Wow! I was reminded
the other day by a co-worker (Hi James) that he was told that I had a blog
about Disney World. I can’t believe that
I haven’t entered anything into the blog for over 3 years! Sometimes life just gets in the way. Although I haven’t written anything, I have
of course continued to go to Disney World during this time. In fact, I just looked at my room keys and
have been to DW 6 times since my last blog entry! The latest was just one month ago.
For most of those visits, we stayed at Pop Century
Resort. This was the newest value resort
up until a few months ago when they opened the new Art of Animation Resort
across the lake from Pop Century. Art of
Animation Resort looks interesting but is mostly family suites which run over
$200 per night. A good option if you
have a large group and can split the cost.
Pop Century is a fun resort that the kids love and the adults can get nostalgic
about. The buildings are divided up into
the 50’s, 60’s, 70’s, 80’s and 90’s.
They are themed accordingly.
Large statues of Lady and the Tramp can be found outside the 50’s
buildings. Stairwells masked by giant
Rubik’s Cube’s adorn the 80’s buildings.
Giant 8 track tapes are plastered to the side of the 70’s
buildings. You get the idea. There are three swimming pools. The main one is between the 60’s buildings
and has a ‘flower power’ theme. The 50’s
building has a bowling pin shaped pool and the 80’s building has a computer
themed pool complete with a stack of floppy disks in front of the pool. We’ve stayed in the 50’s, 70’s, and 80’s
buildings and I’ve never felt that we were excessively far away from the main
building and bus stops.
My grandson’s favorite feature is the tie-dyed cupcakes in
the food court. Had to have one every
night around 9 p.m. They show Disney movies
near the 60’s pool every evening if you’re so inclined. The rooms are the usual set-up but now
provide free refrigerators and wi-fi (however no coffeemakers). As a matter of fact, there is wi-fi available
all over the parks now as well. This is
new even since our visit in August of 2012.
They also now use RFID chips in the room cards. So, instead of sliding the card in and out of
a slot to unlock the door, you just hold the card up to the face of the lock
and it opens. More Disney Magic! There is one area for buses in front of the
multi-functional main building which houses the registration, food court, and
gift shop. The best thing about this bus
area is there are clearly marked areas for each park bus and they have roped
off queues for waiting. Unlike other
resort bus stops where there are no queues and everyone just bunches up and
pushes their way onto the bus. This also
helps you get in practice for queuing up for those rides at the park.
There have been lots of changes over the last three
years. Next time: the new Star Tours
ride!
