POP Century~Unofficially the Grooviest FAQ Thread #7~Sept 2012

[angel's momma]

Originally Posted by Rarity

That's what I thought, too, because in December we were able to take a bus to Animal Kingdom for our pre-park ADR at Tusker House. I just wasn't sure if things would be the same for Magic Kingdom since I've mostly seen people post that they took a taxi or drove themselves to the TTC.

I searched, and found several posts about 8:05 CRT, and the responses recommended being at the bus stop at 7am, and that a taxi would give you an extra half hour sleep.

Originally Posted by Coyotesweat

That would be nice to have a bus. I think maybe they told me that because the train tour is so very early, and only a few people do it?

That early, I think it's risky to try to take the bus.

[glammadiva]

Ask the front desk about the Breakfast Bus.

[Rarity]

Originally Posted by angel's momma

I searched, and found several posts about 8:05 CRT, and the responses recommended being at the bus stop at 7am, and that a taxi would give you an extra half hour sleep.

Thanks! We're early risers, anyway, so that extra bit of sleep wouldn't matter much to us.

Originally Posted by glammadiva

Ask the front desk about the Breakfast Bus.

I'll probably ask, just to be sure. Thanks, everyone!

[Sandi]

Originally Posted by Rarity

Thanks! We're early risers, anyway, so that extra bit of sleep wouldn't matter much to us.



I'll probably ask, just to be sure. Thanks, everyone!

There will be lots of people at Pop catching buses for early ADRs at all the parks. Also, that first week of April, they are doing early EMHs at MK starting at 8:00, so depending on when your trip is, the park may be open.

[Grumpy Grandma]

Originally Posted by Janet B

Well, how 'bout a dose of it now and then?? I'm not sure how I would handle the solo time either, as I so enjoy being around and talking with people. One of my favorite things to do in the morning at POP is get my diet coke and my chocolate crossiant and sit either in the food court or outside and people watch ... waiting for my beautiful DD to get up ....

I was in Disney early this month (over marathon weekend) and met up with a few DISers, one of them, Grumpy Grandma, who stays at POP too (when not on her DVC stays ) We had a blast!! Love our Mama Linda! I think you came in after that, didn't you?? Just noticed you live in MD, not too far away from this Phila suburbs girl. Funny, I thought you lived in Florida for all the time you have been to Disney!

IMO, 5 days sound much better. Enough time to get your Disney fix, but not too long to feel the sting of too much ME time I totally get it. If you are around in December when a few of us are going let us know! Would be happy to meet up with you.

Janet yes we did have a great time! Looks like my dates will be Nov 28th thru Dec 12th but as you know I just love to add on days!

[Janet B]

Movies showing nightly ....

Pop Century - 7:00 pm By the Hippy Dippy Pool

Sunday - Toy Story 3
Monday -Lady and the Tramp
Tuesday - Heavyweights
Wednesday - Peter Pan
Thursday - Enchanted
Friday - Brave
Saturday - Tangled

And at our "unofficial" sister resort:

Art of Animation - 7:00 pm by the Big Blue Pool

Sunday - Cinderella
Monday -Lady and the Tramp
Tuesday - Heavyweights
Wednesday - Peter Pan
Thursday - Enchanted
Friday - Brave
Saturday - The Lion King 1-1/2

[Janet B]

Originally Posted by Grumpy Grandma

Janet yes we did have a great time! Looks like my dates will be Nov 28th thru Dec 12th but as you know I just love to add on days!

Only 2 weeks? Seriously you need to stay longer...

Yes, we had a great time, and looking for more come December!!

[Christine9125]

My DD21 and I are planning on being there in September, can't wait. Had reservations at the Poly, but changed them to POP.

[iheartwalt]

Just got here tonight and are in love with our room. I admit I was having resort envy when our DME bus stopped at AoA but all that is gone now We have 2460 in the 50's and it is perfect! As private as you are going to get and you see the Illuminations fireworks from inside our room! What a pleasant surprise

[stitchlovestink]

Originally Posted by Janet B

Can I have your life?? How nice for you and your DD to go back together.

Originally Posted by Janet B

Well, how 'bout a dose of it now and then?? I'm not sure how I would handle the solo time either, as I so enjoy being around and talking with people. One of my favorite things to do in the morning at POP is get my diet coke and my chocolate crossiant and sit either in the food court or outside and people watch ... waiting for my beautiful DD to get up ....

I was in Disney early this month (over marathon weekend) and met up with a few DISers, one of them, Grumpy Grandma, who stays at POP too (when not on her DVC stays ) We had a blast!! Love our Mama Linda! I think you came in after that, didn't you?? Just noticed you live in MD, not too far away from this Phila suburbs girl. Funny, I thought you lived in Florida for all the time you have been to Disney!

IMO, 5 days sound much better. Enough time to get your Disney fix, but not too long to feel the sting of too much ME time I totally get it. If you are around in December when a few of us are going let us know! Would be happy to meet up with you.

Funny, we probably live less than a 100 miles from each other!!

I would love to come back to Disney in December but unless DD gets to extend her CP, I doubt that is likely to happen this year. We have a trip planned for younger DD's graduation Celebration in June for 8 nights (her and a friend, me and no DH), we have a 7 night cruise on the Fantasy scheduled for October for our 25th wedding anniversary with maybe a couple of days at WDW. And my friend wants to do a 3night on the Dream in May to celebrate our Birthdays! But I don't know if that is going to work or not...
And I'll have to come down in August to help DD pack up to come home from the CP unless she gets an extension if she even applies for one. So I think I'll be in WDW quite a bit this year!!

[Coyotesweat]

The dreaded BTG is here in force this morning. Saw them last night taking pics. This group is all teen girls in pink and white with backpacks. They swarm, but have not been pushing. Look out for the backpacks when they turn suddenly though! This was the scene at the register



I despaired of getting breakfast when a CM directed me to a different register around the corner.

Saved!

[KuyaJeff]

I just got back Thursday from spending 7 nights at Pop Century. We had booked a Preferred Pool View, and had requested a King Bed(with hopes that it would be a (non-accessible/non-handicapped room) on the highest floor possible.

When we did check-in, there seemed to be a lack of excitement from the cast-member behind the desk. Perhaps there was a bit more fanfare from the individual who helped me out on my last trip. The cast member kept the small talk to a minniumum. I did ask if our requests were met and if the room was non-accessible. The cast-member said yes. the whole check-in process was a lot quicker than I had expected...probably no more than 10 minutes tops. We were then on our way to the room...

Once we got a glimpse of the Hippy Dippy Pool from the main building, the area between the two 60s buildings felt smaller/cozier than I remembered it. The buildings felt shorter...but perhaps it was just me being so used to being at Pop from my last trip, that the initial feeling of being blown away had left me. It could have also been the slightly warmer weather than we were expecting.

We arrived at our room, 5403, in building 5. It was pretty cool to see the RFID thingamajig on the door. Apparently, according to the map provided on the Pop thread...this was a "Preferred Room" but it still provided a view of the Hippy Dippy Pool, so it was good enough for me...we didn't want to get too nit-picky. Plus, we were on the 4th floor, which was great as well. When we opened the door to the room, we realized that we had ended up in an accessible room. The King Bed was pretty low to the ground, and there were quite a few handrails in the bathroom. The main reason we requested a non-accessible room was because we wanted to have a tub. Luckily, we scored a room that had one! I guess the plus of having an accessible shower/tub was that the showerhead had a surprisingly wider range of motion. The extra handrails didn't bother us and we eventually got used to it. Most importantly in regards to the room, it was clean and kept that way, by "Blanca".


Our room number.


The RFID Thingamajig.


A snazy panorama of outside our room.

We had left tips for Mousekeeping everyday in envelopes. We aren't that messy of people, and tried to clean up as best we could, but Mouskeeping always found a way to keep things one step up more organized than we thought we could. We were left a few towel animals throughout our stay and even some of our toys were left brought into the fun. Here are a few examples of the great work done by our Mousekeeper[s]:


The little green men from the Toy Story movies have landed in our room.


A close-up of said green men.


This was left on our bed...the same day that the little green men had landed on our bed!


Another close-up!


Not quite sure what type of animals are...they're either bears or some animal of the rodent kind...still pretty awesome!


Not-so-hidden mickey toothbrush holder!


Our army of soaps and shampoos that we accumulated by the end of the trip!

The bus transportation was great as expected. We never had to wait more than 10 minutes for a bus. It was real simple to make it to an 8:05AM ADR at Crystal Palace...with tons of time to take pics in front of the castle to spare! Bus transportation was almost better than my first trip, which I had a great experience with as well. It felt like there were more buses readily available and a wider variety(theme-park destination wise). Apparently there were large groups of international teenaged tour groups(you probably have heard of them), staying at the resort. But we managed to always avoid the parks they were going to. They were also mostly concentrated inthe 90s section of the resort.

We purchased refillable mugs at Everything Pop and used them quite a bit. My new favorite refillable mug "hack"(not really) is to get some hot chocolate with some ice at the beverage islands. We found ourselves eating at Everything Pop almost everyday, mostly for breakfasts that weren't spent elsewhere. The Bounty Platter was surprisingly good and mor ethan enough for us. We also had our more than our share of the legendary tie-dye cheesecakes than we'd like to admit. I tried to take on "The King"...but it was just too rich for my liking.


More legendary than the backside of water...it's the tie-dye cheesecake!


It makes sense that the "The King" would be so rich...


Bacon, bananas, peanut butter, chocolate and a hint of diabetes!

On one morning, we decided it was great enough weather to take a dip in the Hippy Dippy Pool. We loved how warm the water was kept, especially in the morning. We had a chance to see the "opening ceremony" of the pool where the shower flower nozzles are "magically turned on". The water from the nozzles was not heated, but it was kind of fun to see people being shocked to find that out for themselves. It got a little breezy outside of the pool so that warm feelign of being in the pool quickly went away and we quickly dashed into the hotel to get warm again.

Everything had gone great until the time of our checkout. Apparently there was an issue with the card we had on file for room charges. Something about it being put on hold because of charges being made out of state(we're from California). So we received a note on our door the night before checkout to just see the front desk to resolve the issue before checkout. We showed up the morning of our departure and talked to the front desk. Their system was down(this happened quite a few times during our stay while asking to get a print-out of charges made to our rooms so far).

The cast members behind the desk were very friendly and helpful with the whole process...they even said that the situation we were happens all the time, even with themselves when they make purchases with their banks outside of their home states. We tried to put another card on file and that got declined as well. I asked if getting billed the balance was an option and the cast member helping me out had to ask for a manager to check. The manager then told me that it was not an option. But then her tone of voice changed quickly to a very "unfriendly one" saying that we had to what we had to do because we couldn't leave until that balance was taken care of, pointed out that there was an ATM was just around the corner and then she asked us if she needed to call security to go through our luggage to take back any souvenirs that we may have purchased(we didn't have any...mostly food related purchases).

This just really rubbed me the wrong way. I can understand if that's the procedure when a guest is checking out and there's a problem with the card on file, but I thought the delivery of the news could have been done a little better. This manager was getting very accusatory and didn't really go over any options that we eventually found out were available through the front desk cast members and another manager. Luckily, things eventually got resolved and we never did meet up with security. The whole situation took quite a while to resolve/sort out, that we didn't have time to use our last day of tickets in the parks before our DME departure time of 1:25PM.

So with everythng said and done...for the most part, we enjoyed our stay at Pop Century. That last day however left a big enough impact on us filled iwth embarassment and stress that it almost overpowers the memories we made over a week at WDW. I probably won't be staying at Pop anytime soon because of it unfortunately. Not because of the lack of quality at Pop, but because of the memories that may associated with our last day of this trip.

[Marla1106]

So horrible that last day must have been!! I would have felt the same way. That kind of thing stresses me out.

I'm glad that the majority of your trip was great. So sorry that last day was so bad.

[HappyGal]

I would write to let them know how you were treated. So sorry you have a cloud hanging over you memories. Time for a do-over!

[lovesdumbo]

Kuyajeff-thanks for your review. So sorry about your checkout experience. I too think you should write Disney a note. Disney needs to know they have a manager speaking to their guests like that.

Loved all your photos. How did you do the panoramic one?