Pop Century Revisited
So if you have been here awhile or have been reading up on my Disney posts from the past, you will know we were NOT fans for Pop Century back in 2017. We had a lot of bad experiences here, and even though there is some nostalgia from it being the first Disney hotel Melody stayed in, it was totally not our favorite by any means. I never would recommend this hotel. Well back in May we gave it another try. Not because I wanted to, but when we booked our trip it was pretty much all that was available that was reasonably priced. So we gave it another go. revisited
Rooms
So the rooms have been updated since our last visit. I do love these updates especially for our family. While there are technically two queen beds, one is a Murphy bed. We kept the bed up during the day and even the first night. But the last three nights I slept in it. I just did not sleep well with all three of us in one smallish bed. There was also a decent fridge/coffee bar area. We used this area to store all of our food. I loved all of the contemporary feels throughout the room with all the white and sleek finishes. We found plenty of storage in our bathroom for both our clothes and our toiletries. We had a standing shower in our bathroom while my parents did have a shower/tub combo. If you are a parent to a young one who takes bathes vs showers, you may want to request that. Melody is now at an age she prefers showers, but many nights she complained about not getting to sit in a tub after a long day walking at the parks. As far as luggage storage, I believe most suitcases will fit under the bed, but we kept ours out throughout our stay.
The other big thing here was the food court. So while there was some cons to the forced mobile ordering here, the lack of fighting for a table was a HUGE PRO. If you read my original review, the food court was also total chaos. Mobile ordering eliminates this chaos. And if you have refillable mugs, just show them and you can go inside. I plan to do a post tomorrow with all the updates to the food court during COVID times.
Below you can find the directory. The big change since our last visit in the “layout” is the added skyliner. While I don’t have many pictures of the skyliner station here, I did do an entire post about our experience. I can see the benefit of having it and the pros it brings to this resort, but I am not overall a fan of the skyliner in terms of rope dropping or park closings.
One thing we did explore this time that we didn’t on our previous visit was the playground. I honestly had no clue there was a playground on our last visit or we might have visited it. Melody loved going here, but we only made it twice since it closed at dusk. I wasn’t a fan of the rocks, but it was really nice otherwise.
I wasn’t sure how much would be going on around the resort due to COVID, but there was plenty of things if you are into that. Had this been a longer trip, we would have likely participated in some of the movies.
Below are some snapshots of the resort you will find when walking around. Everything is very larger than life and neat to look at. I really loved their golf carts.
And here are a few photos of the lobby area. We only came here to get our groceries and our MagicBands.
I still don’t think I can recommend this resort. I know I am the minority in this thinking, but we just do not love it here. We are rope droppers, and unless you were willing to wait in line for 2+ hours and skip food court breakfast, this was near impossible with a toddler [I was not paying for a Uber with a toddler]. I do love the updates, and the skyliner is nice during the day, but I still would not stay here unless it was my only choice.
