No longer a Pop Century fan

My mother, with a lifelong bad back, LOVED the beds at Pop. So much so that she took the information on them so she could buy one for home.

go figure. It's all personal preference, isn't it.

I like the idea of the previous poster about bringing a foam topper. We are driving so that we could do. We have a queen bed so I wonder how it would fit on a smaller bed but worth a try.

Thanks!!
 
Ugh!

Props to you for sticking around for the whole trip! Just the blood-color look alike would've scared me out of the room. Sorry to hear about your bad experience!
 
CraftyMommy said:
I have stayed at Pop 9 times and have always enjoyed it in the past for its value. This last visit has severely tainted my view on this resort. The day we checked in it looked like there were drops of blood or something reddish/brownish in the tub. I was still in "Yay, I'm at Disney World" mode so I overlooked it and rinsed out the tub myself. 2 of the 7 nights we were there the trash was not emptied in our room. We had several maintenance issues with the tub faucet not shutting off and hearing running (steady stream, not trickling) water all night even with the bathroom door shut. You had to hold onto the handle to keep it in the warm zone because it would slip into the scalding hot zone if you didn't hold it up. The drain would not stay open, so the tub would fill up with water as you took a shower. In order to keep the tub from filling up you had to bend down and hold the drain open. So, if one hand is holding the drain open and the other hand is holding the handle so the water doesn't scald you, how does one take a shower? We ended up holding the water in the warm zone with one hand, leaving the tub fill up with water, and wash with the free hand. We called maintenance several times and still didn't have our issues resolved when we left. One day the guy told us there was nothing he could do to fix the handle, it would have to wait to be replaced. The tv kept messing up and losing the signal due to a faulty cable that was replaced twice. There was mildew on the bottom half of the tile in the bathroom. The whole way around the tub the grout around the tiles were mildewed. The top half was white, the bottom half was green.

I feel like Pop Century's rooms need a major rehab. I paid for a preferred pool view. I liked being real close to the pool since we spent a lot of time at the pool this trip, but I did not like feeling like I was staying in a roach motel. Pop Century is really starting to show its age and is no longer my favorite place to stay.

This was DH's first Disney trip. I wanted to wow him but Disney dropped the ball so many times on this trip. With Pop being the biggest disappointment we also dealt with several ride breakdowns on this trip. I still love Disney but it seemed like an excessive number of ride breakdowns. DH was not wowed in the least. He kept asking me where those "Disney details" were that I had been raving about. Lukily I convinced him this trip was my worst ever and he needs to give Disney another shot...with a nicer resort next time. One day we went to the Grand Floridian and he checked out the lobby bathroom. He came out and said, "Finally I found a clean restroom!" So he is now convinced we need to stay at a Deluxe resort next time. I'm Super Ok with that! Good bye Pop Century, thanks for being crappy. I never thought I would get to stay deluxe!

The CM's in the food court have no clue what they are doing. One person would tell us which items were considered snacks or quick service meals on the DDP. We would get to the register and the cashier would tell us they were wrong. We ran into this kind of trouble the whole week. We ended up picking a cashier, asking her what was ok to get, then get our food, wait in her line (no matter how long) so we knew we wouldn't be stuck with a cashier that would tell us something different. I never encountered so many discrepancies in what each CM considered a snack or QS credit in the past like I did on this visit.

No longer a Pop fan.

I am so sorry for your cruddy stay. I've only stayed at Pop for one night in the past. Call guest services and let them know what a terrible experience you had. There will likley be a maintence record for the calls made to your room. Let them know that you felt that Disney really let you down, especialy while you are showing off a place you love so much.

If you are staying deluxe next time, try AKL, our favorite!
 
Its hard to take time out of your fun to "complain," but sometimes its necessary. Last Feb., DH and I booked a pool view room at AKL. When we went out on the balcony, the whole view was blocked by a giant board. I had to call a couple times, but they kindly moved us to a savannah view. I would have been happy with a different pool view room, but the upgrade was nice.

I will be staying at Pop the end of next month, and I'm a little nervous. I don't love the values (though I tend to be on a value budget :goodvibes). I'm worried about missing my hot tub and the overall busyness of the resort. I hope the room is at least clean :worried:.
 


My mother, with a lifelong bad back, LOVED the beds at Pop. So much so that she took the information on them so she could buy one for home.

Hi
Maybe she didn't have the new mattress. I've been to Pop a lot and the older mattresses were comfortable. Glad she loved the bed!!
 
It is not just POP, things can happen at any resort. We stayed Club level and WL and had a shower drain that did not work. I saw a palmetto bug in our bathroom at the Poly. I now always wear at least socks if I get up at night. Mildew on the tiles around the bathtub at the GF. These were very minor and we never complained except for the drain in the shower. At the GF there were TONS od spiders on the patio. Now I know there are lots of spiders in Florida but it did creep me out to sit out there and I wondered how often they cleaned out the balconies and patios?
 
Disney has a major problem with their new DirecTV system... It doesn't work! This is NOT a problem unique to PC. Read the reviews on ANY Disney resort and somewhere there's someone complaining about a problem, getting the short cables replaced etc. Deluxe, Mod, Value , DVC, makes no difference.

Literally.. and I'm not even kidding, as I type this, the guy from maintenance is in my room at Sports to attempt to fix this by replacing the cable. The cable ain't the problem.

The system was either poorly designed by the contractor.. or they used substandard cabling in the walls and elsewhere that cannot handle the bandwidth required. Why on earth so many cables from the wall to the TV would be going bad?? Makes no sense whatsoever that these 4 foot cables all over the property at different resorts are continually the problem.

I will respectfully suggest that Disney got sold a substandard installation / configuration on this by some contractor.. Eventually that will become clear to them. For now, it's clear to this guest.

K
 


OP, we had a similar issue with the shower in our Pop room back in late October. It was very tricky to adjust and manually hold/maintain the water temp. Our kids are both teens, but I recall thinking how dangerous that could be to families with younger kids -or other folks at risk to scalding.

The thing about Pop I was disappointed with was the stay in the 90's bldg. It was our first time out there after many Pop stays in closer buildings. The distance didn't bother me so much, but it was kind oor our next truf a drag having to walk through the parking lot while going to and from the building.

Mostly because my kids are getting huge and partly because I was a little put f by Pop, I am sure I will choose a moderate for our next trip
 
OP, I have to agree with others that have said this - but I also don't agree that your review is really fair. If I had noticed anything unclean about the room, I am calling the front desk immediately. DH is also non confrontational, but when it comes to the money we spend on our vacations , he does not let me keep my mouth shut. You paid for that vacation and you have the right to some quality. Disney is usually pretty good at doing what they can to keep you happy. When we spent 1 night at WL on our honeymoon, we were given a handicapped accessible room on the first floor. I was fine until my DH opened our curtains to a massive bush blocking our ENTIRE view. I immediately got on the phone and requested to be moved. No problems. We were given a new room on the forth floor which was great.

We have stated at values for each of our trips other than our HM. We have never had significant problems- maybe one maintenance issue I can think of off the top of my head which was immediately resolved.

You also have to remember how many thousands of rooms disney needs to maintain on property. Unfortunately, there are bound to be issues here and there. It's about staying positive and remembering you're on vacation (in Disney nonetheless), this is your money used to pay for this vacation, and you have a right to say something.

We will be staying at POP for our April trip with 12 of us (in 5 separate rooms.) This will be the first time we are bringing my family along so hoping for the best with rooms. All in all, vacation is what you make it and I intend on dealing with any potential issues that come our way.

Sorry to hear you had a terrible experience.
 
OP I'm sorry your stay at Pop was not magical. Pop is our favorite resort and I'm hoping it's not going downhill. We even preferred Pop over our stay at the BC conceirge.

Our biggest problem at any resort was our most recent stay at POFQ. We had serious mousekeeping issues. The room was dirty when we checked in and was not cleaned properly on a few more occasions.We had to keep calling when supplies weren't replenished and trash left unemptied. We went down to the front desk in person and made them aware of all issues. The next morning our room was cleaned REALLY well and a towel animal too :rotfl:

Please everyone if there is a problem with your room at any resort please do everything you can to get the problems resolved. This makes Disney aware of problems so they can be resolved for future guests and that helps us all.:thumbsup2
 
OP, I have to agree with others that have said this - but I also don't agree that your review is really fair.

I disagree. This review was perfectly fair. Yes, many people would have complained, but there are a lot of people that have their reasons for staying put, whether it's not feeling like packing up and moving, being non-confrontational or whatever. Also, if my hotel room were so bad I had to go all the way back to the front desk and move all my stuff, I would be less than 100% satisfied with my stay, no matter how they "made it right". Moving to another room does not make the condition of the original room acceptable.

Please lets not discuss whether what this person says is valid. Sorry about your stay OP.
 
OP's complaints ARE valid. No question about that. So can we skip further discussion of how this is all somehow HER fault?? Please? Just this one time?

No doubt they couldn't move her within that resort or any other because of the holidays. Disney was JAMMED. Not an excuse.. just a fact.

To the OP -- I'm sorry this trip wasn't so great. This stuff can happen at any resort but I'm sorry it happened to you and couldn't be corrected in a reasonable manner.
 
CanadianGuy said:
OP's complaints ARE valid. No question about that. So can we skip further discussion of how this is all somehow HER fault?? Please? Just this one time?

No doubt they couldn't move her within that resort or any other because of the holidays. Disney was JAMMED. Not an excuse.. just a fact.

To the OP -- I'm sorry this trip wasn't so great. This stuff can happen at any resort but I'm sorry it happened to you and couldn't be corrected in a reasonable manner.




Thank you! Is there some unwritten rule here on the Dis that you can't complain or point out flaws about Disney World without it being implied that it is your fault? I know that Pop has a large fan base but come on, give the OP a break here!
 
I do strongly recommend that the op send a detailed description of the situations and events to Disney guest services.

While I feel super bad as i am sure many do, there's nothing we can do other than suggest theories for what happened and share our sympathy.

Disney can at least attempt to make sure the flaws are addressed and folks don't experience the same in the future.

K
 
Our biggest problem at any resort was our most recent stay at POFQ. We had serious mousekeeping issues. The room was dirty when we checked in and was not cleaned properly on a few more occasions.We had to keep calling when supplies weren't replenished and trash left unemptied. We went down to the front desk in person and made them aware of all issues. The next morning our room was cleaned REALLY well and a towel animal too :rotfl:

Our biggest problem was at POFQ too, but it was about 10 years ago. We checked in late at night so we didn't really see much of the room but when we woke up the next morning we saw how dirty the room was and were disgusted. They ended up moving us to the Wilderness Lodge for a small fee.


OP, I'm kind of surprised they didn't do anything for you. We stayed at Pop the last week of October and they accidentally sent us to a room that hadn't been cleaned yet (their system was saying it was ready). We were annoyed because it resulted in us lugging our suitcases to the room and then back to the front desk but it wasn't a huge deal, and they actually ended up reimbursing us for the room for 1 night.

The only other problem we had while we were there were with the beds. Our room needed new mattresses badly. Both beds in the room had huge indents on both sides, so unless you slept in the uncomfortable indent you were sleeping on a slant.
 
We stayed at POP 10/2012 in the 60's building and did not have any problems. Actually due to my bad back, I preferred the firm mattress over the pillow top at AKL.

However, 8/2012 we were at All Star Music. Our stay was for 1 night and whereas our room was adequate and clean I did have some issues with the resort itself. Mostly that I think the All Stars are due for an upgrade and a good coat of paint, the directions from the checkin desk to our room were not clear and neither is the signage, the food court was dirty and disorganized. The food court staff were inattentative, the food prep area didnt appear clean, and it was 2pm. I didnt complain to the desk at the time of the stay since it was only 1 night and my actual room was clean and functional.

But I did send Disney an email when I got home to make them aware of my observations. I told them that we were seasoned Disney travelers and just wanted them to be aware of our observations so they could make improvements. I received an email and a phone call from Disney wanting to discuss my observations. The representative thanked me for taking the time to bring these things to their attention and that she would let the manager of ASM know so they could make appropriate adjustments.

I told the representative that I had an upcoming 10/2012 stay and had cancelled my ASM room and switched to POP paying a little bit more (the ASM room was at a discount) Much to my suprise when we checked in to POP 10/2012 there was an envelope waiting for me with 2 passes to the ESPN Sports Complex. I was expecting nothing. I wanted nothing. I only wanted to let Disney, a company that I love know of some areas for improvement because after all, if you dont let anybody know- how can they fix the problem.

So all of this to say: OP send Disney an email. They cant fix the problem if they are unaware. And by speaking up, you can possibly make the experience better for the next guest.
 
OP, I'm kind of surprised they didn't do anything for you. We stayed at Pop the last week of October and they accidentally sent us to a room that hadn't been cleaned yet (their system was saying it was ready). We were annoyed because it resulted in us lugging our suitcases to the room and then back to the front desk but it wasn't a huge deal, and they actually ended up reimbursing us for the room for 1 night.

Kinda surprised. Due to the way the AP discounts fell one year and me not being able to change my dates, (had flights already booked), I had to do a split stay at CSR, paying rack rate one night, then had a different reservation using the AP discount. I had asked at the time of booking that they be linked and then again when I checked in that first night. The CM told me they'd see what they could do, but couldn't promise anything. Sure enough early the next morning when I checked back in for the AP discounted part of my stay, they told me I had to change rooms. I wanted to get my stuff into the room, so hung around until they texted me the new room was ready. I took my bags over there and just as I started to put my new room key into the lock, the door opened and I was facing a very large man's bare, hairy chest. He had on a pair of shorts, but was bare footed and bare chested. He had a cigarette in his hand and was apparently going to step outside to smoke, just as I raised my room key to insert into the lock. The timing was just perfect. I don't know who was more surprised me or him.:rotfl: I squealed and he jumped back and yelled, demanding to know what I wanted. When I sheepishly told him that was my room, he snapped, "Not yet, we aren't out yet". I thought maybe I had the wrong room and apologized, but when I checked the paperwork they gave me at check in, found I was correct. I had to lug my luggage all the way back over to the check in area. When I told the CM what happened, she said that room was showing up as cleaned and ready with me in it and she didn't know how housekeeping made that mistake. All I got for my trouble and embarassment was alot of laughter from the CM.:rotfl: Got to admit, I thought it was funny too though, but it could have been alot more embarrassing.:rotfl: CSR never offered me anything for my trouble or embarrassment. Well she did offer to find me a different room, but I loved the location of the occupied room, so agreed to wait for it and just took my bags to bell services and left them, while I went to the parks for awhile, waiting for the previous guests to vacate the room.
 
I have to ask- why were you just hinting around? Why didn't you just tell him that the maintenance/room condition problems were unacceptable and you demanded to me moved to another room?

I agree! I would have INSISTED on another room. Too many issues were wrong. I would NOT have accepted this room at all.

Our experiences at Pop were ALL positive. We never had a room that was not clean. Everything was excellently cleaned & in working order.
 
Our biggest problem was at POFQ too, but it was about 10 years ago. We checked in late at night so we didn't really see much of the room but when we woke up the next morning we saw how dirty the room was and were disgusted. They ended up moving us to the Wilderness Lodge for a small fee.


OP, I'm kind of surprised they didn't do anything for you. We stayed at Pop the last week of October and they accidentally sent us to a room that hadn't been cleaned yet (their system was saying it was ready). We were annoyed because it resulted in us lugging our suitcases to the room and then back to the front desk but it wasn't a huge deal, and they actually ended up reimbursing us for the room for 1 night.

The only other problem we had while we were there were with the beds. Our room needed new mattresses badly. Both beds in the room had huge indents on both sides, so unless you slept in the uncomfortable indent you were sleeping on a slant.

Sorry Ot here but the last 2 times we stayed at POFQ we had issues as well. We are at pop for our next trip. but thinking of a upgrade and I have POFQ on the list. I'm sure the op did have these thing happen. I'm sure it happens a lot at every resort.
 
Aww that stinks! We like Pop, have stayed there twice. My only complaint regarding last years trip was my daughter had gotten sick in the middle of the night and puked in the bed. I cleaned up what I could being half asleep. I put everything effected in a ball in the corner and we let the housekeeper know in the morning on our way out what had happened. We come back around 8 or 9pm, with a big of towels on our door knob and a "Sorry we missed you" note. :furious: The room was left just the way we left it! :furious: I of course don't blame her for not wanting to touch pukey blankets but honestly it wasn't that bad, I cleaned what I could. It's not like there were chunks everywhere. :sad2: Hubby called the front desk and explained the situation and they sent a housekeeper right away. I felt bad for her because she had nothing to do with what happened. Anyway....after that experience, would I stay there again...absolutely. I wouln't let 1 lazy housekeeper ruin the resort for me.
 

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