First Time At Pop So A Couple Of Questions

[jakeybake]

Hello friends!

So we are usually Beach Club people but since we have gone down a lot lately our budget is telling us that we need to be Value people for our next trip. Because of all the wonderful things we have heard on here about Pop Century we chose that resort for our next trip.

Since I know nothing about the resort I had a couple of questions.

1. Is a Preferred Room really needed and which building should we request?
2. How is the transportation?
3. How is the food at the food court?
4. How are the pools (we know our pool views are forever tainted because of SAB)?
5. Is the size of the room adequate for 2 adults and 2 kids (11 + 8)?

I think that is it for now. Like I said, it's going to be an adjustment for us for sure but I love trying out new resorts. Also, we are big resort people and not exactly what folks would call "Park Commando's" so the resort is as important to us as the parks are.

Thanks as always for the help!!!

Jay

[MickeyandTink]

Having spent our last two trips at POP, here is my take.

1. Is a Preferred Room really needed and which building should we request?

If getting a "view" or being close to the main pool/dining/gift shop/bus stop is critical to you, then it is probably best to get a preferred room. If you don't mind possibly walking another 2-3 minutes each way and don't really have to have a view, then skip it. We've done standard rooms both years and have been perfectly fine with it.

2. How is the transportation?

There are frequent buses, but they can really get backed up in the morning and around park close. We've had waits of as little as 5 minutes or as long as 40 minutes. However, since there is only one bus stop, you don't have to worry about a bus being full or close to it by the time it pulls up.

3. How is the food at the food court?

We are not big resort eaters, but the couple of times we have eaten there we were very pleased with the food. The kids loved the Mickey waffles for breakfast and they had a wonderful variety of choices and pretty good quality for lunch and dinner.

4. How are the pools (we know our pool views are forever tainted because of SAB)?

There are three pools. The main "Hippy-Dippy" pool is very large, but also has a lot of people. The kids enjoyed it. Significantly better than your standard hotel pool, but can't really compete with the deluxe resorts.

5. Is the size of the room adequate for 2 adults and 2 kids (11 + 8)?

The rooms are a bit cramped. We had two adults and two kids (7 & 3) in the room last year and it was adequate for us. However, we tend to be more park oriented and outside of sleeping and getting ready in the morning, don't spend much time in the room.

[momof3+twins]

1. I don't think a preferred room is necessary if you know that layout of the resort. I would take a look at the map if I were you and see if you think cutting through the parking lot say at the 90's hotel would be a problem for you. The preferred aren't going to get you any kind of view. It is just for being close to the main building where the busses and food court are at.
2.I think that Pop has really good bus service. There is always a chance that you might have to stand in the evening with any resort. And you could always have missed the bus by a few minutes and have to wait. But, overall I was happy with the busses.
3.I like the food at Pop better than the counter service in the parks. They have a special every night with different things like Turkey and meatloaf at one of the counters. It is pretty good.
4.They are pools. You can swim in them. Not a waterpark though.
5.I have 5 kids so we put 4 in one room and 3 in another. I think it is plenty of room. You should be good with one room unless you plan on hanging out in there all the time which I doubt. Two beds for 4 people works fine. I really don't think the the values are all that much smaller than any other room. They are cramped ,yes, but do you really need a couple hundred extra square feet when you are going to the parks sun up to sun down??

[ransam]

i'm a huge fan of POP.
make sure you take time to walk around a bit...check out the generation bridge. It's very peaceful.

[Tinkerbella16]

My family loves Pop, eventhough I prefer POFQ...I comprimised with them this year to save a little bit and we are going back to Pop for our 3rd stay there.

1. Is a Preferred Room really needed and which building should we request?
Don't think it is necessary at all.. its not a spread out resort like others.

2. How is the transportation?
Probably the best because you do not have to share with any other resort, like most.

3. How is the food at the food court?
We love the variety at the food court there.. A lot to choose from for breakfast, lunch and dinner! Yummmm!

4. How are the pools (we know our pool views are forever tainted because of SAB)?
Both times we stayed at Pop we enjoyed the quiet pool in the 50's section most. The main pool can be a bit crowded and loud, but its all fun.

5. Is the size of the room adequate for 2 adults and 2 kids (11 + 8)?
If you are going to just sleep, shower and change then it is just fine. If you want to spend more time in the room then maybe 2 adjoining rooms would be nice...having the extra space and bathroom is nice and everyone will get their own bed!

I think you will enjoy it at Pop. It is much nicer than the All Stars in my opinion. There are walkways around the resort that are nice and relaxing too.

[dancin Disney style]

If you want to have a 'view' the best option is a standard room facing the lake. I would say that's the only scenic type view. However, since POP has external hallways you have to go outside to see the view. Unless you are OK leaving your drapes open.

[MistressGracey]

Hello! We have stayed at Pop Century more than a half dozen times, and think you'll enjoy it very much.

We always get the preferred room; a little extra cash is worth being closer to the main pool and food court for us.

The bus service has always been fine for us. A little crowded, but it seems that the Pop busses run more frequently than other resorts.

I think the food court does well with both variety and freshness of the food. We eat at the food court 3-4 times per trip and are only JUST starting to get sick of it by the time we leave.

The main pool (Hippie Dippy) is large and fun for kids with it's water-spraying flowers. The bowling pin pool over by the '50s is nice if you want something a bit quieter.

Room size at Pop will test your spirit of family togetherness, LOL, but it's not bad if you are like us and are rarely ever there during your stay. I do wish they would put up a curtain around the sink area so it could double as a dressing area...

The first time at Pop especially is fun, walking around and looking at the larger-than-life icons was a blast for our kids. Hope your family has a wonderful time!

[Mousemates]

1. Is a Preferred Room really needed and which building should we request? In the Values (due to the exterior doorways and open areas where kids on tour groups/atheletics tend to congregate and occasionally practice)...we discovered that far more important noise wise was to be on the upper floor (also has the advantage of no one walking on your ceiling or bouncing a basketball when you are trying to nap). As with most places, you also tend to have a better view when at altitude.

If I were going to try to request a specific room I'd go for the top floor of the sixties building, facing the interior courtyard, at the end of the building near the generational bridge.

2. How is the transportation? We had good luck and good service with our buses at Pop and our stya was during the super busy holiday season,.

3. How is the food at the food court? I'd rate it as average, kind of comparable to what you would find in terms of quality and variety at a mall in a fairly good sized city.

4. How are the pools (we know our pool views are forever tainted because of SAB)? The pool is big...not much else to say about it.

5. Is the size of the room adequate for 2 adults and 2 kids (11 + 8)? the rooms are def on the smallish side

Like I said, it's going to be an adjustment for us for sure but I love trying out new resorts. Also, we are big resort people and not exactly what folks would call "Park Commando's" so the resort is as important to us as the parks are.

Given your final comment I might suggest (if finances allow it) doing a split stay...starting at the pop and maybe finishing at Coronado where your will get the bigger queen beds for your last couple of nights and use of a really nice pool (with slide) and hot tub for mom and dad

[Eeyore's My Favorite]

Guess I'm going to be the odd person out here - DH & I don't prefer POP....we are actually more comfortable and more relaxed at ASMu.

Our last visit @ POP was actually so unmagical that we won't go back. We had paid for a preferred room & what we got was a room on the 3rd floor in the 60's about as far away from the elevator, pool, food court & buses as possible & still be considered preferred. Nothing could be done to switch us as the resort was full & nothing available. Also, I have never seen so many, rude, unruley, unsupervised kids in all my life - running all over the resort at all hours of the day & night with no regard to others.

The food court was always packed & you had to be a table vulture to get a table to eat at & pray that your food was still hot when you finally found a table. The food itself is good though, but we preferred the food at ASMu.

Buses............OMG.........miserable. No matter what park or what time of day we were going sometimes we had to wait for 2 or 3 buses to cycle through before getting standing room only going. Coming back was no different, always packed. We never shared buses during our stays at ASMu so it wasn't an issue there. POP is such a huge resort that there are more people there than at ASMu.

So for us.........it'll be ASMu if we're staying value. The rooms have been recently refurbished and are much nicer than POP's which are beginning to get very, very worn looking.

JMHO....................

[Beach Club Babe]

We just returned from another stay at Pop. We have stayed at Yacht and Beach and there is no comparison, but you can be very happy there. We have been in the past and were again on our trip, the first week of August.

As for a preferred room, for me it's not neccessary. It may be a little closer to main building, but for the extra money to me it's not really worth it. We have stayed in both the 70's and 50's buildings a few times each and have been very happy. In the 50's we had a nice view, albeit far, of Wishes and Illuminations. In the 70's we had a very peaceful view of Hourglass Lake.

For the pools, the main pool Hippy Dippy is the largest and most fun, at least during the day when the flower sprinklers are on. The bowling pin pool is just a pool, but adequate enough to refresh you and not be overcrowded. My DS is the only one who has used the computer pool, but it was good enough as far as I know.

The transportation was outstanding, much better than at Yacht and Beach, like others have said, no sharing. But still, while we were there the busses were coming frequently and sometimes doubled up whether they needed to or not. Our longest wait of our 10 day stay was about 15 minutes or so. We never had to stand, except for DH and DS who voluntarily gave up their seats to elderly ladies and ones with small children.

The food was pretty good. One in our party was not happy with a cheesesteak wrap as it had way too much garlic, but everything else we got was very good.

The rooms are quite a bit smaller, but we didn't mind even though their is quite a variety in ages and sizes in our travelling party. We don't spend a lot of time in the rooms though.

[Disney Doll]

I'll throw in my 2 cents.

1. Is a Preferred Room really needed and which building should we request?
Preferred means close to the main pool, food court, and bus stop. We like preferred, but the resort is not that huge and it's only a couple minutes extra to walk from one of the further rooms.

2. How is the transportation?
Just okay. It seems like there are more people using the buses at the values. We've experienced pretty crowded buses at both POP and ASMus.

3. How is the food at the food court?
We found the food courts to be pretty crowded especially at breakfast. However, the food seemed typical of most CS restaurants.

4. How are the pools (we know our pool views are forever tainted because of SAB)?
I'm not gonna lie, there is a huge difference in the pools at the different resort levels. The main pool is the hippy dippy pool; it's shaped like a flower and there are a few flowers spraying water along the edges. The 80's pool, shaped like a computer, and the 50's pool, shaped like a bowling pin, are quieter. They also have a little pop fountain area for little ones.

5. Is the size of the room adequate for 2 adults and 2 kids (11 + 8)?
The rooms are small, but it's probably doable. We've never had 4 people in a room so I can't really say, but I know people do it all the time. The lack of the dividing curtain at the vanity area is pain, but I've heard of people bring their own curtain and rigging something so that there is extra space for dressing. Might be especially helpful with older kids.

All in all we enjoyed our stay and would stay there again if we needed to save money.

[Rosemickey68]

We loved the Pop!
The room is your normal/average value size hotel room. It is plenty of room for 4 people. The beds/pillows are comfortable.

I don't know that it's worth the extra $$$ to stay at a preferred, alot of posts on here say depending on where your room is located it sometimes isn't any closer to the bus stops/food court (which are in the same general location here) or the pools than the standard rooms.
We stayed at the 90's bldg. Pop is a large resort so just make sure and look at your map they give you when you check in and figure out if there is a quicker way to get to your room. When we checked in the CM drew out where to go to get to our room. We had never stayed there so we listened to her. We noticed as we arrived at our room we could have just cut across the parking lot from the main/front entrance and saved alot of steps and time.
So that would be my #1 suggestion.

The food court can get busy and crowded so patience is a virtue and the lines may be long, but the CM's are quick at checking people out! Getting a seat can sometimes be difficult (this happens all over WDW at CS places) so if someone in your party can go save seats I would suggest you do that.
However, people don't seem to linger very long, they eat and leave pretty quick of course you can always take the food to your room.
We think that the food court at Pop is one of the best CS places to eat on the WDW property.

The bus transportation was the best we have experienced and we were there during spring break last year! We never waited more than 15 minutes for a bus...there were times the bus was full but it never took more than a few minutes for a 2nd bus to show up. The buses do get crowded and sometimes you have to stand, but that is with any resort you stay at!

As for the pools, we can't answer from personal experience as we didn't spend time at the pools, but many people were often swimming and seemed to be having alot of fun!

[PixieMagic]

Eeyore you're not the only one!!! We just got back yesterday and HATED POP!!!! It was a bad experience all around (like being in a zoo with the animals running around terrifying people 24/7) and had to switch resorts mid trip! We have always stayed deluxe but money is tight and we heard a lot of good things about Pop so we were excited to try a change and thrilled with the savings....which only lasted till 1/2 a day of our trip.... so to answer your questions:

1. Is a Preferred Room really needed and which building should we request?

We requested a preferred room but only because my mother cannot walk any stretch of distance or deal with stairs...still got put in the farthest room possible, but we at least got ground floor.... however since the rooms aren't any different I would save the money if you don't mind walking...

2. How is the transportation?

HORRIBLE!!! This was the killing point of our trip...although POP didn't feel like Disney to us, and was a 24/7 zoo, it was still a cute little resort....however after a day and a half of their horrible transportation, ungodly heat, 1-2 hour ride waits, and never getting a seat on the buses we finally had a family melt down and decided to switch hotels to save the trip!
Buses should be on a time schedule instead of "every 20 minutes" there were several times that we got there and no bus was there and no bus would come for 30min+....and it always seemed to be the park we were going to! Ha ha! One time in particular it was pouring rain and we stood there for over 45 min with no bus for EPCOT but 3-4 buses for every other destination!!!! Not to mention that in 4 days we only got a seat on 2 buses!!! (and we hop parks frequently)

3. How is the food at the food court?

This is the only highlight of POP...there food court is AMAZING! Especially compared to the tiny selection at deluxe resorts... At POP they have everything from alfredo and chicken parmasean to chinese and pizza! And it tasted VERY good!! The ONLY downfall to POP is that it's not open 24 hours so if you get back to the parks after midnight there is no way to refill your mugs....

4. How are the pools (we know our pool views are forever tainted because of SAB)?

Not so great...crowded day and night with the wildest un-parented children I've ever seen! The pools themselves are not bad, but not fantastically themed with amazing views and water slides like the deluxe resorts...

5. Is the size of the room adequate for 2 adults and 2 kids (11 + 8)?

It is a good size room for sleeping and NOTHING else...there is not a seperate wash area to get ready at and you have to squeeze between the door and the bed then slide over to the wall to get in the room and hold the door open for others...and the beds are TINY!!! My sister and I are both fairly thin and had difficulties sharing the bed...

All in all I think if we had NEVER stayed deluxe we might have thought the hotel was fabulous and amazing...but we have for many years and it just wasn't Disney to us, and we just couldn't deal with the lousy transportation for than anything... if you have any questions let me know.... I am seriously not trying to bash POP but I think like Eeyore, some people have to speak up and present the other, less popular opinion...

[Flower]

We have stayed in all resort categories, and have stayed at POP 3-4 times, our most recent trip in March was at POP.

If you are willing to upgrade to a value preferred room, I'd say consider upgrading to a standard moderate room if you are used to deluxe resorts.

POP and the All-Star resorts only have a food court - the moderates offer a food court as well as a sit-down restaurant option. The value food courts drive me nuts, they are always busy, loud & chaotic. At least with the occassional resort sit-down meal it can be a little more relaxing on occassion. Also, the value menues do not offer much variety, the mods at least have a few more options.

Keep the pools in mind - values only offer main pools & kiddie pools. The moderates offer main pools with waterslides, hot tubs, and quiet pools. You say you spend a lot of time at the resort and this would be a big consideration for me.

The mods also offer more recreation options, boats, POR has fishing & campfires, etc.

I just don't find POP relaxing.

[coneygoil]

I've stayed at Pop the last three trip and always requested the '80's section. It's closer to the food court than some of the other sections. It feels more spacious in the courtyard and there's also a pool in the courtyard and a cool comp keyboard for kids to play on.

The food is all right. It's not as good as like the Moderate resorts, but the drink bar is great and the cheese danishes are so delicious for breakfast!

I'm sure there will be enough room. We fit four adults in one room the last trip.

[bruin1344]

Hello friends!

So we are usually Beach Club people but since we have gone down a lot lately our budget is telling us that we need to be Value people for our next trip. Because of all the wonderful things we have heard on here about Pop Century we chose that resort for our next trip.

Since I know nothing about the resort I had a couple of questions.

1. Is a Preferred Room really needed and which building should we request?
2. How is the transportation?
3. How is the food at the food court?
4. How are the pools (we know our pool views are forever tainted because of SAB)?
5. Is the size of the room adequate for 2 adults and 2 kids (11 + 8)?

I think that is it for now. Like I said, it's going to be an adjustment for us for sure but I love trying out new resorts. Also, we are big resort people and not exactly what folks would call "Park Commando's" so the resort is as important to us as the parks are.

Thanks as always for the help!!!

Jay

1. not needed, i prefer 1950s since its close to bus stop and food court
2. My only negative about POP: the buses get very crowded.
3. Its good. Typical fast food.
4. Pools are ok, louder than a moderate or delux but it doesnt bug it
5. Yes

[DisneyFr33k]

We stayed in the 50's building, facing the bowling pin pool. The only drawback for us is that when walking to the food court, we passed by 2 designated smoking areas. The biggest one is right by the entrance to the food court/shops - a big area just to the left, so we had no choice but to walk through the smoke. DD is very allergic to smoke, so it was a negative experience every morning when we set out.

[Pirate Granny]

I love the POP...but after the first experience with a preferred room, on the second floor facing the pool...NEVER AGAIN...the kids (unsupervised) in the pool at 1am were LOUD...we had to call down twice to the front desk to complain before someone came out and told them to quiet down...so...with that we now ask for the 70's bldg and facing the Hourglass lake...a quick walk thru the parking lot to the bus stop...and not too far from the main bldg (although some 70's are considered preferred now)...

Food Court is great...

Buses...hummm we've had bad and great...when we really wanted to get somewhere we took a cab if the bus line was long. Never had a problem on the return to the Pop trips though...except one MNSSHP, we waited 90 minutes...now we stay in the park 'till well after the party is over, shopping, to let the lines go down.

Pools...NO HOT TUB...no slides, but a great place for your children to meet other children. I've been in the pools at 1am and outside of the one time with loud children...it is very nice...

ENJOY your stay...you'll find problems during any trip...the trick is not to let it bother you.