cmitch9999
Earning My Ears
- Joined
- Oct 22, 2000
- Messages
- 49
Just had one night pre cruise to stay at Pop Century. Had stayed at the All Star Movies and also All Star Sports previously.
Check In-- we arrived about 1PM on the 11th of Feb. No line at check in. The castmember was 'earning her ears' very personable. Good information. She also located our package of disney quest tickets we had purchased from ticket mania. (great outfit, good prices and free hotel delivery, we only ordered them 3 days ahead of time) Chose express checkout so this was our only experience with the front desk. Room was located in the 50's building 1st floor overlooking the lake. We had requested either 50' or 70's section on our reservation, non smoking. This was about as far as you could get from the Pop Century food court but only a 5 min walk max. Parking in lot wasn't as bad as we had expected based on prior reports. We brought our own luggage to the room.
Room- 2157 was our location. Lighting seemed a bit dim, overall room very similar to the All Stars. Beds seemed comfortable to us. LIked the fluffy pillows. One item of disgust was the 2 pillows in the closet had some dark hairs clinging to them. We called to housekeeping to ask them to bring us 2 clean pillowcases along with 4 towels. Our first request did not get answered. After touring the resorts and watching the wishes fireworks, we called again and they came in about 5 min. Water seems harder than what we are used to at home, difficult to lather up. Safe is about the size of a 1/2 folded newspaper, only about 4 inches deep. Adequate for our needs. Nice TV size and remote. Small table, 2 wooden chairs--very spartan as in other value resorts. Toilet flush was a bit forceful making more noise than usual. Don't remember any sounds from other rooms or outside our location. All was new, smelled fresh and certainly a decent space for the 4 of us for 1 night.
Resort pools and themes: It was fun to see the resort in reality after seeing only photos ahead of time. We entered the bowling pool area behind the big juke box. The water in the pools was heated but not quite to the temp I had hoped. Comfortable but not bathwater temp. It was a bit cloudy that afternoon and still warmer in the pool than outside. We swam in the bowling pool for a bit then took a walk over to the hippy dippy pool. That one seemed a bit warmer, maybe just because of our walk in the cooler air. Liked the flower power showers at the edge of the pool, that water was cold coming down. Lifeguards on both pools kept kids in line. Ages 12 and older are allowed to stay at the pools alone. Posted times for swimming were 10am to 8PM but we saw some swimming in the bowling pool after 8PM the night we were there. Enjoyed the bright colors and cute icons. Walked along the lake and saw the year by year signs. For the $$ we paid it was a good value.
Food court and gift shop: Liked the layout of the food court, that 1st afternoon it was not that busy. We had an early dinner and thought the food we chose Shrimp lo mein ($6.99) and the Mom's night out TV dinner ($8.99) turkey, mashed potatoes and stuffing were fairly priced. One son opted for nachos, there were maybe a dozen chips in a small paper basket, a little bit of cheese sauce, chiles on top. Think the price was $6.59. I thought that was very overpriced. Since we were only staying one night we didn't buy the refillable mugs. We had brought sodas for our dinner with us from the room for that meal. Later than night I did buy a small drink cup (under $2) from the cashier and had some frozen coke. One son tried the tied dyed cheesecake ($3.59) very tasty, another had an ice cream cone ($3 or so for double dip) In the late evening the food court was a busy place, but we still managed to find a nice booth for the 4 of us. Overall, thought a decent value for the most part. Good food variety. Small selection of food to go that is more 'grocery items' in the food court as well. We did drive off property to the Ponderosa breakfast buffet in the morning, their $3.99 breakfast buffet is impressive and worth the 10 min trip away.
Gift shop has a very limited selection of items for Pop Century. I could only find one star shaped postcard. No magnets, a key chain was available and a few t'shirts. There is a small selection of disney world merchandise here as well as a collection of the Mr Potato head parts. Since we were going to downtown disney after our cruise we decided to wait to get the bulk of our gifts there. Did buy the 1 postcard for pop.
Transportation: we used the bus to take us to Magic Kingdom for resort hopping that night. Wait was about 10 min, the bus was almost filled, had a comfortable about 15 min or so ride right to the gates of the magic kingdom. After winding around the resorts, we were back at Epcot to catch the bus back to Pop. Pop is the very LAST location for bus pick up past the Epcot entrance. I imagine it would be torture after a long walking day in the parks to have to hike that far past the other stops! Only 1 small bench there for you to sit on. No big crowds tho it was close to closing time. We waited maybe 15 min before we had a short 5 min or so ride back to Pop.
Check out-- we had express checkout and our bill was on the door before we even went to breakfast the next day. Had to dial 767 I think when we left the room to notify them we were out of the room. We left a tip for mousekeeping on the table.
Overall, pleased with the experience. Except for the hairy pillowcase issue we had no complaints. Nice to experience a new resort and see some of the creative aspects of the Pop Century. We toured the animal kingdom lodge after our breakfast buffet,,, loved the resort but still the difference between the value resort (3-4 nights at Pop = 1 night at Animal Kingdom Lodge) is hard for me to justify. Would be nice to splurge sometime tho!!!!!
Chris Mitchell
Check In-- we arrived about 1PM on the 11th of Feb. No line at check in. The castmember was 'earning her ears' very personable. Good information. She also located our package of disney quest tickets we had purchased from ticket mania. (great outfit, good prices and free hotel delivery, we only ordered them 3 days ahead of time) Chose express checkout so this was our only experience with the front desk. Room was located in the 50's building 1st floor overlooking the lake. We had requested either 50' or 70's section on our reservation, non smoking. This was about as far as you could get from the Pop Century food court but only a 5 min walk max. Parking in lot wasn't as bad as we had expected based on prior reports. We brought our own luggage to the room.
Room- 2157 was our location. Lighting seemed a bit dim, overall room very similar to the All Stars. Beds seemed comfortable to us. LIked the fluffy pillows. One item of disgust was the 2 pillows in the closet had some dark hairs clinging to them. We called to housekeeping to ask them to bring us 2 clean pillowcases along with 4 towels. Our first request did not get answered. After touring the resorts and watching the wishes fireworks, we called again and they came in about 5 min. Water seems harder than what we are used to at home, difficult to lather up. Safe is about the size of a 1/2 folded newspaper, only about 4 inches deep. Adequate for our needs. Nice TV size and remote. Small table, 2 wooden chairs--very spartan as in other value resorts. Toilet flush was a bit forceful making more noise than usual. Don't remember any sounds from other rooms or outside our location. All was new, smelled fresh and certainly a decent space for the 4 of us for 1 night.
Resort pools and themes: It was fun to see the resort in reality after seeing only photos ahead of time. We entered the bowling pool area behind the big juke box. The water in the pools was heated but not quite to the temp I had hoped. Comfortable but not bathwater temp. It was a bit cloudy that afternoon and still warmer in the pool than outside. We swam in the bowling pool for a bit then took a walk over to the hippy dippy pool. That one seemed a bit warmer, maybe just because of our walk in the cooler air. Liked the flower power showers at the edge of the pool, that water was cold coming down. Lifeguards on both pools kept kids in line. Ages 12 and older are allowed to stay at the pools alone. Posted times for swimming were 10am to 8PM but we saw some swimming in the bowling pool after 8PM the night we were there. Enjoyed the bright colors and cute icons. Walked along the lake and saw the year by year signs. For the $$ we paid it was a good value.
Food court and gift shop: Liked the layout of the food court, that 1st afternoon it was not that busy. We had an early dinner and thought the food we chose Shrimp lo mein ($6.99) and the Mom's night out TV dinner ($8.99) turkey, mashed potatoes and stuffing were fairly priced. One son opted for nachos, there were maybe a dozen chips in a small paper basket, a little bit of cheese sauce, chiles on top. Think the price was $6.59. I thought that was very overpriced. Since we were only staying one night we didn't buy the refillable mugs. We had brought sodas for our dinner with us from the room for that meal. Later than night I did buy a small drink cup (under $2) from the cashier and had some frozen coke. One son tried the tied dyed cheesecake ($3.59) very tasty, another had an ice cream cone ($3 or so for double dip) In the late evening the food court was a busy place, but we still managed to find a nice booth for the 4 of us. Overall, thought a decent value for the most part. Good food variety. Small selection of food to go that is more 'grocery items' in the food court as well. We did drive off property to the Ponderosa breakfast buffet in the morning, their $3.99 breakfast buffet is impressive and worth the 10 min trip away.
Gift shop has a very limited selection of items for Pop Century. I could only find one star shaped postcard. No magnets, a key chain was available and a few t'shirts. There is a small selection of disney world merchandise here as well as a collection of the Mr Potato head parts. Since we were going to downtown disney after our cruise we decided to wait to get the bulk of our gifts there. Did buy the 1 postcard for pop.
Transportation: we used the bus to take us to Magic Kingdom for resort hopping that night. Wait was about 10 min, the bus was almost filled, had a comfortable about 15 min or so ride right to the gates of the magic kingdom. After winding around the resorts, we were back at Epcot to catch the bus back to Pop. Pop is the very LAST location for bus pick up past the Epcot entrance. I imagine it would be torture after a long walking day in the parks to have to hike that far past the other stops! Only 1 small bench there for you to sit on. No big crowds tho it was close to closing time. We waited maybe 15 min before we had a short 5 min or so ride back to Pop.
Check out-- we had express checkout and our bill was on the door before we even went to breakfast the next day. Had to dial 767 I think when we left the room to notify them we were out of the room. We left a tip for mousekeeping on the table.
Overall, pleased with the experience. Except for the hairy pillowcase issue we had no complaints. Nice to experience a new resort and see some of the creative aspects of the Pop Century. We toured the animal kingdom lodge after our breakfast buffet,,, loved the resort but still the difference between the value resort (3-4 nights at Pop = 1 night at Animal Kingdom Lodge) is hard for me to justify. Would be nice to splurge sometime tho!!!!!
Chris Mitchell
