Disney's Pop Century Resort
09/13/2004: In the Disney town of Lake Buena Vista, FL, right near Disney's Wide World of Sports, sits the Pop Century Resort. This is no ordinary hotel. This is a full out resort with SEVERAL buildings, and many more being built. Each hotel is themed for a particular decade, from 1950-2000s. The 1900-1940s buildings are under construction, and the resort will double in size when they open.
Pop Century is one of Disney's value resorts, which means that you'll be shelling out at least $77/night during value season. That's high for a hotel, but low for Disney. As with any Disney hotel, you'll get the standard promise of a friendly staff, and a clean room. You've also got the luxury of getting a wake up call every morning from none other than Mickey Mouse himself.
Disney hotels also offer a feature called the Extra Magic Hour. All guests staying on Disney property are allowed into one of the four major theme parks early on designated days. While this might be a great thing in the regular season, we went during a slow time, so the wait times for rides weren't actually much different. It's nice to have the option though.
The property is laid out with lots of goofy props and things reminiscent of the time period of the building you're staying in. We stayed in a 70s building, so there were lots of disco references, 8-tracks, and other 70s related memorabilia around the area. It's cool to look at for a few minutes, but nothing I'd pay extra for.
The room itself was quite standard. It was sort of small, and had all of the amenities you'd expect from a cheap hotel. (Except there were Mickey shaped soaps.)
One of the big things that never occurred to me while booking the room, was just how big this resort was going to be. It had several buildings, and several separate parking lots in the surrounding area. There's also an inconveniently placed lake between the parking lot and the hotels. This makes the walk to the room quite far after a long day at Disney World.
Overall, it was a nice room, but I'm not so sure I'd be jumping on the chance to stay there again. I've had the same level of quality from rooms that were 1/3 the price. It's great if you want to be surrounded by Mickey 24 hours a day, but other than that, it's a little overpriced.
In a Nutshell:
+ Nice room
+ Extra Magic Hour
+ Wake Up Call from Mickey Mouse
- No nearby food (without paying food court prices)
- Super long walk from parking lot to room
Score: B
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