Which of the Disney value hotels is nicest?

[suzybeezy]

Trying to plan out a trip and wondering which of the value hotels is the nicest? My daughter stayed at the Disney Pop and she liked it, but I've read mixed reviews on it. So is one better than another? Does one have better pools than others? Is one newer than others? Which has the better dining options? Besides staying at the Disney campsite, we've never stayed on site before, so we'd like some feedback before we select a hotel.

Thanks in advance.

 

[JDUCKY]

LOVE Pop!

Staying there for a night in a couple of weeks before we resort hop over to BWV.

Pop just has a great, fun feel to it (and a huge food court with plenty of options)

 

[Blessed_wth_Triplets]

I've only stayed at music, and wasn't too impressed

 

[tlh0726]

We stayed at POP Century last year. Loved the frozen cokes
If we were not taking our motorhome that would be my choice again.

Also I think (correct me if I am wrong) POP has it's own bus while the other values share with another resort

 

[AirGoofy]

Been to them all except All Star Movies. We liked All Star Music the best. We thought POP was way too big. I think it depends on the room location and what you really want - closes to bus stop, close to food court, close to pool, more private area

 

[JDUCKY]

We stayed at POP Century last year. Loved the frozen cokes
If we were not taking our motorhome that would be my choice again.

Also I think (correct me if I am wrong) POP has it's own bus while the other values share with another resort

Correct. The lines can get kind of long, though.

HA! Last year, my gf and I ended up taking a bus to Epcot, monorail to TTC, then monorail to Poly because the line for the MK bus was pretty long.

Another group that stayed behind in the MK bus line ended up taking the next Epcot bus and following our trail. Apparently, they were loading several wheelchair/ECV guests.

 

[Nadjalu]

All 4 of the values are pretty much the same. Same style, room size....etc.
Where they differ is only a couple of things:
First being theming.
Next being POP has it's own buses while Allstars share.
POP is bigger than any 1 Allstar resort, but the allstars are bigger when combined together.

POP was the last resort built, however if I am not mistaken the others have all been refurbished.

At the Allstars you can share all the pools at each resort, the food courts and any other activities.
Where as with POP you only have that resorts pools...etc.

POP has the best food court of the values, but the frozen coke machines are no longer there.

Pretty much that is the extent of the differences.

We love POP, the theming is very nostalgic and I love my decades of the 70's and 80's during my childhood.

I am attracted to Allstar Music and Movies but for now we will stay with POP as when we arrive it feels like "ah heaven".....lol

 

[selina4disney]

We stayed at POP Century last year. Loved the frozen cokes
If we were not taking our motorhome that would be my choice again.

Also I think (correct me if I am wrong) POP has it's own bus while the other values share with another resort

We love Pop (but the frozen cokes are gone). And yes, it does have its own bus, which is a big plus! We love to stay there, we have stayed there our last five or six trips and have two more booked there this year.

 

[dd50]

I have only stayed at Pop but thought it was nice. They buses were great as the max I waited was about 10 minutes.

If you never stayed in a value be forewarned that the rooms are very small.

 

[tlh0726]

We love Pop (but the frozen cokes are gone). And yes, it does have its own bus, which is a big plus! We love to stay there, we have stayed there our last five or six trips and have two more booked there this year.

Yeah I heard about the frozen cokes being gone
DD was She wanted to stay there instead of at Fort Wilderness just because of them.

 

[FlightlessDuck]

We stayed in POP in 2006. While the rooms were nice and the service was good, we found the resort to be too crowded. This was especially a problem when getting buses back and forth to a park.

If we did stay at a value resort on a future trip, we would probably stay at POP again.

 

[Good Morning Dewdrop]

We've stayed in AS Movies, POP and AS Music

Liked all of them but for us POP was too big. We like the smaller more intimate feel of the All Stars.

AS Music is hands down our favorite - we've stayed there several times and it's booked for our next vacation. One of the things we just love about it is the pool activities they have every day. We do the parks in the morning and for most of the afternoon then come back to the resort to play in the pools and eat dinner (food court). We've found the food court to have a good variety of foods and everyone there has been very helpful and accomodating when we've wanted to change things up a bit.

Good luck with your decision!

 

[lroger01]

I've stayed at all of them! They are all basically the same - exterior doors, food court, large pool, etc. Pop is newer, and you'd have to think after building the All-Stars, that any problems that cropped up with them, got fixed when they built Pop. In reality though, I didn't see anything obvious except for the location of the gift shop. You walk through it to get to the foodcourt. In the All-Stars it's a separate area. The only other thing I noticed is Pop's bus stop at the parks is the furthest away (since it was built last).

I suggest you pick the theme that interests you most. My favorite is AS Movies. The Disney movie theme makes me feel like I'm staying in one of the parks.

 

[Tiffer]

Another vote for POP!

 

[craZmom]

Are the pools at Pop heated? It's looking like mostly 60's this next week while we'll be there, and, while chilly to some, I think we'd still swim as long as the pools are heated (we're coming from around 0 degees here).

 

[JDUCKY]

Are the pools at Pop heated? It's looking like mostly 60's this next week while we'll be there, and, while chilly to some, I think we'd still swim as long as the pools are heated (we're coming from around 0 degees here).

Ayup! Sure are!

http://www.wdwinfo.com/wdwinfo/resorts/popcentury.htm

 

[DevSnow]

We stayed at the Pop in Nov 2008 and loved it. Rooms seemed a lil small but when we thought about it, it wasn't like we stayed in them alot. Wish they had better channel selection lol I learned to love Frasier again late nights while I was loading my pictures into my laptop. We were pretty far away from the front so it was a fairly long walk (we were in the 80's section right on the end next to a rubix cube). My wife smokes and tryin to find a smoking area the first couple of times was rather difficult but other than that no complaints. The scenery is really neat though and I loved the giant foosball & Roger Rabbit. We plan to stay at the Pop again in May but also plan to visit the Allstars to get pics of the scenery.

Oh one more thing I really liked about the Pop was that the busrides to DTD and the parks didn't really seem to take that long & their were always plenty of buses during our stay and the waits weren't too long.

 

[pioneer89]

I've stayed at all four, and they are all very similar. There are differences, but they are not a significant factor in deciding where to stay. A few things I noticed (YMMV):

If you do stay at an All0Star, check which one has been recently renovated. We were in a 'new' room as ASMu, and it does make it a lot nicer.

Pop's food court was the most hectic.

The All-Stars share buses during 'off' times. If you go early, return late, you'll have your own bus.

That said, AS-Music is the best (by a small margin) of the four for bus service. You get picked up second, and ASMu sometimes fill up shared busses. ASMovies is out of luck if that happens. On your return trip, you can take whichever of the three All-Star lines looks best to you, because ASMu is a really short walk from he other two resorts. If you don't need to go to your lobby/food court, your room is likely only 1-2 extra minutes from the other resorts.

Pop bus lines may be long, but they do have more buses running most of the time I've seen. A couple times, we walked out to see a HUGE line for MK, but the buses rolled in fast, and they frequently had us loading into a second bus while the first one opened up for the wheeled folk.

We stayed at Pop last year, and really loved it, and are doing a bounce-back to Pop this year. But I would be happy to stay at any of them.

 

[LSUfan4444]

My vote goes to Pop, unless the suites at All Star make sense for your family size.

 

[DonaldTDuck]

Pioneer has it right, there aren't many differences. I love POP and will stay there with extended family in September. In favor of the AllStars, whichever you stay at, you can easily walk to the others, and they are all themed really well. I stayed at Sports while they were still building Music, then again in '06. In 'o7 we stayed at Music and loved the quiet pool that was right outside our door, like a private pool in the early morning. Then in Jan '09 we stayed at Movies and a night at POP. In Dec we stayed at POP. Pop is bigger, mostly because each building has an extra floor. The buildings are laid out so the furthest is closer to the bus stops than the furthest buildings at the AllStars. My favorite mousekeepers are at Music, plus they have the main pool themed to The Three Cabelleros. POP has the best, but busiest food court.