would enjoy PoP. I'm just so torn.

I think a 2 year old would love Pop! The theming is bright and kid friendly, and they have a kiddie pool there as well. We stayed there when my kids were 4 and 2, and they LOVED it. One of the reasons I’m debating now is I’m afraid we may have outgrown it, but 2 is perfect! Plus if you get a renovated room, and the 2 year old sleeps in a pack n play, there is so much more room in the room for you. The spray handles on the new tubs also make bathing little ones so much easier!
Best of luck with your decision! I’m still on the fence, but I am thinking of going with Pop more now.

 

[MarBee]

Pop doesn't allow dogs

As of tomorrow POR will allow dogs . For me this tips the scale over to POP. POP does not allow dogs. Before this announcement, I would never have chosen POP over POR.

This definitely added a check in the pro-Pop column for me. I had asked two separate CMs if the Royal Rooms (an upgraded category at POR) and was told that any room could have pets staying in it. While I’m a dog lover, I don’t want to vacation next to someone else’s. I haven’t cancelled my POR reservation yet because I’m waiting to see how this pans out, but I most likely will.

 

[DJFan88]

Agree with a couple others. POR was our favorite resort, but Now they have changed it to one of these Pet resorts. No Way I would choose POR now, esp. since everyone now is the guinea pig in this experiment.I would choose POP, My vacation is not something I want to risk wrecking based on some experiment that is only designed to help Not me!

 

[buzznina]

Ive stayed at both. In my experience, POP was the hands down winner for transportation. We had long waits (25+ mins) for busses both going to and from the parks at POR. Never waited more than 10 mins for a POP bus. This was true our entire stay for both resorts which was 5 days. Also, there were some huge tour groups at POP and the transportation still ran quick and smooth. Also, the POP ride was definitely shorter despite distance to the parks. I think this was because of the route and the lack of multiple stops, which added to the travel time. POR had he covered waiting, but just ended up in a big clump of people and no definite line all trying to get on the bus. For me, I preferred the clear roped off line and shorter wait at POP over the covered waiting.

I will tell you from my experience I have had the opposite experience. We have waited long amounts at Pop and short waits at POR. Yes POR has multiple bus stops but I feel the resort is so centrally located to all the parks.

This is exactly why we no longer take transportation into consideration when we choose a resort anymore, we choose based on theme, amenities, cost difference and beds (much prefer queens, POP new rooms have queens but we are not a fan of the setup and losing the table when the 2nd bed is down). After 30+ trips and multiple trips at both POP and POR, we have had great and not so great transportation at each. I found that the trip around the POR resort took about 10 minutes, more if you had special assist vehicles to load up.

 

[MarBee]

So today I was able to get additional discounts for Pop for our trip. I’ll save about $1100 staying at Pop vs POR for our 5 night trip, so that’s what I went with. I’m just hoping I made the right decision here!

 

[strike4]

I'm debating these two resorts also. It will actually be $50 cheaper to stay at POR for us.
The dilemma is that we have 4 adults and 1 child. At POR we would all be in one room.
At Pop we would have 4 beds and 2 bathrooms. We liked Pop but have never stayed at POR before.

 

[Moliphino]

I'm debating these two resorts also. It will actually be $50 cheaper to stay at POR for us.
The dilemma is that we have 4 adults and 1 child. At POR we would all be in one room.
At Pop we would have 4 beds and 2 bathrooms. We liked Pop but have never stayed at POR before.

With four adults I'd go for the two bathrooms.

 

[strike4]

With four adults I'd go for the two bathrooms.

I think that's what I'm going to do. We would probably end up more relaxed with the extra space also with an 8
day stay. Thanks for your opinion!

 

[RustManFan]

POR always!!

 

[buzznina]

I always believe in NOT paying extra for something I am not going to use, and since you will not be utilizing much at the resort, I would save $$ and stay at POP.

 

[wdwthanksgiving]

We love the Wilderness Lodge with our family and really use the pool and all the resort offers ...we've stayed at POR for many visits and also really like the resort/pool but when it is just ust my husband and me, we always choose to stay at POP. Our visit in early March to enjoy the Flower and Garden Festival has a difference of almost $600.00 between POP and POR ..just too hard to justify spending that extra $600.00 because neither of us will spend any time at the resort except to sleep. Always depends on how you will use the amenities and how much time you will spend at your resort. Another factor is that we have our car so getting around WDW is easy for us ---if you depend on busses, then I'm sure that weighs a lot into your decision.