castlegazer
Soccer Mom! Soccer Player & Mom! Go USA!
- Joined
- Feb 27, 2003
- Messages
- 6,642
Hi everyone - I just got back from our Florida Vacation! We stayed at the PoP Century Resort for two nights last week. I loved the look, gaudy as that may be. I really liked Goofy's PoP Jets, although some didn't seem to be working, and the gift shop and cafeteria, Everything PoP was great. The resort is really huge and they do nothing to stifle that feeling, its big and crowded and you will know it, although with the multitude of pools, there is little feeling of claustrophobia when you go swimming. When we drove up to check in you could see the firework from IllumiNations from the parking lots.
I had requested, upon Josh's (a CM over on the resorts board) suggestion, rooms on the fourth floor of the '50's building #2, in order to see the fireworks from our room, but due to a flight connection issue we got in two hours later than we expected which caused inumerable problems.
Check in was a nightmare. There was only two other families in line before us, and it took us a good 15 minutes to even get to the desk at which point everything went south. My reservation was completely screwed up which granted, could have been CRO's fault too. I did not have my requested rooms, in fact, I didn't have both the rooms I needed, but it showed I had paid for and reserved two rooms - PROBLEM. They were completely booked which gave us such problems just trying to find the two rooms we needed let alone that they were to be connecting and both have two double beds. There was no indication that they had received either my noted CRO room request or my faxed request, in fact everyone at the front desk, and we met several due to the complications with making sure we had the two rooms our party needed, were fairly unpleasant to us - no Disney Magic was felt by anyone I was traveling with. I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs that this all was not my fault, I am tired, please just get me a room to lie my head down in. I have a two year old so this all was getting to be really irritating since the best they could do was put my party in two rooms at opposite ends of the building, but at least we were in the same era which was better than they started with an offer of.
OK - so that was over with, 45 minutes later, so we went into Everything PoP and got some dinner to go. I had a most awesome salad - Beehive salad with Peaches, Grilled Chicken, Blue Cheese and Walnuts. My DH had a wrap and we got a Spinach and Asiago Cheese Dip and a Feta an Olive Dip with homemade Bagel Chips for my son to snack on. This was great and we brought it all back to the room along with some provisions for breakfast. Everyone else chose to forgo as it was so late but wished they hadn't the next morning. They have a great grab and go section.
I woke up early and explored more of the resort - it is very cute and I love the '70's section with the disco lights, the twister games and the foosball players and ball. We were finally placed into the farthest possible room in the '90s. Oh, by the way, parking is an issue, but we were able to find spaces relatively close to our room in the '70's lot. The majority of the parking is located out back behind the '90's and '80's buildings. I do believe the reports that the parking is less of an issue over in the '50's section, but alas I did not find out for myself as I didn't get my requested location and was just lucky to get a room at all. I don't feel there is any reason to get the preferred rooms if you don't have issues with mobility. All the pools are great and all the different buildings are in a very easy walking distance to the main building. Well, that is unless you happen to have our luck and get stuck out back in the '90's building, then its a good five minute walk.
When everyone else woke up we drove over to MK - which was probably a mistake, but I therefore can't comment on the buses, but they looked really adequate for the amount of people waiting from our building view which looked out at the bus stop.
On the day of our checkout, we got up late and all went to the PoP Jets and the Kiddie Pool which we all though were fabulous areas. We left a hefty sum at the gift shop (my mood ring broke not five minutes after we left the resort so beware), and all agreed that we liked the resort for such a short stay but probably would not do more than a few days there.
That's all I can think of right now to report on about the resort. Its a lot of fun, has some issues, and is crowded, is way popular so again I will state its crowded and booked to capacity, but overall is still Disney so it does what its supposed to do - entertain.
Oh, and I was too steamed to ask for Tyler (a CM over on the Resorts board) when we checked in but we did use luggage assistance and they were very sweet, a woman and a man. I asked how long it would take and they said, not long at all as there were not many checking in at the time. By the time we got our food, got through the dissaster at check-in, which would hamper the efforts of their delivery of the lugage as we didn't know room numbers till it was worked out, and parked and found our room, the luggage assistance person (I totally was too tired to get the name) was going into our room as we got there - so we had luggage to be able to crash.
I had requested, upon Josh's (a CM over on the resorts board) suggestion, rooms on the fourth floor of the '50's building #2, in order to see the fireworks from our room, but due to a flight connection issue we got in two hours later than we expected which caused inumerable problems.
Check in was a nightmare. There was only two other families in line before us, and it took us a good 15 minutes to even get to the desk at which point everything went south. My reservation was completely screwed up which granted, could have been CRO's fault too. I did not have my requested rooms, in fact, I didn't have both the rooms I needed, but it showed I had paid for and reserved two rooms - PROBLEM. They were completely booked which gave us such problems just trying to find the two rooms we needed let alone that they were to be connecting and both have two double beds. There was no indication that they had received either my noted CRO room request or my faxed request, in fact everyone at the front desk, and we met several due to the complications with making sure we had the two rooms our party needed, were fairly unpleasant to us - no Disney Magic was felt by anyone I was traveling with. I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs that this all was not my fault, I am tired, please just get me a room to lie my head down in. I have a two year old so this all was getting to be really irritating since the best they could do was put my party in two rooms at opposite ends of the building, but at least we were in the same era which was better than they started with an offer of.
OK - so that was over with, 45 minutes later, so we went into Everything PoP and got some dinner to go. I had a most awesome salad - Beehive salad with Peaches, Grilled Chicken, Blue Cheese and Walnuts. My DH had a wrap and we got a Spinach and Asiago Cheese Dip and a Feta an Olive Dip with homemade Bagel Chips for my son to snack on. This was great and we brought it all back to the room along with some provisions for breakfast. Everyone else chose to forgo as it was so late but wished they hadn't the next morning. They have a great grab and go section.
I woke up early and explored more of the resort - it is very cute and I love the '70's section with the disco lights, the twister games and the foosball players and ball. We were finally placed into the farthest possible room in the '90s. Oh, by the way, parking is an issue, but we were able to find spaces relatively close to our room in the '70's lot. The majority of the parking is located out back behind the '90's and '80's buildings. I do believe the reports that the parking is less of an issue over in the '50's section, but alas I did not find out for myself as I didn't get my requested location and was just lucky to get a room at all. I don't feel there is any reason to get the preferred rooms if you don't have issues with mobility. All the pools are great and all the different buildings are in a very easy walking distance to the main building. Well, that is unless you happen to have our luck and get stuck out back in the '90's building, then its a good five minute walk.
When everyone else woke up we drove over to MK - which was probably a mistake, but I therefore can't comment on the buses, but they looked really adequate for the amount of people waiting from our building view which looked out at the bus stop.
On the day of our checkout, we got up late and all went to the PoP Jets and the Kiddie Pool which we all though were fabulous areas. We left a hefty sum at the gift shop (my mood ring broke not five minutes after we left the resort so beware), and all agreed that we liked the resort for such a short stay but probably would not do more than a few days there.
That's all I can think of right now to report on about the resort. Its a lot of fun, has some issues, and is crowded, is way popular so again I will state its crowded and booked to capacity, but overall is still Disney so it does what its supposed to do - entertain.
Oh, and I was too steamed to ask for Tyler (a CM over on the Resorts board) when we checked in but we did use luggage assistance and they were very sweet, a woman and a man. I asked how long it would take and they said, not long at all as there were not many checking in at the time. By the time we got our food, got through the dissaster at check-in, which would hamper the efforts of their delivery of the lugage as we didn't know room numbers till it was worked out, and parked and found our room, the luggage assistance person (I totally was too tired to get the name) was going into our room as we got there - so we had luggage to be able to crash.
