Here is what we liked about our first stay at a Value last week.
We stayed at Pop Century in the 50's building. I'd been nervous because of the talk on these boards of noise, but I didn't hear anything except for shower sounds which I also heard at the Poly and CR. When you have hundreds of showers that could all be on at once, you'll hear shower sounds...it's just a fact of being in a smaller hotel room. But they were not bothersome at all. I did not hear people talking or walking around. My BF did, but he said it was not enough so to bother him.
The place is bright and cheery. I liked it a lot. The icons are cool to look at. Some people think they are tacky, but to each their own. For instance, I think the GF looks kind of boring (flame suit on) and prefer the cheery icon statues. (Whenever I'm in the GF I feel like I'm being watched because I might break something...you know, like the feeling you'd get at, say, your older great aunts house who collects fragile collectors plates and never liked when the kids were in her living room...)
But many people enjoy the classy look of the GF and Poly and detest the icons.
It's really a matter of individual taste.
We were in the 50's wing which is very close to the pool, front building and busses. We never had more than a 5 minute walk to the busses, and found that they ran frequently. I liked the food court and the shop.
The front desk people were very helpful when we left a package at the Epcot package pick up and got back to PC before we realized it.
Getting to and from the parks and downtown was never a very long trip. Pop Century seems to be in a good location so you aren't very far away from anything.
The rooms were smallish, but the beds were comfortable, the showers were great and we felt that we had enough space for the two of us.
My only gripe was that we'd requested a King bed and did not get one. My BF is very tall and had to sleep with his feet dangling off the edge. But we checked in late at night so maybe if we had checked in at a more normal time, the front desk may have been more accomodating. The woman who checked us in at 1 am was rather surly and grumpy but she was the only grumpy CM we saw during our entire stay.
The lobby has interesting displays and it's got a nice lake in the back that was very pretty. Our room faced the lake.
I'd highly recommend Pop Century. We will most likely be staying there again sometime in 2005.