eeyorethegreat
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Jan 31, 2005
- Messages
- 2,332
June 30 - July 15 party of 7 ages 8 to 65
We had chosen to stay at a value resort on property and after being pleased with the accommodations at All Stars Music back in October (when Kevin and I went down for a long weekend), we decided to try the much talked about Pop Century Resort. We were able to get a discount with our Annual Passes.
We arrived around 4:00 P.M. on June 30 for check in. There were a few people in line ahead of us but it moved quickly. Because we had a 15 night stay our reservation needed to be broken up to receive the discount (discounts are allowed for only 14 days consecutive) so we had to check in for one day then the next day check back in for the remaining 14 days. This was a simple process both times and moved along quickly. We had made the request of ground floor (for ease of the ECV/scooter that my mother was using) and connecting rooms. Both of these requests were met. We stayed in the Eighties section. Our rooms were a short walk from Classic Hall. The bus stops as well as the Computer pool. I had heard about how far the walks can be from the rooms but I didn't find that at all even after a long day of walking in the parks.
I loved being able to use my Disney Dining Experience card at the food court this saved 20% each time we had a meal there. The food was decent here though not spectacular. The first week, the soda machines weren't running right which resulted in watered down flat soda. Yuck! During the latter part of the first week into the second, the issue was fixed and the soda was fine. The hot chocolate machines worked randomly throughout our trip much to the dismay or glee of the kids depending on whether the machine was working or not.
Cast Members were pleasant and our "Mousekeepers" did a nice job cleaning. One day we were chosen of Pop Century's family of the day. We received a certificate and magnet and turn down service with chocolate on our pillow. Another day the girls and my mom received a Rubix Cube- which they quickly turned and can now not get into the right order!
Unlike last year at CBR (we liked the atmosph
ere there a lot but the transportation system left a lot to be desired ) , we found the bus service to be prompt and frequent. There were no major issues in loading and unloading the ECV/scooter.
We enjoyed the big icons throughout the resort. We used the the Hippy Dippy Pool once during our trip. The pool is shaped like a flower and it has flower sprayers around the perimeter. As I said we were close to the Computer Pool. We took several trips to this pool and the kids had a great time. Basically this is a just a square pool with computer theming surrounding it. Due to the frequent thunderstorms, the pools would close for safety reasons. The Hippy Dippy Pool did end up closing the one time that we went down there not because of thunder but because someone had poopy doopied in the Hippy Dippy. That kind of put a damper on things.
On the Fourth of the July I took out red, white and blue bead necklaces for the kids to pass out to other children (after asking the parents if this would be ok). The kids enjoyed giving out these beads. It was great to spread a little magic on Independence day!
One day we took a walk to the pathways by Hourglass Lake and over Generation Gap Bridge. This was a nice walk and we enjoyed taking photos of us next to the year of our birth signs. Along the way DS #2 and I saw an interesting bug which upon research, appears that to be a Rhinoceros Beetle. I am not sure that it is native to the area but from what I understand Florida has a problem with non native species being released so it could be possible even if it isn't native that it is what I think it is.
I took some pictures of the abandoned project- Legendary Years. It is kind of sad to look at and a bit of an eyesore actually. I do hope that Disney completes this project sooner rather than later and better than letting the area sit and fall to pieces.
Now on to the not so magical (well the poopy doopie wasn't magical but something that I was not surprised about). We had brought stickers for the door and clings for the windows to decorate both rooms. Decorating our room is something we have done on each of our on property stays. Our decorations have always been admired. It made our room easy to find as well as more festive. This time however, within two hours of putting the stickers on the door, people began taking them. The first was the large Cinderella sticker. When the kids noticed that the sticker had been taken they were appalled. The girls cried. Now sure it was "just" a sticker but it never feels good to have something taken no matter how small. Add to this, the "sticker thievery" was being done at the "Happiest Place on Earth". This continued through our entire stay. During the night we would hear people tapping at the windows trying to get the clings off the window (the clings were on the inside of the window). We also had quite a few late night knocks on the door-then of course the knocker would run off. This was rather annoying. Not so magical. We also found that even when returning from the parks late at night, people had no consideration of those who had chosen to get to bed to rest up for the upcoming morning at the parks. People were very very loud, shouting, laughing, running like a heard of elephants almost every night. This noise disturbance could be contributed to being on the ground floor but we have been on the ground floor before and did not experience anything to the level of this. Regardless of what floor one has a room on, there is no excuse for rudeness, disrespect, and general disregard for those around them.
I don't want anyone to take the above paragraph to mean that we did not enjoy our stay or did not like Pop Century. On the contrary, we did like Pop Century very much and the Cast Members who work there. Our rub is with some of the other guests who also stayed there who seemed to think they were at liberty to do as they pleased regardless to the effect to other people. It wasn't the Resort or the Cast Members we were disappointed with at all, it was the guests (not all of them mind you ). Because of the incidents above and some other minor incidences, DH said that we will now only stay in Moderate or Deluxe Resorts. Again, this is not to claim that we were the only decent family at Pop Century it just seemed that there were more people (adults and children both) with less restraint than we have seen before at higher level resorts. He went on to say the there are some Deluxe Resorts that are just too "Deluxe" for us. We have a few resorts in mind for our next trips (which sadly won't happen for a couple years) but they don't include a value resort. I think that in a less busy time a value resort would work fine for us as it did in October, but since we are pretty much restricted to school vacations, we will more likely than not travel during the busy seasons.
Overall we enjoyed our stay at Pop Century, even though some of the behaviors we saw/experienced with other guests was less than magical, we didn't let it ruin our stay. We made notice of the Cast Members who we found particularly "magical" and have written Disney Guest Communications with our positive feedback concerning them as well as some in park Cast Members that were Magical.
We had chosen to stay at a value resort on property and after being pleased with the accommodations at All Stars Music back in October (when Kevin and I went down for a long weekend), we decided to try the much talked about Pop Century Resort. We were able to get a discount with our Annual Passes.
We arrived around 4:00 P.M. on June 30 for check in. There were a few people in line ahead of us but it moved quickly. Because we had a 15 night stay our reservation needed to be broken up to receive the discount (discounts are allowed for only 14 days consecutive) so we had to check in for one day then the next day check back in for the remaining 14 days. This was a simple process both times and moved along quickly. We had made the request of ground floor (for ease of the ECV/scooter that my mother was using) and connecting rooms. Both of these requests were met. We stayed in the Eighties section. Our rooms were a short walk from Classic Hall. The bus stops as well as the Computer pool. I had heard about how far the walks can be from the rooms but I didn't find that at all even after a long day of walking in the parks.
I loved being able to use my Disney Dining Experience card at the food court this saved 20% each time we had a meal there. The food was decent here though not spectacular. The first week, the soda machines weren't running right which resulted in watered down flat soda. Yuck! During the latter part of the first week into the second, the issue was fixed and the soda was fine. The hot chocolate machines worked randomly throughout our trip much to the dismay or glee of the kids depending on whether the machine was working or not.
Cast Members were pleasant and our "Mousekeepers" did a nice job cleaning. One day we were chosen of Pop Century's family of the day. We received a certificate and magnet and turn down service with chocolate on our pillow. Another day the girls and my mom received a Rubix Cube- which they quickly turned and can now not get into the right order!
Unlike last year at CBR (we liked the atmosph
ere there a lot but the transportation system left a lot to be desired ) , we found the bus service to be prompt and frequent. There were no major issues in loading and unloading the ECV/scooter.
We enjoyed the big icons throughout the resort. We used the the Hippy Dippy Pool once during our trip. The pool is shaped like a flower and it has flower sprayers around the perimeter. As I said we were close to the Computer Pool. We took several trips to this pool and the kids had a great time. Basically this is a just a square pool with computer theming surrounding it. Due to the frequent thunderstorms, the pools would close for safety reasons. The Hippy Dippy Pool did end up closing the one time that we went down there not because of thunder but because someone had poopy doopied in the Hippy Dippy. That kind of put a damper on things.
On the Fourth of the July I took out red, white and blue bead necklaces for the kids to pass out to other children (after asking the parents if this would be ok). The kids enjoyed giving out these beads. It was great to spread a little magic on Independence day!
One day we took a walk to the pathways by Hourglass Lake and over Generation Gap Bridge. This was a nice walk and we enjoyed taking photos of us next to the year of our birth signs. Along the way DS #2 and I saw an interesting bug which upon research, appears that to be a Rhinoceros Beetle. I am not sure that it is native to the area but from what I understand Florida has a problem with non native species being released so it could be possible even if it isn't native that it is what I think it is.
I took some pictures of the abandoned project- Legendary Years. It is kind of sad to look at and a bit of an eyesore actually. I do hope that Disney completes this project sooner rather than later and better than letting the area sit and fall to pieces.
Now on to the not so magical (well the poopy doopie wasn't magical but something that I was not surprised about). We had brought stickers for the door and clings for the windows to decorate both rooms. Decorating our room is something we have done on each of our on property stays. Our decorations have always been admired. It made our room easy to find as well as more festive. This time however, within two hours of putting the stickers on the door, people began taking them. The first was the large Cinderella sticker. When the kids noticed that the sticker had been taken they were appalled. The girls cried. Now sure it was "just" a sticker but it never feels good to have something taken no matter how small. Add to this, the "sticker thievery" was being done at the "Happiest Place on Earth". This continued through our entire stay. During the night we would hear people tapping at the windows trying to get the clings off the window (the clings were on the inside of the window). We also had quite a few late night knocks on the door-then of course the knocker would run off. This was rather annoying. Not so magical. We also found that even when returning from the parks late at night, people had no consideration of those who had chosen to get to bed to rest up for the upcoming morning at the parks. People were very very loud, shouting, laughing, running like a heard of elephants almost every night. This noise disturbance could be contributed to being on the ground floor but we have been on the ground floor before and did not experience anything to the level of this. Regardless of what floor one has a room on, there is no excuse for rudeness, disrespect, and general disregard for those around them.
I don't want anyone to take the above paragraph to mean that we did not enjoy our stay or did not like Pop Century. On the contrary, we did like Pop Century very much and the Cast Members who work there. Our rub is with some of the other guests who also stayed there who seemed to think they were at liberty to do as they pleased regardless to the effect to other people. It wasn't the Resort or the Cast Members we were disappointed with at all, it was the guests (not all of them mind you ). Because of the incidents above and some other minor incidences, DH said that we will now only stay in Moderate or Deluxe Resorts. Again, this is not to claim that we were the only decent family at Pop Century it just seemed that there were more people (adults and children both) with less restraint than we have seen before at higher level resorts. He went on to say the there are some Deluxe Resorts that are just too "Deluxe" for us. We have a few resorts in mind for our next trips (which sadly won't happen for a couple years) but they don't include a value resort. I think that in a less busy time a value resort would work fine for us as it did in October, but since we are pretty much restricted to school vacations, we will more likely than not travel during the busy seasons.
Overall we enjoyed our stay at Pop Century, even though some of the behaviors we saw/experienced with other guests was less than magical, we didn't let it ruin our stay. We made notice of the Cast Members who we found particularly "magical" and have written Disney Guest Communications with our positive feedback concerning them as well as some in park Cast Members that were Magical.
. Like you we really liked Pop but did encounter many more rude guests than at other resorts. Just like you said shouting and partying in the rooms at 1:00am because they came back late. Using bad languauge. I'm sure this can happen at any resort but with 4000 rooms at a value resort your going to increase your chance of encountering rude guests. The CM's at Pop were also great when we were there 
. They couldn't have been nicer, all of them. DH and I like a resort that is a bit quieter so we are back to deluxe next trip and ww would try staying at one of the moderates as well. Sorry about the poopie doppie issue, that happens alot at Disney 
because little kids need bathroom breaks and toddlers need swim diapers. I think the worst part is Pop is a really fun resort with good CM's just seems that there are some inconsiderate guests at Disney.
but she did experience much rudeness than at deluxes she stayed at before. I did say there is more people at Pop since they have 4000 rooms, so more likely to encounter rude guests. Also with interior corridors at deluxe less people walking by your room. Sorry about your experience with rude woman at GF and drunk neighbors at BW. Some people just think they are more entitled and that is terrible and rude. unfortuntely we have seen alot of this behavior at Disney and everwhere. I have to say though at Poly and WL I have always met really pleasant considerate guest. Only problem with Pop was bad neighbors. I guess I have been pretty lucky then.
