Ninja Mom
Attention People of Earth, I come in Peace...
- Joined
- Apr 2, 2012
I've returned from a two week stay at Pop. My room was in the 90's building (91XX) and it was one of the ones that was refurbished.
The first thing that stands out is the overall "Hospital" feel of the room. There is fluorescent lighting in the room but the side lamps by the bed do radiate with the yellow that we expect from an incandescent bulb. The lighting overhead of the Murphy bed and the disk light on the wall are straight up white fluorescent with no flickering. When only these lights are in use you have the feeling you are in an office or a hospital room... ugh.
Now we'll get to the floors... I know the majority of the people polled on the floor issue preferred to have laminate flooring but I suspect many of them are going to regret that decision once they experience these refurbished Pop floors. The floors are DIRTY. We are talking sock blackening dirty. I spoke with my other friends who were staying at Pop at the same time and they all noticed the same dirty floor problem. I read up on these new rooms prior to my trip and brought slippers but it was a pain in the bottom to have to put them on every time you had to get out of bed. I tried using a towel as a beside carpet but I had to give up on that as it proved to be a tripping hazard.
It was just myself in the room but if you have kids you are doomed regarding all the dirt that will be tracked in to your Pop room. I was leaving my shoes at the door and transferring to slippers, so that helped cut down on adding any additional dirt. However if you are dealing with a room in which the floors are already dirty at check in (and you will...) keeping the floors as clean as possible by not wearing sneakers in the room is useless.
I know people like to bash carpet but at least the surface dirt can fall lower into the fibers and move away from the top surface. Carpet is also probably being vacuumed more regularly than the hard surface flooring is being cleaned. In the entire two weeks that I was at Pop I was not aware of any attempts to clean my floor and I could see the same dirty water stains (from a rainy night) over by the door where I changed from sneakers to slippers for my entire trip. I did not bother housekeeping with the dirty floor issue because these floors needed more than the swiffer type of cleaning that they are equipped to perform. If the housekeepers only have an ineffective method to clean the floor, asking them to repeatedly attempt to fix the problem with inadequate equipment is useless.
The other thing that stands out is how hard and uncomfortable the floors are to walk on after a long day of standing around at the parks. I'm thinking that most people have laminate over plywood in their homes but the floors at Pop are rock hard, much like concrete. Again this is something that you find in a hospital room and it does not make for a comfortable stay. I found myself dreading having to deal with those hard floors when I came back to the room after a long day at Disney.
Now we'll get to the beds. The good news is that they are queen size, they have new mattresses and they are softer than the low budget, thinly padded tanks that came with the full size beds. The bad news is that they are on platforms that are too long and they have corners that stick out. There is only about two feet separating the beds, which isn't a problem until you have to leave that aisle and turn to go left or right into the aisle near the dresser. I found myself constantly bumping my leg into the corner on the Murphy bed. Even when I knew it was there and I was consciously trying to avoid it, I would bump anyway. This is yet another aggravating factor about the new room configuration.
The bedside table between the beds is way too small, especially with the room phone on it. The room phone takes up over a third of the space on an already too small table and there is no place to put it unless you unplug it completely. Yeah sure the USB plugs are nice but not if you have to find room to put your cell phone down along with the remote and the other stuff that you need room for next to the bed. I found myself stacking the water bottle on the room phone and my cell phone on a box of tissues. There is a lower cubicle underneath this table but the stuff you have by the bed are items that you need to get to easily. This bedside table is a miss as well and it would have been better to put shelves in this area to provide more functional storage for the items that you need to have next to the bed.
I did not use the safe or dresser.
As far as the bathroom is concerned, the fan in mine was on 24 hours a day. I did not find that a problem but it wasn't whisper quiet so that may be a problem for some. The dual shower heads were nice so I considered that a plus.
Now I will get to a problem that proved insurmountable and that was the Wi-Fi, or lack thereof in the room. Pop Century is my go to resort. I have stayed there many times, most frequently in the building that I was in, within a few doors of the room in which I stayed before the refurbishment. Before this stay I have never had problems with the Wi-Fi at Pop. Both upload and download speeds have always been fine with no problems...
Not during this stay. After this refurbishment The Disney supplied Wi-Fi was UNUSABLE. It was frequently losing signal, if you could get a signal at all. At one point I took my laptop for a walk around my building to see if it was my room location and the same problem was evident around my entire building. It was almost as though Disney wanted you to use YOUR phone's wireless provider and not their network. I say that because my Verizon service was virtually flawless with fast speeds both for uploads and downloads on my phone.
At one point I measured the speed of the Disney Wi-Fi and downloads came in at a whopping 5MB/sec.. I thought that tested faster than it actually was, especially when you consider that it was constantly going off and on and your pages were freezing.
In the booklet supplied with the room there is a 2 digit number to dial when you are having problems with the Wi-Fi. The person on the other end laconically repeated the party line that "They would send someone out to look at it". A few days passed and the problem was not getting better. Then, after a late night/early morning work session, I had to upload files (8-14mbs) for a work project and they were constantly timing out with the chronic interruptions in service. I spent close to an hour trying over and over again to successfully send 8 separate files.
When I called Tech support AGAIN later that morning the person answering repeated the same line. When I explained that I called 3 days earlier, heard the same line and it hadn't gotten better he responded that a lot of people were using the Wi-Fi and that upload speeds were only meant for small email files. I explained to him that I couldn't conceive that a lot of people were online at 4AM when I had finished my work and tried to send the files. He didn't really have an answer for that other then "they would send someone out to look at the problem". I probably should have asked what time they were coming so I could meet with them to discuss the problem, but you and I both know that no one was ever coming and that they knew exactly why there was a problem.
I suspect that Disney is advertising that they provide Wi-Fi but that the network that is in place can not support the number of people that need to use it. It's far more cost effective for Disney if they provide shoddy service and force guests to resort to their phone carriers for their internet needs. This proved to be a problem for me because I did not have the means to connect my laptop to my phone and use the phone's Verizon Wi-Fi signal.
If you have work projects that you will need internet access for, it's best that you don't depend on any Disney networks. I say this because some people do have to work while they are on vacation. Also be aware that Skyping without reliable internet is a disaster as well. Skype charges a fee to connect from your phone but it is free from a laptop. It's not going to impress your clients when the screen freezes or disconnects and you are constantly losing audio.
I did go to the front desk at Pop to report this problem. They defaulted to the number that I was supposed to call and when I told them that I called twice and still had unresolved problems the CM said she would report it to "higher ups". I just hope that the "Higher ups" aren't waiting for Tech Support to come to their assistance because I suspect it's going to be a long, fruitless wait.
Now on to other things concerning the room. The "beverage cooler" in the room was the first one that I used that didn't freeze everything solid. I have a feeling that even though there is a temp adjustment inside the fridge it's simply a non-functioning decoration. I didn't mess with it so your mileage may vary.
It was colder than normal outdoors during my stay so I didn't notice any problems with the AC being deficient.
Bus service was not good, both coming and going. It is true that the time period that I went 12/2-12/15 was more crowded than it has traditionally been, but Disney was unprepared to keep up with the longer bus lines and their strategy in dealing with this was to cram in standees to uncomfortable levels or the bus driver would refuse to leave. This was the first time I have experienced multiple bus drivers regularly threatening guests with refusals to leave unless they could cram more people into an already filled bus. Nice.....
The TV is awesome with fantastic picture resolution. Everyone on screen had wrinkles or needed a shave, including the children.
MDE was a disaster to use on in park Wi-Fi and in all it's awkward glory on YOUR Wi-Fi. Practice at home using this app so you know where everything is located. The people that wrote the App do not make all parts of it easy for casual users to understand. These software people are probably "cousins" to to the same techs that will (not) becoming out to check on your room Wi-Fi signal. ; )
Disney's Magical Express (DME) is a good deal when you are headed to Disney but it's devolving into a problem during your return trip. A while back some genius decided that the return DME was only going to drop people off at one side of the terminal. That means that you have to hoof it over to the other side if that's where your airline is located. It's not far but it is a challenge if you have to wrangle children and the carry on baggage or if you don't know your way around the airport. This is just yet another Disney example of asking you to pay more and providing less. It's no skin off of their noses if half of the guests are inconvenienced by not being dropped off on the correct side of the airport.
Also be advised that if people traveling in your party have different names or hyphenated names, Resort Airline Luggage check in FROM A DISNEY RESORT may not be available and you may have to schlep ALL of your suitcases & carryons around the airport until you get to the correct side that has your airline. I've heard that this was the result of a problem with the software that the Non-Disney vendor was using for the Resort Luggage check in but this part has not been confirmed.
The new torture is that return DME passengers are required to report 4 hours before their flights for transport to the airport. I believe it was TSA that requested this EARLIER pick up time, which makes it all the more charming when you learn that TSA IS NOT LETTING PASSENGERS GO THROUGH SCREENING UNTIL 2 HOURS BEFORE THEIR DEPARTURE TIME.
This results in a mountain of people hanging around the front of the TSA lines waiting for their time to go through.
I'm guessing that the earlier times are because of more complete baggage screening. Also be advised that those new kind of suitcases with the lithium Ion battery powered USB charging ports and/or tracking software and remote locking capability are NOT being accepted AS CHECKED BAGGAGE by more and more airlines unless the batteries can be removed and carried on with the passenger.
So in summary:
The floors are dirty and housekeeping does not have adequate means to clean them effectively. This is a problem that is going to get worse as time goes by. Be prepared and bring slippers or simply do not remove your shoes when you are in the room. Other than that housekeeping was fine. I had the chance to speak with my housekeeper on multiple occasions and she always took care of my requests. I did get the feeling that the housekeepers are in rotation all over the resort as I did not have any housekeepers that were regulars for my room for more that a few days at a time.
The room has an uncomfortable vibe with awkward lighting and brutally hard floors that are unforgivable on sore feet. Get used to that corner of the Murphy bed hitting your shins. The only plus in the refurb in my opinion is the new shower heads.
Forget about using Disney Wi-Fi. It's a problem in the parks and now it's a problem at the resorts. My Verizon signal strength was always strong so be prepared to use your cell phone carrier and have enough data in your plan to support your usage levels where ever you may roam at Disney.
In closing I have decided that I will be looking to stay elsewhere for my next Disney vacation, most likely off property. I'm very tired of paying more and getting less. This latest round of higher prices, a lack of discounts, dirty, uncomfortable floors, absent Wi-Fi and inefficient bus service has finally driven me off site. When you factor in the addition of the Gondola system at Pop you just know the room rates are going to skyrocket and the erosion of basic services will continue.
I intend to write a letter to Guest Services highlighting my concerns. If they don't get the feedback they won't really care about all the misfires, if in fact caring is still on the menu with Disney. The biggest impact towards change will occur when enough people look elsewhere for their resort options. I'll be voting with my wallet and staying someplace else that is far more comfortable and one that has attractive pricing that actually matches the quality of the resort. Good luck with your stay. I hope the information provided here will help you with your decision making when it comes time to chose your location.
~NM
The first thing that stands out is the overall "Hospital" feel of the room. There is fluorescent lighting in the room but the side lamps by the bed do radiate with the yellow that we expect from an incandescent bulb. The lighting overhead of the Murphy bed and the disk light on the wall are straight up white fluorescent with no flickering. When only these lights are in use you have the feeling you are in an office or a hospital room... ugh.
Now we'll get to the floors... I know the majority of the people polled on the floor issue preferred to have laminate flooring but I suspect many of them are going to regret that decision once they experience these refurbished Pop floors. The floors are DIRTY. We are talking sock blackening dirty. I spoke with my other friends who were staying at Pop at the same time and they all noticed the same dirty floor problem. I read up on these new rooms prior to my trip and brought slippers but it was a pain in the bottom to have to put them on every time you had to get out of bed. I tried using a towel as a beside carpet but I had to give up on that as it proved to be a tripping hazard.
It was just myself in the room but if you have kids you are doomed regarding all the dirt that will be tracked in to your Pop room. I was leaving my shoes at the door and transferring to slippers, so that helped cut down on adding any additional dirt. However if you are dealing with a room in which the floors are already dirty at check in (and you will...) keeping the floors as clean as possible by not wearing sneakers in the room is useless.
I know people like to bash carpet but at least the surface dirt can fall lower into the fibers and move away from the top surface. Carpet is also probably being vacuumed more regularly than the hard surface flooring is being cleaned. In the entire two weeks that I was at Pop I was not aware of any attempts to clean my floor and I could see the same dirty water stains (from a rainy night) over by the door where I changed from sneakers to slippers for my entire trip. I did not bother housekeeping with the dirty floor issue because these floors needed more than the swiffer type of cleaning that they are equipped to perform. If the housekeepers only have an ineffective method to clean the floor, asking them to repeatedly attempt to fix the problem with inadequate equipment is useless.
The other thing that stands out is how hard and uncomfortable the floors are to walk on after a long day of standing around at the parks. I'm thinking that most people have laminate over plywood in their homes but the floors at Pop are rock hard, much like concrete. Again this is something that you find in a hospital room and it does not make for a comfortable stay. I found myself dreading having to deal with those hard floors when I came back to the room after a long day at Disney.
Now we'll get to the beds. The good news is that they are queen size, they have new mattresses and they are softer than the low budget, thinly padded tanks that came with the full size beds. The bad news is that they are on platforms that are too long and they have corners that stick out. There is only about two feet separating the beds, which isn't a problem until you have to leave that aisle and turn to go left or right into the aisle near the dresser. I found myself constantly bumping my leg into the corner on the Murphy bed. Even when I knew it was there and I was consciously trying to avoid it, I would bump anyway. This is yet another aggravating factor about the new room configuration.
The bedside table between the beds is way too small, especially with the room phone on it. The room phone takes up over a third of the space on an already too small table and there is no place to put it unless you unplug it completely. Yeah sure the USB plugs are nice but not if you have to find room to put your cell phone down along with the remote and the other stuff that you need room for next to the bed. I found myself stacking the water bottle on the room phone and my cell phone on a box of tissues. There is a lower cubicle underneath this table but the stuff you have by the bed are items that you need to get to easily. This bedside table is a miss as well and it would have been better to put shelves in this area to provide more functional storage for the items that you need to have next to the bed.
I did not use the safe or dresser.
As far as the bathroom is concerned, the fan in mine was on 24 hours a day. I did not find that a problem but it wasn't whisper quiet so that may be a problem for some. The dual shower heads were nice so I considered that a plus.
Now I will get to a problem that proved insurmountable and that was the Wi-Fi, or lack thereof in the room. Pop Century is my go to resort. I have stayed there many times, most frequently in the building that I was in, within a few doors of the room in which I stayed before the refurbishment. Before this stay I have never had problems with the Wi-Fi at Pop. Both upload and download speeds have always been fine with no problems...
Not during this stay. After this refurbishment The Disney supplied Wi-Fi was UNUSABLE. It was frequently losing signal, if you could get a signal at all. At one point I took my laptop for a walk around my building to see if it was my room location and the same problem was evident around my entire building. It was almost as though Disney wanted you to use YOUR phone's wireless provider and not their network. I say that because my Verizon service was virtually flawless with fast speeds both for uploads and downloads on my phone.
At one point I measured the speed of the Disney Wi-Fi and downloads came in at a whopping 5MB/sec.. I thought that tested faster than it actually was, especially when you consider that it was constantly going off and on and your pages were freezing.
In the booklet supplied with the room there is a 2 digit number to dial when you are having problems with the Wi-Fi. The person on the other end laconically repeated the party line that "They would send someone out to look at it". A few days passed and the problem was not getting better. Then, after a late night/early morning work session, I had to upload files (8-14mbs) for a work project and they were constantly timing out with the chronic interruptions in service. I spent close to an hour trying over and over again to successfully send 8 separate files.
When I called Tech support AGAIN later that morning the person answering repeated the same line. When I explained that I called 3 days earlier, heard the same line and it hadn't gotten better he responded that a lot of people were using the Wi-Fi and that upload speeds were only meant for small email files. I explained to him that I couldn't conceive that a lot of people were online at 4AM when I had finished my work and tried to send the files. He didn't really have an answer for that other then "they would send someone out to look at the problem". I probably should have asked what time they were coming so I could meet with them to discuss the problem, but you and I both know that no one was ever coming and that they knew exactly why there was a problem.
I suspect that Disney is advertising that they provide Wi-Fi but that the network that is in place can not support the number of people that need to use it. It's far more cost effective for Disney if they provide shoddy service and force guests to resort to their phone carriers for their internet needs. This proved to be a problem for me because I did not have the means to connect my laptop to my phone and use the phone's Verizon Wi-Fi signal.
If you have work projects that you will need internet access for, it's best that you don't depend on any Disney networks. I say this because some people do have to work while they are on vacation. Also be aware that Skyping without reliable internet is a disaster as well. Skype charges a fee to connect from your phone but it is free from a laptop. It's not going to impress your clients when the screen freezes or disconnects and you are constantly losing audio.
I did go to the front desk at Pop to report this problem. They defaulted to the number that I was supposed to call and when I told them that I called twice and still had unresolved problems the CM said she would report it to "higher ups". I just hope that the "Higher ups" aren't waiting for Tech Support to come to their assistance because I suspect it's going to be a long, fruitless wait.
Now on to other things concerning the room. The "beverage cooler" in the room was the first one that I used that didn't freeze everything solid. I have a feeling that even though there is a temp adjustment inside the fridge it's simply a non-functioning decoration. I didn't mess with it so your mileage may vary.
It was colder than normal outdoors during my stay so I didn't notice any problems with the AC being deficient.
Bus service was not good, both coming and going. It is true that the time period that I went 12/2-12/15 was more crowded than it has traditionally been, but Disney was unprepared to keep up with the longer bus lines and their strategy in dealing with this was to cram in standees to uncomfortable levels or the bus driver would refuse to leave. This was the first time I have experienced multiple bus drivers regularly threatening guests with refusals to leave unless they could cram more people into an already filled bus. Nice.....
The TV is awesome with fantastic picture resolution. Everyone on screen had wrinkles or needed a shave, including the children.
MDE was a disaster to use on in park Wi-Fi and in all it's awkward glory on YOUR Wi-Fi. Practice at home using this app so you know where everything is located. The people that wrote the App do not make all parts of it easy for casual users to understand. These software people are probably "cousins" to to the same techs that will (not) becoming out to check on your room Wi-Fi signal. ; )
Disney's Magical Express (DME) is a good deal when you are headed to Disney but it's devolving into a problem during your return trip. A while back some genius decided that the return DME was only going to drop people off at one side of the terminal. That means that you have to hoof it over to the other side if that's where your airline is located. It's not far but it is a challenge if you have to wrangle children and the carry on baggage or if you don't know your way around the airport. This is just yet another Disney example of asking you to pay more and providing less. It's no skin off of their noses if half of the guests are inconvenienced by not being dropped off on the correct side of the airport.
Also be advised that if people traveling in your party have different names or hyphenated names, Resort Airline Luggage check in FROM A DISNEY RESORT may not be available and you may have to schlep ALL of your suitcases & carryons around the airport until you get to the correct side that has your airline. I've heard that this was the result of a problem with the software that the Non-Disney vendor was using for the Resort Luggage check in but this part has not been confirmed.
The new torture is that return DME passengers are required to report 4 hours before their flights for transport to the airport. I believe it was TSA that requested this EARLIER pick up time, which makes it all the more charming when you learn that TSA IS NOT LETTING PASSENGERS GO THROUGH SCREENING UNTIL 2 HOURS BEFORE THEIR DEPARTURE TIME.
This results in a mountain of people hanging around the front of the TSA lines waiting for their time to go through.
I'm guessing that the earlier times are because of more complete baggage screening. Also be advised that those new kind of suitcases with the lithium Ion battery powered USB charging ports and/or tracking software and remote locking capability are NOT being accepted AS CHECKED BAGGAGE by more and more airlines unless the batteries can be removed and carried on with the passenger.
So in summary:
The floors are dirty and housekeeping does not have adequate means to clean them effectively. This is a problem that is going to get worse as time goes by. Be prepared and bring slippers or simply do not remove your shoes when you are in the room. Other than that housekeeping was fine. I had the chance to speak with my housekeeper on multiple occasions and she always took care of my requests. I did get the feeling that the housekeepers are in rotation all over the resort as I did not have any housekeepers that were regulars for my room for more that a few days at a time.
The room has an uncomfortable vibe with awkward lighting and brutally hard floors that are unforgivable on sore feet. Get used to that corner of the Murphy bed hitting your shins. The only plus in the refurb in my opinion is the new shower heads.
Forget about using Disney Wi-Fi. It's a problem in the parks and now it's a problem at the resorts. My Verizon signal strength was always strong so be prepared to use your cell phone carrier and have enough data in your plan to support your usage levels where ever you may roam at Disney.
In closing I have decided that I will be looking to stay elsewhere for my next Disney vacation, most likely off property. I'm very tired of paying more and getting less. This latest round of higher prices, a lack of discounts, dirty, uncomfortable floors, absent Wi-Fi and inefficient bus service has finally driven me off site. When you factor in the addition of the Gondola system at Pop you just know the room rates are going to skyrocket and the erosion of basic services will continue.
I intend to write a letter to Guest Services highlighting my concerns. If they don't get the feedback they won't really care about all the misfires, if in fact caring is still on the menu with Disney. The biggest impact towards change will occur when enough people look elsewhere for their resort options. I'll be voting with my wallet and staying someplace else that is far more comfortable and one that has attractive pricing that actually matches the quality of the resort. Good luck with your stay. I hope the information provided here will help you with your decision making when it comes time to chose your location.
~NM
