Sorry if this offends anyone, but I am glad. I spent a bundle to stay at the Poly and when we went to the pool there were only a few table with chairs and we could not find even a single empty chair. As I was standing beside a group of people I overheard laughing about those who pay so much to stay at poly when they just come over on the monorail for the day! They were using an umbrella table and taken additional chairs as well that just had shoes or towels on them.
Also when we went to beach to watch fireworks same people were there taking up "prime" space in an area where there is limited space for Poly guests to begin with! I have seen a post on these boards suggesting that non-guests actually go up stairs on sides of long houses and watch fireworks from there. Why should these people be able to enjoy for free what the rest of us have to pay for?!
My family and I have come to the Poly on a handful of occasions to eat a meal, join the Luau, and had we not stepped out the doors of GCH, and took a stroll
along the beach and poolside of the resort, meandering along the tiki lit paths while listening to the Hawaiian music playing, that resort would not be top on our list of places to stay next year on our big 15 th anniversary trip. This year would have been nice, but with the pool closing for construction, we've chosen a split stay YC/GF. Strolling the resort grounds is probably a way a lot if people come to know and love the Poly. Should no -guests be hogging chairs poolside? No! I'm all for it being fenced in like Stormalong Bay. But don't be so harsh on people just coming over for bit if tiki-magic. Resort bar-monorail hopping is a common thing to do for visitors of wdw. We've ridden a boat over in the heat of the afternoon to grab a dole whip at captain cooks and sat at a table to eat it. Was that wrong? I don't think so. We've stopped to get a Lapu Lapu at the lounge and sat at a table to drink it. Do I think that was out of line because we were not resort paying guests? No! I'm sure a lot of people also monorail hop or take a boat to hear the orchestra at GF, rent a boat from the marina at YC and stroll along the Boardwalk, stopping to sit down with a corn dog , too. All of those things include soaking up the specific resorts atmosphere. Each resort is different and lovely. None of the resorts boast privacy, and Poly guests , even when we stay there next year, can keep the Poly an "exclusive secret". It attracts outsiders and I certainly see why. Remember ohana is one of the hardest ADR's to get. A Lot of people want to come and soak up the Poly.
I agree with happymom. I do not think you should be able to swim in the pool if you are not a resort guest, but I feel that anything else should be open to the public. I'm sure there are exceptions I'm not thinking of, but I think the restaurants, bars, shopping, marina, strolling, and fireworks watching are fine for non resort guests. The stairwells are a little bit iffy - but I can't imagine enough people do that to make it a big problem. In addition, in our 2 stays on the third floor of a longhouse, I only saw someone on the outside stairwells once for any reason, crowding was certainly not an issue I ever saw. My only concern would be for security reasons. I also think that Disney may feel that outside guests are welcome as well, for the reasons listed above. Except for the recent rumors I have read about the Poly, and the AKL when it first opened, they seem to almost encourage resort visits. If you visit the resort and see how nice it is, and what the amenities are, you are much more likely to decide to stay there and spend much more money there the next time you visit. I visited the Poly, GF, and CR many times when I was younger and staying at the moderate resorts. My family would eat, shop, play in the arcade, walk around the grounds, and take the monorail around the resort loop. We did even watch the fourth of July fireworks from the Poly beach once, years and years ago. At that time they were restricting the towels they handed out to only resort guests with ID, but were not restricting who watched from the beach. Now fast forward many years, and my husband and 2 kids have stayed at the Poly 3 times in the last 2 years, and have a GF visit scheduled for this September. I can't say for sure that we would not have stayed at both of these resorts had we not visited them in the past, but I know we loved them when we visited and it made me hope to be able to stay at then in the future.
When we visited the resorts in the past, we didn't take up tables if we weren't eating, we never sat at pool tables, but we did sit in the hammocks/swings for brief periods of time among our walks. FWIW, we also have done this at the moderate resorts when not staying at that particular resort. They also have beaches and hammocks (some of them). I never felt like we were imposing on resort guests, in fact during the day the resorts often feel nearly empty except for the pool areas. In addition, now that I have stayed at the Poly (Nov 2012, Nov 2013, Feb 2014) I didn't feel like non resort guests caused a problem. I had no way of knowing if they were resort guests or not, I never heard anything obvious from them. I know there were large crowds in the lobby in the evenings checking in to Ohana and the Luau, and I assume many of them were non resort guests. It was annoying having to wade through them to get to the upstairs shops in the GCH, or to the elevator around the Luau check in, but that just comes with the territory of having very popular restaurants in the lobby of our resort. Having said all of that, we were not there during a busy holiday period, and I never overheard anyone saying something about pool hopping. If I heard that, I very well might say something to the lifeguard. I admit I would be every annoyed to find out people were pool hopping, particularly on a crowded day. However, since you can't differentiate crowded days from slow days, I would be irritated either way but much more likely to complain if it were crowded. Now that I think about it, I did once see a family walk out to their car all wet carrying their pool things and made a sarcastic comment to my husband about it, but it didn't bother me that much at the time. We also were not at the pool, we were walking to the busses.
getting closer every day to our May/June trips
We all have the desire to make things "perfect" so that everyone will enjoy it more (or that's what we tell ourselves
). In reality, many of our fondest memories happen when things are not perfect. My favorite family pictures from our childhood are the ones that were taken "on the fly" and everyone in the picture has on mismatched clothing or there is the one sour puss in the pic. Priceless!! 
Plan you mani/pedi with a fun color and buy a cute pair of sandals. You will be in vacation mode in lightening speed 
maybe they don't mind the stairway clogged with non guests to their longhouse 
