I've stayed at Pop since the refurbishment. The quality of the furnishings are less than Ikea. They were not aweful but they were brand new, a month old in our section at best. The rooms are not getting cleaned well likely 'cause you get a discount if you choose to say no to housekeeping and the end of visit deep clean wasn't obviously happening like Disney of yesteryear. I'll look tomorrow and see if Birnbaum still gives the square footage hey once did but Pop was wall to wall with their funky shelving/night stands and even in the bathrooms which was cheap and lacked any character. On one of our dressers they skimpy partical board layover Formica was already missing from the dresser exposing the pressboard-only a month old. My adult kids have multiple pieces of Ikea furniture, Pop is no where near the quality of Ikea.
Flamingo Marriott quality of rooms is leaps and bounds above the values along with the amenities, mattresses, furnishings, pool and bar/restaurant quality. Flamingo only transports to TTC and a round trip of $5. We found Uber cheaper and a better option for $6-10 and more timely than Disney Buses at any time of the day. No resort charges for hotel or cars
I was in Disney for multiple reasons for a month in April May last year. I returned to Pop after an extended stay at Flamingo before returning home a few days later. It took room #3 before I landed in one that was clean or lacking bugs. (Fairness bugs were mosquito infested type in room 2) but the floor in room 1 was immediately apparent. The manager was sweet and escorted me from room 2 to 3 and genuinely felt bad that it was 2 am before they found a clean bug free room for me. So I hold the standards of Flamingo in high regards.
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Floor dirt
I get why people still stay Disney, at least for the moment. Years back when going to Disneyland for the first time, I wanted to do it "right".
I didn't want to pay Grand Californain prices but I
did spring for the Disneyland Hotel. Part of that decision was not knowing the lay of the land very well, part of it was trusting Disney quality (after all, the WDW land grab was in part a result of Walt not liking the kind of cheap places opening up around DL, right?) and part was because of the Monorail.
Imagine my surprise when getting out there to realize their Monorail system is entirely different the way it works and that it was down for refurbishment the whole week we were there... And that hotels just as nice (and a lot cheaper) were in closer walking distance to the two parks on the other side of their downtown area than that one was.
Still, I'd paid at least double what I needed to because I didn't want to risk screwing up a major part of what was possibly a once-in-a-lifetime trip.
I imagine it works the exact same way for a lot of people booking over here.
Thing is, that was about 15 years ago.
The WDW of today wants people to research and start planning their vacation as far out as possible so they know how many people they need to staff at registers for Starlight Cafe on any given day (and then apparently staff about 10-20% below whatever that number is, it seems).
This mindset could really hurt them if they continue to try to keep working both ends of things with prices going up and quality going down.
I get that most people don't really understand how insanely high most of their profit margins actually are. It's always funny in a discussion when someone tries to justify their pricing based on actual costs. The two are seldom related in modern economics but especially so when talking about WDW.
Still Disney as a brand is powerful. People pay for that brand as they do in many other aspects of life for brands. There is strength in the consumer space with a powerful, well trusted brand and they are a business.
Their goal is to make money.
In this day and age where McDs is replacing employees with ordering kiosks and what fewer employees they have often times act like it's an inconvenience to bother interacting with you as a customer when there is a need, I get that the decrease in overall quality and customer-service is not exclusive to Disney.
I get that they aren't the only people outsourcing everything they can to save a few mid-wage salaries.
I also get that I'm slipping into "back in my day" thinking.
That said, this same mindset where they expect to train their customers to plan and research and be prepared so far in advance could really come back to bite them.
Forums like this exist and more and more casual people are finding them. Seeing discussions like this with pictures like yours; seeing people talk about how even with the 60 day advance access, fastpass tickets are hard to get for what (for the moment) are the very limited number of popular attractions built within the last decade; looking at the talk about pricing and how easy and cheap third party transportation is while seeing discussions about what a hassle the transportation Disney offers can be...
A lot of Disney's lock-in value of getting you on property, keeping you on property inside the bubble and controlling that entire experience are naturally slipping away thanks to modern technology and convenience.
Pushing people to think so hard and plan so much about the minutia of their vacation so far in advance seems like it's just egging the process on.
If they were providing a superior premium experience across the board, this wouldn't be an issue but clearly, they aren't.
If you want Mickey and Star Wars, you're still going to their parks and some of those experience will, I'm sure, remain amazing but what exactly are the perks of staying on-site in their branded resorts these days? A little bit of early morning access? A fastpass window that
might help you if you have black-friday instincts and are fast on the draw? Mass transit that is less efficient than paying for Uber? How much is that all worth?
Is
maybe being able to get a fastpass for Flight of Passage, worth adding $1,000 or more to the price of your trip?
Don't get me wrong. The design of most Disney resorts is amazing and for their real-world levels of quality, the theming of them truly does offer a unique experience. The Yacht and Beach Club are unique. Port Orleans is Unique. The Grand Floridian and Polynesian and Wilderness Lodge are unique.
Most hotels in the same level of quality in the area typically offer a pretty generic upscale contemporary feel which is nice but lacking in character and personality.
I get why
that may be worth a premium for people looking for an imersive vacation.
But what I've seen of Disney's newest builds seems to be moving away from that character and uniqueness, instead, following the industry trend.
I don't feel like the me today would make the same Disneyland mistake that the me of 15 years ago did, mostly because the world has changed and I'd be more informed going in.
At a time when social media is what it is, and with competitors like Universal stepping up their resort game by offering truly valuable perks for their guests along with unique theming, it seems odd that Disney is going the direction of more vanilla, letting quality standards appear to slip, and still testing the upper limits of pricing while adding tacked on fees and such.
I'm sure the Star Wars hotel will be amazing, expensive, and hard to get into but tell me again what makes the upcoming Riviera special?
Oh, right - gondolas.
I don't know. Maybe that'll be enough?
... Wow - this one was long, even by my own long-winded standards. Sorry guys.
