beckysko
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Apr 8, 2010
- Messages
- 259
Just returned yesterday from Disney. We went for 10 days. My sister (19) was working as a Cast Member in the International College Program, working at Magic Kingdom in Custodial. Here are the details:
Attendees: Sister (19)...stayed in her residence for 3 days until her program ended, then stayed at Pop Century with Sister (17), Sister's Friend (17). In the adjoining room was myself (33) and my husband (33) went for his first ever visit. My parents stayed at a nearby resort, Sheridan Vistana - they are timeshare townhomes.
We got a 10 day park hopper with the free Quick Service Dining.
Resort: We had stayed at Pop Century before, and we thought it was a good value with a good variety of food. We had two rooms (adjoining) in the 70s section. Our room was refurbished, so it had the new dresser/drawers, flatscreen tv, and the curtain separating the vanity area. Before leaving I thought that was stupid, but it really came in handy when sharing adjoining rooms with other people! We only swam at the Computer Pool as it was less crowded and had fewer young children, the pool was nice, but very warm. Not the refreshing cool dip we were hoping for. We had no problem getting a table with an umbrella every day around 1pm.
Food: The food stations were great, and having the quick service dining plan made it nice for us to eat for FREE! We never even used up all of our meals or snacks, since we did book a couple of table service reservations, and ate offsite at Golden Corral once. We at at Chef Mickeys for my sister's 19th bday and met all the characters. We also had one dinner at BOMA at AKL, and at Beirgarten in Germany at Epcot World Showcase. We had breakfast once at Crystal Palace as well. THe rest of our meals were Quick Service.
Weather: SUPER hot. It was 'record-setting' highs while we were there, so we chose to sleep in during the mornings, pool in the afternoon, and hit the parks around 4-5 and spend the evenings at whichever had extra magical hours. This worked out great for our schedules/interests.
Good things:
-Loved having the Free Dining. We did start off by rationing our snacks...'oh, i don't want to waste a snack on WATER'...but then we ended up having SOOO many snack credits left over.
-Parks were less busy in the evenings, so we had a lot of success there.
-Went on the Keys to the Kingdom Tour, which was REALLY cool...and we learned a lot of new things.
-only rained 3 days...but only for an hour or so. One day it rained from 4-7, but we just hung out and watched a movie before heading to the parks at 7.
Annoying Things:
-because we sleep in late, we were annoyed by all the noise at the resort. Every morning around 7:30/8 it seemed that EVERYONE was banging back and forth between rooms. You know how people flip the little door latch to keep the door unlocked while they go visit their family/friends in the next room....well it would be SLAM SLAM SLAM ALLLLLL the time. We also found the grounds maintenance did a lot of hedge trimming around 9am each day.
-at the parks, we did encounter two tour group annoyances. They would come into a ride during their fastpass time and start clapping and chanting really loud, then talk through the whole thing.
-the buses taking you to the park were great....unless you had someone with a scooter. Most of the time, we encountered people who didn't know how to use the scooter properly, and it would take 10 minutes or more (once 20 minutes!) to get them to back up and drive the scooter onto the ramp and into the bus.
If you have any questions about Pop Century, the ICP program (I can ask my sister), Dining Plan or anything, please send me a message and let me know!
Attendees: Sister (19)...stayed in her residence for 3 days until her program ended, then stayed at Pop Century with Sister (17), Sister's Friend (17). In the adjoining room was myself (33) and my husband (33) went for his first ever visit. My parents stayed at a nearby resort, Sheridan Vistana - they are timeshare townhomes.
We got a 10 day park hopper with the free Quick Service Dining.
Resort: We had stayed at Pop Century before, and we thought it was a good value with a good variety of food. We had two rooms (adjoining) in the 70s section. Our room was refurbished, so it had the new dresser/drawers, flatscreen tv, and the curtain separating the vanity area. Before leaving I thought that was stupid, but it really came in handy when sharing adjoining rooms with other people! We only swam at the Computer Pool as it was less crowded and had fewer young children, the pool was nice, but very warm. Not the refreshing cool dip we were hoping for. We had no problem getting a table with an umbrella every day around 1pm.
Food: The food stations were great, and having the quick service dining plan made it nice for us to eat for FREE! We never even used up all of our meals or snacks, since we did book a couple of table service reservations, and ate offsite at Golden Corral once. We at at Chef Mickeys for my sister's 19th bday and met all the characters. We also had one dinner at BOMA at AKL, and at Beirgarten in Germany at Epcot World Showcase. We had breakfast once at Crystal Palace as well. THe rest of our meals were Quick Service.
Weather: SUPER hot. It was 'record-setting' highs while we were there, so we chose to sleep in during the mornings, pool in the afternoon, and hit the parks around 4-5 and spend the evenings at whichever had extra magical hours. This worked out great for our schedules/interests.
Good things:
-Loved having the Free Dining. We did start off by rationing our snacks...'oh, i don't want to waste a snack on WATER'...but then we ended up having SOOO many snack credits left over.
-Parks were less busy in the evenings, so we had a lot of success there.
-Went on the Keys to the Kingdom Tour, which was REALLY cool...and we learned a lot of new things.
-only rained 3 days...but only for an hour or so. One day it rained from 4-7, but we just hung out and watched a movie before heading to the parks at 7.
Annoying Things:
-because we sleep in late, we were annoyed by all the noise at the resort. Every morning around 7:30/8 it seemed that EVERYONE was banging back and forth between rooms. You know how people flip the little door latch to keep the door unlocked while they go visit their family/friends in the next room....well it would be SLAM SLAM SLAM ALLLLLL the time. We also found the grounds maintenance did a lot of hedge trimming around 9am each day.
-at the parks, we did encounter two tour group annoyances. They would come into a ride during their fastpass time and start clapping and chanting really loud, then talk through the whole thing.
-the buses taking you to the park were great....unless you had someone with a scooter. Most of the time, we encountered people who didn't know how to use the scooter properly, and it would take 10 minutes or more (once 20 minutes!) to get them to back up and drive the scooter onto the ramp and into the bus.
If you have any questions about Pop Century, the ICP program (I can ask my sister), Dining Plan or anything, please send me a message and let me know!
