Let me just dry my face a bit before we get into the breakdown. Oh my heck. The humidity.
The Humidity.
Yes, it should be capitalized. It’s an entity unto itself. I know others have said they’ve headed to Florida this time of year and it’s been gorgeous, but this is officially my 2nd time in Florida during the month of September and my life will be perfectly fine if I never have to do that again. My husband commented that it wasn’t even actually raining some days, it was just dripping everywhere. Craziness!!
But Disney, people!! DISNEY WORLD!! It truly is magical! This time felt a little less magical than the other two. It felt a little more like any other vacation where you run into grumpy workers and there are some annoyances along the way. It’s hard to say it was anything less than great, because it’s Disney and I know how lucky we were to be able to go. It’s still Disney, so it’s still wonderful, but there were definitely some things that popped up!
We stayed at Pop Century based on the recommendation of my travel agent.
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I loved that this resort had their own shuttle (they didn’t have to share with any other resorts), so the rides to the parks were faster and the shuttles were less crowded. Huge bonus for me! The rooms were like any other room, not bad and not great. I walked in the door first to a huge bug (I thought it was a gecko at first!), skittering across the floor. Then we saw the sign on the fridge that said it wasn’t working and don’t try to plug it in. Big bummer for me. I had specifically looked into and requested a room that had a fridge and had brought snacks and drinks for that purpose. So my hubby called down to the main desk to ask if we could be switched to a room with a working fridge. Ummm, yeah… about that. Apparently there were over 30,000 fridges on Disney properties that weren’t working properly and were being recalled. The alternative? We were told there were full-size fridges in the main resort building if we wanted to put stuff in there with our name on it. No thanks. Thank goodness we aren’t a family that needs a fridge for an epi pen or something similar. I can’t imagine.
No worries, though. On our very last day, we saw them bringing in new fridges, so I’m sure the people who stayed right after us got to enjoy them!
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My travel agent also recommended that we pay extra for a pool-view room. She said it would help ensure that our building was a little closer to the main building where the shuttles pick up. We also thought it would be nice so we could run back and forth to the room or one of us could be up there and still see the rest of the family down in the pool. BIG MISTAKE! I will never stay in a pool-view room on Disney property again and I honestly believe these rooms should be cheaper. I’m kicking myself for paying more money for this! For starters, we weren’t any closer to the main building at all. In fact, I’m nearly positive we were in the building that was as absolutely far as you could get from the main building. It was a hike.
Here’s the other thing, when you stay in a pool-view room, you’re obviously over-looking the pool. You know what that means?? You’ve got a front row seat to party central, my friend. Yes, there were little signs out about keeping the noise down after 11:00 p.m., and I believe the pool closed at midnight. But no one enforced this! The place was so well lit for safety reasons, and there were many people in the pool until 1:30-2:00 a.m. every single night we were there. MANY people. Many loud people all having a great time… swimming, playing football, drinking and just hanging out. We were on the 3rd floor and could hear entire conversations. It was so unbelievably loud every night that we were there.
You know who wants to spend all day in the humidity walking for about 12 hours straight and then come home and be awake until 2:00 a.m.?? Yeah, I don’t know that person either.
We even had one night where there was a group of pre-teen boys running across our balcony knocking on doors and windows at 1:15 a.m. That was the night I almost broke down and called the main desk to complain. But I just couldn’t do it. I kept telling myself that they were on vacation too and maybe they were just a different time zone. Ugh, I wish I would have. Lesson learned: next time I’m asking for a parking lot view room. It must be so quiet over there.
The pool view room also faces the courtyard, so we had this to listen to for the first couple days:
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And the pool.
The kids loved and got a ton of use out of it! They were in there every night and we were so thankful for it! Until 2 days before we left when my one big toe got caught in the filter in the middle of the pool. I felt it and flinched, but didn’t think too much of it. By the next day, my toe was all red and throbbing pretty bad. It kept me up all night- just felt like it was on fire and pulsing almost. The next day was our travel day and I was walking with an obvious limp and could barely put my shoes on. As soon as we got home, I took a look at it and sure enough, it was gross. I’ll spare you the pictures (even though I have them!), but the whole toe was enormous, red, tight and whitish/greenish all around the scrape where it got caught in the filter. It’s better now, but… ugh, that pool! The pool that I paid extra money to be closer to!!
The kids loved the resort, though! It’s so fun to run around to the other buildings and see how they’re decorated!
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Or just stay in the room and pretend like you’re an old married couple. They’re frighteningly good at this!
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Or be really creepy and hang out outside of our room trying to do magic tricks on people. Isn’t that what everybody does when they go Disney World??
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Would I recommend staying at Pop Century? Yes, probably!
It’s a value resort, so you’re getting a good value without a lot of extra amenities. The exclusive shuttle was a big perk over some of the other value resorts who had to share shuttles. The fridge/bug/pool incident are just flukes that all happened to affect us at one time. Go figure. It’s like traveling with the Griswald’s. I do stand by requesting a parking lot view room, though!
I’ll be back with my thoughts on the parks and dining! Trust me… I have lots of thoughts on those, as well!
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