...We're also planning a trip with my parents and are considering POFQ for that stay. The small resort will be good to limit their walking, and I know they will want to spend a lot of time at Disney Springs (they love getting drinks and apps at the bar lol), so the boat to Disney Springs will be nice for them too.
On a side note, if you book a pool view at POFQ, since there's only the one pool, you'll be guaranteed in building 2 or 5, and therefore, quite close to both the main building and the boat, so it's a good way to guarantee one of the shortest walks there.
In our case, here's how the decisions went down over the years:
First trip: Because life happens, wife and I hadn't taken a honeymoon when we got married. She had never been to WDW, and was talking about bringing the kids there. I wanted to make sure she got a chance to experience WDW for herself, before only seeing it through the eyes of the kids. So, when the kids were 2 & 3, I arranged to have a family member watch them for a week, and finally booked our honeymoon to, yep, a place full of kids. In order to hopefully 'minimize' the impact of missing the kids, I ran through several reviews and tried to figure out which resort would have the least kids and the most 'adult' vibe. At the time I settled on POFQ for that.
Second trip: First one with kids, and we had a second family tagging along, trying to go for a cheaper option, I looked at the value resorts. I didn't care for the All Stars, due to the whole shared bus thing, and AoA was priced pretty high since it was still fairly new. So, Pop won out on that trip. It was a good trip, but there were a couple of things I didn't like about the Pop . First was that the Pop had only double beds, (again, that was at the time, supposedly now with the refurbs they have better). Secondly was the bus situation. Value resorts seemed to be uncovered bus stops, compared to the covers they had at POFQ. In the heat of FL, that made a big difference some days. Lastly was again a bus thing, as the people on those value busses were way ruder than our previous stay at POFQ. It might have just been our trip, but still, the experience somewhat turned me off of Values.
Third trip: Went to DL, doesn't count for this discussion.
Fourth trip: For this trip, I was looking at Moderates again. I really liked the ability to get queen beds, as well as the covered bus stops, but as I looked around, the size of the moderate resorts scared me a little compared to the compactness of POFQ. Remembering those long walks back from the bus at Pop with the kids, which weren't even that long, I didn't really relish meandering through some of the sprawling moderates. Of course, price was going to win in the end then, so I was comparing them all. That's when I stumbled across the deal of the century.
Free Dining was being offered at the time, and based on our past experiences, we knew that we would be upgrading from the free QS dining to the regular DP at a moderate. Due to ongoing construction at the YC, once I factored in the upcharge for the regular DP and the fact the deluxes got the DP as their free dining, it was competitively priced with what I was pricing out at the moderates. I think only CBR came in lower, and most of the other mods were actually more than I would have spent at the YC. And since CBR was undergoing heavy construction at the time, and their meals were being served out of food trucks and a festival tent, we jumped on the deal and stayed at the YC. I really enjoyed that trip!
Fifth trip: Tried looking at the Deluxes, since we liked the last one, but comparing prices, I wasn't getting as good a deal as I did the previous trip. I really couldn't justify the uncharge, compared to moderate pricing. So, back to looking at the Moderates again. Due to it's compact size, I booked into POFQ to keep things easy. Single bus stop, quick access to the rooms, etc... And, to really make sure we were close to the front, I booked a pool view, using the trick I mentioned above. But then they offered a free dining promotion after I booked. In order to get the free dining deal, I had to change the room category and give up our pool view. We ended up at the far end of building 6, right on the very corner, around the far side from the parking lot/bus stop. Not as far as the far end of building 7, but still, not that quick, close, convenience I was hoping for with the original pool view booking. But I wasn't going to complain, with the extra money we saved, we were able to upgrade to the Deluxe dining plan, and really splurged on some great meals that trip.
Potential Sixth trip: For this upcoming (and I hope we can do it) trip, we're back at POFQ. We've come to realize that we just like this resort, for it's balance of amenities, and compactness, as it seems to fit our touring style the most.
Future trips: As always, I'll still pricing things out. I really like the ease of access to the parks that some of the Deluxes offer, but I can see our fall back being POFQ for most of the future trips as well.
I can truthfully say that in the hundreds of bus rides that the % of issues we had is minuscule and sure would not pay $200+ more per night for a resort, just for transportation options, plus you still would have to take a bus to 2 of the parks. We also have no issue walking at such great themed resorts that WDW offers. I had 10 minute walks to the FC to grab breakfast in the morning for the family and had no issues at all with the time or distance, because it is such an enjoyable walk.
