Pop Century Resort Review
In February 2017, we traveled to Disney World with Melody for her first trip. We decided to stay at a value resort because we are planning to return to Disney World later this year and stay at a nicer resort. This trip was meant to be a short trip so we didn't want to invest the same money in this one as our one later. This was Brad's first stay at a value resort. I have stayed value many times with my mom and parents. I have stayed at every All Star resort, but we most commonly stay at the All Star Sports Resort. With Brad, we have stayed at The Contemporary, Saratoga Springs, and Port Orleans Riverside. This was going to be a big change for Brad, but he was on board with it.
We looked at all the value resorts, and we ended up going with Pop Century. The timing of our trip removed a few of the All Star Resorts because we were going in between a dance and cheerleading competition. I also had planned to use my annual passholder discount, and the discount would not apply to Art of Animation. We decided Pop Century since it was the newest resort, and it was a resort I have never stayed at.
We checked in online, so we did not have to stop at the front desk. They texted me our room number, building, and a map. The Magical Express dropped us off at the front of the hotel, so we did walk through the lobby area. It was really large and busy. The walls were covered in adorable generational memorabilia. I took a few pictures because a lot of it was really neat. Brad was really fascinated with the 80s and 90s.
After walking through the lobby, you will come to "Everything Pop". This is both the gift shop and the food court. Personally, I am not a fan of the combination. I know other resorts do this, but I just don't care for it. I like the separation of the shopping. There is also an entrance/exit to the buses through the gift shop. The shopping was just ok. Nothing really stood out to me as unique enough that I needed to buy it.
The food court was awful and crowded the entire time we were here. You can see two of the pictures below from two different nights while we were here. After we would get back from the parks, Brad would go back to the food court and get us drinks. The night we bought our unlimited drink mugs it was pure chaos. It didn't seem that way at first. I went up and found mugs (which they only had purple and pink - quite frustrating only having 2 girlie options). So we got one of each and Brad suffered through using the purple. Well I went to purchase them, and that took about 10 minutes of waiting in line. They were having issues with the cash register, and instead of opening a new one or a manager stepping in, we had to wait. Then after waiting, I went to get our cokes, and people were being rude about lines for drinks and such. Lastly, we get back to the room, and the coke tastes awful! It tasted almost like Diet Coke but even worse. Brad went back to get something else, and all of the drinks were awful. It was quite frustrating.
Below is a picture of the bus stops. You can enter the building both through the gift shop, and there is also an entrance that will take you into the lobby.
Opposite of the bus stops are the actual rooms. Below is a walking path to our room. I did not go throughout the entire resort, but I did take a few pictures of what surrounded us. We stayed in the 60s building.
Below is our actual room. We stayed in room 4343. We had a lake view if you stood outside of our room. You could also open the curtains and see the lake as well. I rarely did this because it just didn't make sense since it wasn't private. The room was a standard value room. There were two full size beds with a nightstand in between. There was a small table with two chairs, and a dresser with a refrigerator and TV. The bathroom contained one sink and standard amenities. There was a curtain to separate the bathroom from the rest of the room. This came in handy when Melody was sleeping.
You will notice in the first pictures that there is no pack and play. My reservation clearly stated we needed a pack and play, but I have found that it is common with hotels to still need to request it once you get to the resort. It makes it frustrating they even ask you before hand if they won't put it in before you arrive. Our phone did not work when we called the front desk. So Brad ended up having to go to the front desk and request one. Housekeeping brought it within about 15 minutes of his request. I took a few pictures of it below. When she slept, we moved it by the door. We started out near the bathroom, but she cried and cried. When we moved it by the door, she was fine. So who knows what caused that!
Our first night in our room was great. We had absolutely no issues with the exception of having to go downstairs to request the pack and play.
Our second night was a different story. We spent the day at Brad's grandparents house. The only time we were really in the room was for her morning bottle, then we returned around 8:30 or so for her bath time then bed time. When we returned, Brad immediately went back to the food court to get us drinks while I got Melody settled on the bed to play. After getting Melody settled, I started to unpack our things from his grandparents' house, and I was going to start cleaning bottles. About this time Brad arrived back with our drinks. When I started to rinse out the bottles, I noticed that our sink was covered in ants. They were all over Melody's bottles from that morning and all over the wall beside the sink. Brad immediately called the front desk with no luck since our phone still didn't work. So he went back downstairs to let them know. In the meantime, I killed as many ants as I could because I knew we had to give Melody a bath soon and I had to clean bottles.
Brad returned, and they told him they would send up pest control soon. It was creeping up on Melody's bedtime, so we tried to slowly go through her bedtime routine while we waited. I heard some people outside, but no one knocked. I went to get ice and noticed it was maintenance. When I returned I heard them talking to one another about the frustrations they were having with the actual pest guy. They stopped me and told me they were still waiting on him to return their call. They finally knocked a few minutes later and said they could either come back when they heard from him, or they could take a look themselves. I explained that we would soon be putting Melody to sleep, and so they went ahead and came in.
It was clear to them it was ants, and they explored the sink to see if they could find where they were coming in. They also inspected some other areas of our room. They left not giving us a whole lot of information. Another employee came back and told us they would have someone come spray the next morning while we were at the parks. In the meantime, they did kill all the ants they could find. I wasn't fond of sleeping in an ant infested room, especially with Melody, but we moved on.
Our third day seemed fine. We spent the entire day at Epcot for our first park day. We returned to the room around 8:30 p.m. or so. We went about our routine as normal, and I did not notice any ants.
The next morning was not the same. When I got up to get ready, I noticed more ants. I took pictures this time. It is the first three pictures below. I killed all that I could see again. Brad complained again, but we told them we were going back to the parks so they said they would come back while we were out. This time, the front desk gave Brad a card to call them directly so that we did not have to keep coming down there.
We spent the day at Magic Kingdom. When we returned from the parks, it was around 8:30 again. We decided to just stop at the front desk on our way up to confirm they did take care of our room. We spoke with a manager this time. He said that they did have pest control come by and that everything was taken care of. He told us to call him if we noticed any more problems.
Of course, we returned and found both ants and other bugs. The next five pictures are the bugs and ants we found. Brad called them and complained again. Finally they offered to move us rooms. HOWEVER, they would not move us until the next day. So we would still have to spend the night in the ant infested room. And at that point, we would get one night in our new room before checking out. With it being that late in our trip, it was honestly not worth packing our things to move for one night. We also didn't know if we would run into similar problems in a new room. So we killed all the ants and bugs, and we moved on with life
Our last park day was at Hollywood Studios and Epcot. We returned from the parks around 8:30 or so again. We did not find any new bugs, but the mousekeeping really did not care about their job of making our room look nice anymore. I guess they were tired of us. In the last picture below, notice how they just threw the washcloths on the hand towel holder (no hand towels).
Art of Animation is just across the lake from Pop Century. On our last day, we decided to go eat lunch at their food court. Below are some shots of our walk as well as the inside of the lobby and arcade room.
So our experience at this resort was less than pleasant. I have no intention of staying here again. To be honest, I was extremely disappointed in the resort. Not only did we have an awful room, but the customer service was terrible. The Mousekeeping was less than stellar. And the food court experience was unlike any experience I have ever had. I had hoped with it being newer than the All Star Resorts that it would be nicer, but I was proven wrong.
I want to give Disney the benefit of the doubt. And after the first night of ants, I thought I would. In my mind I tried to justify the problem. I mean our room was located on the lake, so maybe that had something to do with it. I did have Melody's bottles on the sink, so maybe that had something to do with it (however, mom and I have left our drink mugs full of coke beside the sink before at the Sports resort and never had any ant or bug issues from it). But when they did not try to urgently fix the situation, I felt not only disappointed at the resort, but at Disney. We tried to get their help on numerous occasions. We even spoke with the manager one evening. He apologized and told us to call back if we noticed any other issues. When we did have other issues, they finally offered to move our room the day before we were checking out. Our issues had been going on for 3 days already. I felt like they should have made this offer sooner in our trip. It was just completely unnecessary and not Disney at all.
I would in no way recommend this resort to anyone who asks. In all honesty, if this was the only value resort with availability, I would pay to stay in a moderate instead. I expect that I will continue to stay at the All Star Sports Resort with my mom on future trips, but I don't see Brad staying at a value resort again. In the future when we want to go cheap, we will just stay at a moderate resort. It isn't dramatically more expensive, but they are WAY nicer. Better setups, better beds, and better value for sure. If you do have an upcoming trip planned to this resort, I hope you have a better experience than us. I know that not everyone has this same experience. And in all my years of going to Disney, this is the first time anything like this has ever happened. But I do not intend to risk it happening again by staying at this resort again.
