Pop Century Resort?

[Arielssister]

We are planning a trip for next year and we have stayed at every All Stars and we are considering Pop Century because value saves so much money. We love the All Stars but would like to try something different. We will probably stay there when we go and I was wondering what everyone thought and what are the differences between Pop Century and the All Stars??? Any feedback or help would be appreciated.

 

[Christine9125]

POP does not share buses with other resorts, Food Court (for us) seemed to have better assortment of food, 3 pools, rooms are being refurbed now. We love POP!

 

[kittythepoohbear]

POP is a great value resort! They are essentially the same as the All Stars; same room size and layout, big icons, motel-style outside corridors. I find POP to have nicer landscaping (Hourglass Lake is lovely, especially at sunrise or twilight) and enjoy their food court better. I also like that POP doesn't share buses so while the lines might be long at times you know that you are going directly to a park or back to your resort instead of stopping at other resorts.

Enjoy your trip!

 

[DisneyBamaFan]

The biggest negative to POP is the food court. During periods when the value resorts are full, the POP food court is a whole lot more difficult to manage than the All Stars. Since it is a single food court for about the same number of guests as all three All Star resorts combined, it gets packed. Yes, it is bigger, but it isn't 3 times as large. But if you eat there during off hours, that isn't a problem.

We like all of the Values...

 

[CanadianGuy]

The biggest negative to POP is the food court. During periods when the value resorts are full, the POP food court is a whole lot more difficult to manage than the All Stars. Since it is a single food court for about the same number of guests as all three All Star resorts combined, it gets packed. Yes, it is bigger, but it isn't 3 times as large. But if you eat there during off hours, that isn't a problem.

We like all of the Values...

For clarity.. Pop has 2880 rooms.

Each of the All Stars has 1920 rooms (give or take) for a total around 5700 for all three All Stars combined.

So the difference between Pop C and any individual All Stars resort is about 900 rooms ..

That is a difference.. but not as noted above.

 

[DisneyNut4Life]

We love the POP! We always stay there!

 

[Arielssister]

Thank you all for your input! I really appreciate it.

That is SOO great that the buses don't stop at 2 other resorts. I didn't like that at the All Stars. Thinking that once we are on the bus, we are on our way is fantastic!

3 POOLS is great! I love the themed pools SO much!

I liked the All Star food court a lot and thought they had a great variety - chicken quesedillas, MTO salads, mac and cheese, chicken fingers, etc all in 1place really impressed me! I variety. Hopefully we will only go to the food court at off times so it's not crowded. We only eat around 2 meals at the food court so we should be okay. So how is it better? How much variety?

 

[Nadjalu]

Definitely check out POP's menu, there is a ton of variety and if you want dessert and are on the DDP, they have a sundae stand that you can have your receipt marked and go back within 90 mins to get it as your dessert instead of taking right then. That is so cool!

If I remember right there is 4 different stands all offering different dishes and then the sundae stand.
And on different nights of the week they do a "mom's dinner" which is old TV dinner style meals that are pretty good. I think there is a meatloaf, Turkey, and a fried chicken.

Some of the things you can find are:
Meatball sub (this thing is one of the best anywhere)
chicken penna alfredo which is also very good.
There are flatbreads and salads and I do believe some type of asian dishes.
Chili cheese fries mmmm those are really good!
And for breakfast all 4 stations have different items. It is very nice.

We love POP, have always wanted to try ASMu but POP lures me back because I love it so.

 

[Ninnygunk]

Can't wait to go again! Has such a fun atmosphere. Good music playing throughout & good vibes. Pools were awesome - especially the little kids splash pool. The food court was nice - good selections but in the busy times EXTREMELY caotic. The gift shoppe was nice too. We stayed at the CBR the time before but now prefer the POP!

 

[DisneyBelle27]

I've stayed at Pop and the All Stars and I would definitely choose Pop again! It is the newest, has a great food court, and its own dedicated bus. The dedicated bus alone, to me, is worth it! Here's a link to the menu at the food court:

http://www.wdwinfo.com/wdwinfo/dining/diningdetail.cfm?restaurant.ID=361

I remember enjoying the lo mein and my husband was thrilled with the ice cream stand!

 

[clkelley]

The single bus stop and the 900 extra rooms is a major negative in our opinion.

With All-Stars having the ability to split off into three stops at busy closing times, they ALWAYS clear out their lines much faster than Pop can.

Granted we were there during free dining 2007 when it was at capacity, but every night when we would close down late night EMH, (about an hour later), we would walk out to the POP bus stop and find a HUGE line, and we would look over at the All-Stars lines, and they were down to nothing.

 

[WVParkfan]

We've stayed at all 4 values, and love the ASMusic and ASMovies. We would not stay at Pop again. WAY too loud. I can't tell you how loud that hotel is, and how thin the walls are. VERY different from the All Stars.

We could hear every toilet flush from the room above us. We could hear every word of conversation from the room beside us. We could hear other people's TV's, kids crying, and of course the constant noise from people outside of the rooms. We hardly got any sleep at all.

We've never experienced noise problems during any of our All Star stays. We would not stay at Pop again.

 

[KimberlyE]

Stayed at Pop in September and had no issues with noise or buses. I did notice that you could hear toilet flushing from other rooms but when you shut your bathroom door you don't hear it anymore. If outside noises bother you, ask to be away from the pools. We did notice that it could be loud near the pools but our room (50's section near main building) was quiet.

As for the food court, it was crowded at times but all the lines were always staffed and it seemed to move quickly. We never ate there though - we just took items back to our room or to the pool area. You can also get pizza delivered to your room. We enjoyed the different options with kiddie pools, playgrounds and so much space to run around, go for a walk and wildlife (ducks, rabbits etc. to see). We drove to the parks each day (with AAA parking we were in front two rows so it was easier and faster to just drive) but we did take the bus to MK and ferry to FW for the HDDR and had no problems.

 

[Arielssister]

Okay, now we have some mixed reviews and I appreciate that SO much! I want to hear good and evil.

I do have to say with buses, when we were there this past September staying at the All Star Movies, there was such a loooonnnnng line at the end of the day. The parks weren't crowded but when we would leave the parks for the day, even if we left a little early, the lines for ALL of the All Star Resorts were ridiculous! I thought "This is Disney. There has to be a better way!" We watched bus after bus come for other resorts that had 4-5 people waiting in line while we had easily 200 + and we thought "why don't they just change the electric marquis to the All Stars since the lines are so long and there are 4-5 people at the other resort stops?" My DH said maybe because they can only have a certain number of buses for each resort. No, that's silly. Oh well. Hopefully next time they will have organized that better.

Thank you Nadjalu and Disneybelle27 for the specifics on the food court. Sounds great and yummy.

Thank you all for your feedback. I am very thankful. I will probably read all this wonderful info to my DH and we will decide. I would love to try a new place but I don't think we can do moderate so that leaves Pop Century. I'm sure we will have a blast no matter what but little things like not waiting in bus lines long, a variety of food and low noise while you're sleeping are super good bonuses.

 

[clkelley]

I do have to say with buses, when we were there this past September staying at the All Star Movies, there was such a loooonnnnng line at the end of the day. The parks weren't crowded but when we would leave the parks for the day, even if we left a little early, the lines for ALL of the All Star Resorts were ridiculous! I thought "This is Disney. There has to be a better way!" We watched bus after bus come for other resorts that had 4-5 people waiting in line while we had easily 200 + and we thought "why don't they just change the electric marquis to the All Stars since the lines are so long and there are 4-5 people at the other resort stops?" My DH said maybe because they can only have a certain number of buses for each resort. No, that's silly. Oh well. Hopefully next time they will have organized that better.

All of the Values are ridiculous right at closing or right after fireworks, but we always hang in the park for an hour or more after closing. All-Stars has always been cleared out by then, Pop was still ridiculous!!

 

[Loritlc3]

I am so happy you posted this. We stayed at All Star Movies last trip. We were there in July and on several trips we had to stand in the bus(kids included) because we were the last pick up from the All-stars. It did seem like we always had a wait and watched bus after bus pass us by for other resorts.
All in all though we loved our stay here. The kids loved the pools and decorations.
I have not experienced Pop yet but I plan on staying there for our next trip. I think it is worth it to me to try something different and for the most part it appears that Pop has quite a following.

Let me know what you decide. Hope to talk to you soon!

 

[PrincessGrandma]

We were at POP in 2007. I had heard how noisy it was, but we must have been in a quiet section (70's 3rd floor). We didn't hear a thing. In all fairness, we were always so tired, I don't know if anything could have woke us up. We had a great time. My DGD loves it and can't wait to go back this Sept. We considered staying in CSR this time so we'd have queen beds, but we love the POP food court and really appreciate those dedicated buses. After a long day, I'm glad the first (and only) stop is always POP!

 

[Oz-kateer]

I stayed at Pop last October and we must have had a special room or something because we heard practically no sound at all, unlike the other poster who said they could hear every word the neighbours said. Granted, we were on the top floor, and we had a room at the back of the building facing away from the pool, so this could have made a difference. But apart from the odd distant muffled toilet flush, which you could only hear at night when you were lying in the dark waiting to go to sleep, it was really quiet anyway, we had no noise issues at all.

Apart from my DS snoring.

But lets face it, if you're a die hard *************, by the time you hit the sheets at night you're usually so exhausted you could sleep next to the freeway.

 

[CanadianGuy]

Honestly, if the AC is running and the TV is on.. I typically have both running non-stop ... I can't hear a thing outside the room beyond the turbo-toilet flushes in adjacent rooms..

I just close the bathroom door to reduce that noise significantly.

 

[weswife]

We are looking forward to staying at the POP!! We are staying for the last 2 nights of our trip! My DS has wanted to stay there for the last few years but we wanted to try other resorts. We are staying at the WL for 7 nights then 2 at the POP! We changed our trip to 10 days!
Glad you started this thread, you received great replies!