Just returned from Pop Century (7/24-7/31)

[Nebraska_Disney]

Just returned from our trip. (Edited to add that this was the first time we have ever stayed in a Value resort after mostly staying in Moderate and once at Poly) We had a preferred room at Pop and stayed on the 4th floor of building #3 in room #3468. I faxed in a room request prior and this was the room number of my first choice I asked for. I did not have to use a service to do this and did it on my own. It was the 4th trip in a row I was able to "pick" my room using a fax prior to arrival. Room was fine, beds were ok. Room was clean and quiet. I don't think we had anyone on either side of us the entire time. We were offered a $90 gift card to skip mouse keeping for our trip. We took them up on it and emptied our trash after 3 nights and got new towels after 3 nights. We bring our own toiletries, so we did not need any of that refreshed. I'd easily go another week and skip the mouse keeping if I got a discount or gift card. We gave it back in the gift shops, but we were going to spend that money anyway on our trip. Ate pizza at Pop one night and it was really good, some of the best I'd ever had at Disney. Ate at the food court one other night and all other meals were in the parks or other resorts. Bus service was great. Never waited long at all for any bus from Pop or back to Pop, even after the park closed. DME was quick too. We were in our room in less than 45 minutes from arriving at the DME loading area. No complaints on any Disney transportation for the entire trip.

Parks were hot as it was in the mid 90's and very humid the entire trip. Only had rain on parts of our last day (7/30). Crowds were not bad at all. The headliners had long lines during the day, but using FP+ and proper touring saved us a lot of time and energy as well as getting to the parks at rope drop. At all 4 parks, we were able to get on everything including Avatar and had multiple rides on all the E ticket rides. Lots of people from South America at the parks, but did not see hardly any big groups. Did not see any rude behavior, did not see any chanting, did not see anything out of the ordinary. All in all, the parks were great, we got on everything we wanted to and enjoyed it all a great deal.

The chaos they call Avatar is not fun. We got to AK at 8am for a 9am open and it was nuts ! The new Avatar rides were great and the Banshee ride was probably the best ride I have ever been on. Our family did not like the new Soarin movie as we were anticipating something new and innovative, but it was a blah.

The new closing show/fireworks at MK was awesome ! It is hard to explain, but it is a must see.

Also did 2 mornings at the water parks, one at TL and one at BB. We enjoyed both and were leaving by mid-afternoon as the peak crowds built in. I wish that the slides at BB were not still down, as they are favorites.

Food was good. Did mostly QS meals, all paid out of pocket. We did Ohana, Cape May, and Garden Grill (all out of pocket) and had great meals and service at all 3. Ohana was the best I have ever had in my 6 trips there and the food and service was excellent. We had a 4:10pm reservation and were seated by 4:18pm and were done by 5:40pm. A great time to go to Ohana ! For a family of 4, including 2 disney adults, we paid for all of our meals out of pocket, including the sit downs, and paid about $1100 total for the entire trip, including all snacks and treats we had. DDP was not going to be a good choice for us nor would it have saved us any money and would have been hard to even break even using either the QS or regular DDP. All in all, our meals OOP were approximately $500 less than if we had done QS DDP !

It was my 10th trip to the World and with the new work being done at DHS, we are going to keep seeing the bar keep going higher for everyone else. Disney did not disappoint and it was a great trip/time.

 

[Christy702]

Just returned from our trip. We had a preferred room at Pop and stayed on the 4th floor of building #3 in room #3468. I faxed in a room request prior and this was the room number of my first choice I asked for. I did not have to use a service to do this and did it on my own. It was the 4th trip in a row I was able to "pick" my room using a fax prior to arrival. Room was fine, beds were ok. Room was clean and quiet. I don't think we had anyone on either side of us the entire time. We were offered a $90 gift card to skip mouse keeping for our trip. We took them up on it and emptied our trash after 3 nights and got new towels after 3 nights. We bring our own toiletries, so we did not need any of that refreshed. I'd easily go another week and skip the mouse keeping if I got a discount or gift card. We gave it back in the gift shops, but we were going to spend that money anyway on our trip. Ate pizza at Pop one night and it was really good, some of the best I'd ever had at Disney. Ate at the food court one other night and all other meals were in the parks or other resorts. Bus service was great. Never waited long at all for any bus from Pop or back to Pop, even after the park closed. DME was quick too. We were in our room in less than 45 minutes from arriving at the DME loading area. No complaints on any Disney transportation for the entire trip.

Parks were hot as it was in the mid 90's and very humid the entire trip. Only had rain on parts of our last day (7/30). Crowds were not bad at all. The headliners had long lines during the day, but using FP+ and proper touring saved us a lot of time and energy as well as getting to the parks at rope drop. At all 4 parks, we were able to get on everything including Avatar and had multiple rides on all the E ticket rides. Lots of people from South America at the parks, but did not see hardly any big groups. Did not see any rude behavior, did not see any chanting, did not see anything out of the ordinary. All in all, the parks were great, we got on everything we wanted to and enjoyed it all a great deal.

The chaos they call Avatar is not fun. We got to AK at 8am for a 9am open and it was nuts ! The new Avatar rides were great and the Banshee ride was probably the best ride I have ever been on. Our family did not like the new Soarin movie as we were anticipating something new and innovative, but it was a blah.

The new closing show at MK was awesome ! It is hard to explain, but it is a must see.

Also did 2 mornings at the water parks, one at TL and one at BB. We enjoyed both and were leaving by mid-afternoon as the peak crowds built in. I wish that the slides at BB were not still down, as they are favorites.

Food was good. Did mostly QS meals, all paid out of pocket. We did Ohana, Cape May, and Garden Grill (all out of pocket) and had great meals and service at all 3. Ohana was the best I have ever had in my 6 trips there and the food and service was excellent. We had a 4:10pm reservation and were seated by 4:18pm and were done by 5:40pm. A great time to go to Ohana ! For a family of 4, including 2 disney adults, we paid for all of our meals out of pocket, including the sit downs, and paid about $1100 total for the entire trip, including all snacks and treats we had. DDP was not going to be a good choice for us nor would it have saved us any money.

It was my 10th trip to the World and with the new work being done at DHS, we are going to keep seeing the bar keep going higher for everyone else. Disney did not disappoint and it was a great trip/time.

Sounds like an awesome trip
Did you ask to skip mouse keeping or did they just offer that?
I haven't been in a couple years but will be there on Saturday. I was excited to check out the new Soarin but bummer to hear it isn't all that great Will definitely check out the new closing show! Thanks for the info.

 

[Nebraska_Disney]

Sounds like an awesome trip
Did you ask to skip mouse keeping or did they just offer that?
I haven't been in a couple years but will be there on Saturday. I was excited to check out the new Soarin but bummer to hear it isn't all that great Will definitely check out the new closing show! Thanks for the info.

They asked about Mouse Keeping at check in. We could have said no, but decided to try it out. They had a "schedule" of how big a gift card you would get printed out based on the number of nights you were there, so it was a set price depending on how long you were going to be there. We knew we would be in the parks a lot and not in our room and also made sure to at least pull our beds together prior to leaving.

We were disappointed with Soarin as we thought it would be so much better than the old movie. We went on it 3 times to give it a try, but everyone was about the same in that it was good, but not great. You can judge when you get to go as maybe we were missing something? We just thought that the old movie had much more interactions to it with more smells, scenes, etc.

 

[Nebraska_Disney]

I will add too that we had no issues with our Memory Maker/Photo Pass photos. Everything got to our account fine this trip.

 

[Jerry2]

Great report.

How do you feel the Value Resort measured up to the Moderates. Do you think it was worth the savings?

 

[mamamelody2]

Glad you had a great trip! 45 minutes total DME time is awesome!
Thanks for sharing your POP experiences as we are going there in November and I love to read about how it works out for others!

 

[Nebraska_Disney]

Great report.

How do you feel the Value Resort measured up to the Moderates. Do you think it was worth the savings?

With this trip being shorter for us (7 nights vs 9/10 on others) we knew we would have little "resort time" and would be hitting the parks hard, especially doing both water parks. With that being said, it was fine and I was ok with it. The price difference for our trip was right around $900. With CBR and Cornado both under construction, it did not leave a lot of options for moderates. We have never done POFQ and only did POR once (liked it, but did the Royal Rooms). What I liked the most was how quiet POP was ! Literally did not see another person within 3-4 rooms (either direction) of us the entire trip. I thought that the POP bus service was great and liked it better than CBR. I am glad they are updating the rooms as I'd like to have a queen bed if I stayed there again. All in all, no complaints in this level of Disney resorts, but again our trip was very positive and I did not find much wrong with anything. I don't know if that is luck or ??? The money we saved staying at a value pretty much paid for all our meals (OOP) for the trip, not quite but pretty close. That is not bad for 2 adults, a 15 yo and 12 yo.

 

[Nebraska_Disney]

Glad you had a great trip! 45 minutes total DME time is awesome!
Thanks for sharing your POP experiences as we are going there in November and I love to read about how it works out for others!

Our last 2 DME trips were under an hour from MCO to our resort. For this trip, we got off the plane and made our way to the DME check in. We were literally the only ones there at that time and they checked us into a bus that was going to AoA, POP, and then CBR. At AoA, about 10 people got off, at POP, about another 15 or so. There was no line at check in at POP and we were in our room less than 1 hour after checking in at DME. For a reference, we arrived at 4:30pm and were at MK before 6pm on a Monday.