Wish I Could Say Better Things About Pop Century

[becka]

We got back on Thursday night from WDW. We were really looking forward to our stay at Pop Century. We have either been very lucky on our past trips or the service at Pop Century is just not as good. Unfortunately while we did like some things about the resort the negatives with the service have made us decide that we don't want to stay there again - that is a first for us at a WDW resort.

I have started writing our trip report so I will just copy and paste some of the resort info here for those of you who are interested.

It was about 6:45 or so when we got to the front desk. I handled the check-in while DH took DS around the lobby looking at the memorabilia on the walls and while DH hunted down his first lanyards of the trip. The girl doing the check-in seemed really nice. I had requested a first floor room on our reservation since we would have the stroller and I didn’t want to mess with stairs and elevators. When I checked in I also mentioned that I would love to have an interior courtyard room as well. She said she didn’t know if they had anything available but then she said she found one and gave us room 8128 which she said was in the 90’s building (a little further out than I wanted to be but I could deal with it) and on the front side of the building facing the pool. OK great that would work.

We pile back in the van and drive over to the 80/90’s lot to park. We pull most of our luggage out and head towards to pool to look for our room. We walk the length of the building and there is no room 8128 there. Huh? Well we started looking at the signs for the room numbers and we make our way to our room. Well room 8128 is probably one of the worst rooms in the resort. It is on the back side of the 90’s building and looks right out on the service vehicle parking about 5 feet from our door – not even close to the pool or anything else in the resort. It also looks out on these water pipes sticking out of the ground that are badly camouflaged by plants. A really uninspiring view and I was a little ticked off that the CM at check-in lied to me about the room location. I realize this is a value resort but I was really disappointed. When you walked out of the room you couldn’t even tell you were at Disney. Maybe we have just been spoiled by always having great rooms in the past (at all levels including the All Stars) but I was getting really upset. I think it was just the full stress of the day and the previous days finally coming out but I just started to cry. (If you read the rest of the trip report the crying makes more sense...I was not just crying over a bad room location - I'm not that sensitive). Pretty silly, huh? DH and DS were just looking at me while I came unglued. I calmed down pretty quickly and DH asked me if we could switch rooms tomorrow. I said probably but I really didn’t want to mess with moving rooms so we would just stay here and try to make the best of it.

I then realized that I had forgotten to ask about our crib when I checked in. We called the front desk to let them know that we needed a crib delivered. They said it would just be a few minutes and that Housekeeping would deliver it. We asked if it was OK if we were not there when they delivered it and they said it would be no problem.

We unpacked a few things and then headed over to the food court. We took the scenic route to the food court so we could look over the resort a little. The theme was done very well and we really enjoyed the looks of the resort. The food court was really busy but we managed to order 2 cheesesteak sandwiches and a kid’s chicken nugget meal without having to wait too long. The cheesesteak sandwiches were mediocre at best but we were really hungry so we ate most of them. While we ate we discussed our plans for that evening and then next morning. DS was very excited to find Mickey on the napkins and he thought he was big stuff for getting to use a “big person” plastic fork. We use the toddler silverware at home so this was pretty new for him. He requested two forks that he would then use to stab his fries with. Every other meal for the rest of the trip required him to have two of those plastic forks. I think he ate about 4 french fries, 2 bites of his chicken and one of those paper containers of ketchup. He really liked the ketchup and he kept dipping his fork into the ketchup and then eating if off the fork.

We then headed back to the room by walking out towards the bus stops and then going around the 70’s parking lot. You miss most of the resort this way but it got us back to the room in a little over 5 minutes. We got back to the room about 8:30 and the crib was still not there so I called Housekeeping to ask about our crib. They said that would bring one right over. I also asked if they could bring us 2 extra blankets and if I could set up early housekeeping for tomorrow morning since we wanted to come back for a nap. They asked me how early and I just said anytime before noon. They said no problem. About 10 minutes later they show up with 1 blanket and no crib. Good grief this is bad! We asked the guy about the crib and get a blank look. He says that he will get us one – I didn’t even ask about my second extra blanket. I figured that might never happen. We finally get the crib delivered about 9 PM and we set it up and get ready for bed. We get DS settled, give him another dose of Motrin (100 fever) and he finally calms down so DH and I turn off the lights and go to bed as well. At 9:30 there is a knock on the door. It is housekeeping wanting to know what we needed cleaned since we had requested early housekeeping!! We asked for early housekeeping TOMORROW not at 9:30 that night!!! The knock at the door woke DS up and it took us a while to get him back down. I was really pretty mad at that point and just couldn’t wait for the day to be over. I took 800 mg of Advil for my headache and went to sleep. Unfortunately DS was not sleeping well. He woke up almost every hour and needed comforting. I think he was just scared when he would wake up and not know where he was. Plus on top of that I was not good at following my own advice about drinking lots of water during the trip. I had been so stressed all day that I didn’t keep my water intake up and by that evening I was apparently dehydrated. When I get dehydrated I get terrible muscle cramps/spasms. Those hit me about 2 in the morning and made walking the first 2 days of our trip pretty painful. It was a long night and no one got much sleep.


Some other problems we encountered that I had not yet gotten to in my trip report was the little mini-flood outside of our doorway from where they were power washing the sidewalks or something. We came back to our room on Monday afternoon to this huge puddle of water outside our door. At first I thought our room must have flooded but thankfully all the water was outside the door. The water stayed there for two days before it all evaporated.

The food court for the most part was good but we did have some problems on our last morning. We had already received our check-out info with our room charges so I didn't want to charge any additional to our room. I took some travelers cheques with me to pay for our breakfast. We get our food and then stand in line and then this girl spends 10 minutes trying to figure out how to get the traverlers cheque to go through! Are travelers cheques really that unique at WDW? She finally called over a manager or someone and I guess she had messed up her machine so he had me wait to get checked out on another register. The other register rang it up fine but at this point our waffles were really cold.

Overall Pop Century just didn't make the grade with us. We really liked the theming so the service problems were especially disappointing. For our next trip we will either go back to the All Stars or to another moderate.

If you have any specific questions just ask!

 

[magicmaker]

Dear becka--

I'm so sorry to hear about your dissapointing experience at Disney's Pop Century Resort. I am actually staying there next week and hope I will have better luck.

I am just curious-- did you happen to speak with a manager about any of the challenges you had? If you are anything like me, you probably didn't. I usually just want to let it go and get on with my vacation. However, I have recently discovered that sometimes it can really help to let a manger know when you encounter service challenges. This exteme confusion with housekeeping strikes me as something that should be brought up to a housekeeping manager.

I had a housekeeping challenge on my last visit to Disney's Port Orleans French Quarter. Needless to say, I called housekeeping and asked to speak with a housekeeping manager. The manger was extemely polite and understanding. Additionally, she was able to fix the problem and make me feel better about my stay. The whole conversation only took 10 minutes, but it really helped me feel better and made the rest of my stay a pleasure. I would definitely return to Disney Port Orleans French Quarter again because of how nicely they addressed my challenges.

Now that your vacation is over, this point may be moot. However, the next time you visit Walt Disney World, I would keep in mind something that the housekeeping manager told me. She said that everyone at Walt Disney World is committed to making each vacation the most magical experience of our lives. They strive to exceed our expectations during every interaction. However, due to the size and scope of the resort, sometimes service challenges happen. She insisted that her biggest regret is not knowing about a challenge and having a guest leave the resort unhappy. She told me that it was her job to keep service challenges to a minimum, but when they did happen, to provide solutions to challenges and help recover the situation.

Anyway-- I hope you have a better experience next time and that you were able to enjoy some of your vacation.

 

[becka]

Thanks magicmaker.

You are right that I didn't speak to a manager because I really am just not the type to complain too loudly in the middle of it and by the end of that first day (when the majority of the problems occured) I really just wanted the day to end. I was not in the mood for having to deal with anything else. There also wasn't really anything they could have done to fix the situation for me. I did eventually get the crib and what else could they have done?