We had our 2nd stay at Pop this last week. Two years ago we stayed in the older style rooms and had a pretty amazing vacation. This stay was in the newly refurbished rooms and was...rougher...but still pretty good. Just some notes. Overall a very nice stay. Some of this is just nit-picky stuff.
Rough Start
It got off to a weird start. The person moving our luggage dropped our box fan from about 4 feet and didn't seem to care very much if it was broken or not. They took us to the wrong building (what?? lol) and of course it was raining, so we had to play "Dodge The Florida 10 Minute Downpours" while moving from one building to another.
In her defense, I told her the 70's building, not realizing that is like 3 different buildings. She took us to building 7...We were supposed to be in 10. Our magic bands were never mailed - 'computer glitch' - always my favorite excuse 
. We picked them up at the desk. There were 2 sets for some reason? I don't even know. We took the colored set we usually get. They recycled the 3 grey ones we weren't using. Offered us the gift card in place of Mousekeeping. I said No thanks, but hindsight is 20/20 as they say.
The Rooms
1. We had a Samsung TV in our room. A previous thread I started, someone mentioned they were LG TVs I think? Possibly they're using different models in different rooms. We were in the 70's building number 10. The Samsung TV worked perfectly with my Galaxy S8 and I was able to stream direct to the TV when needed. This was great for streaming Netflix, PSVue, reviewing photos, etc.
2. The bathroom door was very squeaky. Not a huge deal, until someone has to use the bathroom in the middle of the night The door itself seemed in good shape, so I don't know if we just had a bum door or if this is a general problem with the new doors that they're aware of already.
3. One thing we noticed this time, that was not an issue during our previous visit, is that we heard every door in surrounding rooms closing and it wasn't subtle. Unsure if this is a result of the refurb, hardwood floors and a 'hollower' room, but it was quite annoying, especially at 11-12PM when you're trying to get to sleep. Every 30 seconds...faafooomp......fafooomp. And these weren't rooms right next to us either. It sounded like people throwing luggage around, but the sound was too consistent for that and we heard it all week. I could'n't even tell where it was coming from. It was definitely too late to be hearing fireworks. We even had box fan going for white noise and it was still very clear. I'm gonna mention it in the questionnaire. Hopefully they look into it.
Outside the Rooms
1. Pretty awful (barf,dead animal) smell in the courtyard area approaching the 70's buildings. The smell was there all week. Just nasty. Didn't smell like fertilizer at all. The 2nd floor landing was not cleaned at all during our stay. It was kind of nasty...bird poop, stains, people put trash out and it would leak. They'd take the trash, but never cleaned up where it leaked.
2. Landscaping was well kept as expected. We usually choose a preferred room facing inwards towards the trees/bushes, etc. I love the lighting at night along the pathways. They were repainting the giant Tricycle during our stay. That was kinda cool to watch.
3. I wasn't expecting the bridge to Art of Animation to be part of the gondola construction. It's still passable, but it was a peaceful place to visit during our previous stay. Not so much right now and probably not again once the gondolas are running. The lake looks like a construction area right now. A lot of construction people walking around as well, but they kept mostly to the outside parking lot walking paths. Most of the current refurbishment construction seems to be located in the north buildings with some barriers keeping people away.
Food
Cafeteria food was awesome as usual. Also, crowded as usual Not too much to complain about. I feel like they put out a decent product considering the thousands of people eating there. The menu changed slightly since our last stay. Our son missed the Sesame Seed Chicken they used to have. Someone was walking around refreshing coffee, creamer, etc. I don't recall that during our last stay, so that was nice. We received some "just kill me now" stares from the employees though, lol. Can't blame them. Being employed in food service stinks...even in Disney I would imagine.
Mousekeeping
Was very hit and miss. They kept arriving late in the afternoon, which didn't work with our schedule at all. We have a son with P.O.T.S. (you'll have to look it up) and he requires frequent breaks, which we were taking in the afternoon. They were very nice and cordial when we did cross paths. They did a great job on the rooms when we were able to give them space to work a few times, but overall we probably could have done w/o them.
One of the annoyances of the Gift card program, is that people are putting trash and used towels outside their doors now. Maybe this isn't new, but I don't recall seeing this during any of our previous visits. Our neighbors had 2 cases of empty beers laying outside their door when we left the one morning.
That's about it. If anything else pops into my head, I'll update.
Rough Start
It got off to a weird start. The person moving our luggage dropped our box fan from about 4 feet and didn't seem to care very much if it was broken or not. They took us to the wrong building (what?? lol) and of course it was raining, so we had to play "Dodge The Florida 10 Minute Downpours" while moving from one building to another.
In her defense, I told her the 70's building, not realizing that is like 3 different buildings. She took us to building 7...We were supposed to be in 10. Our magic bands were never mailed - 'computer glitch' - always my favorite excuse . We picked them up at the desk. There were 2 sets for some reason? I don't even know. We took the colored set we usually get. They recycled the 3 grey ones we weren't using. Offered us the gift card in place of Mousekeeping. I said No thanks, but hindsight is 20/20 as they say.The Rooms
1. We had a Samsung TV in our room. A previous thread I started, someone mentioned they were LG TVs I think? Possibly they're using different models in different rooms. We were in the 70's building number 10. The Samsung TV worked perfectly with my Galaxy S8 and I was able to stream direct to the TV when needed. This was great for streaming Netflix, PSVue, reviewing photos, etc.
2. The bathroom door was very squeaky. Not a huge deal, until someone has to use the bathroom in the middle of the night
The door itself seemed in good shape, so I don't know if we just had a bum door or if this is a general problem with the new doors that they're aware of already.3. One thing we noticed this time, that was not an issue during our previous visit, is that we heard every door in surrounding rooms closing and it wasn't subtle. Unsure if this is a result of the refurb, hardwood floors and a 'hollower' room, but it was quite annoying, especially at 11-12PM when you're trying to get to sleep. Every 30 seconds...faafooomp......fafooomp. And these weren't rooms right next to us either. It sounded like people throwing luggage around, but the sound was too consistent for that and we heard it all week. I could'n't even tell where it was coming from. It was definitely too late to be hearing fireworks. We even had box fan going for white noise and it was still very clear. I'm gonna mention it in the questionnaire. Hopefully they look into it.
Outside the Rooms
1. Pretty awful (barf,dead animal) smell in the courtyard area approaching the 70's buildings. The smell was there all week. Just nasty. Didn't smell like fertilizer at all. The 2nd floor landing was not cleaned at all during our stay. It was kind of nasty...bird poop, stains, people put trash out and it would leak. They'd take the trash, but never cleaned up where it leaked.
2. Landscaping was well kept as expected. We usually choose a preferred room facing inwards towards the trees/bushes, etc. I love the lighting at night along the pathways. They were repainting the giant Tricycle during our stay. That was kinda cool to watch.
3. I wasn't expecting the bridge to Art of Animation to be part of the gondola construction. It's still passable, but it was a peaceful place to visit during our previous stay. Not so much right now and probably not again once the gondolas are running. The lake looks like a construction area right now. A lot of construction people walking around as well, but they kept mostly to the outside parking lot walking paths. Most of the current refurbishment construction seems to be located in the north buildings with some barriers keeping people away.
Food
Cafeteria food was awesome as usual. Also, crowded as usual
Not too much to complain about. I feel like they put out a decent product considering the thousands of people eating there. The menu changed slightly since our last stay. Our son missed the Sesame Seed Chicken they used to have. Someone was walking around refreshing coffee, creamer, etc. I don't recall that during our last stay, so that was nice. We received some "just kill me now" stares from the employees though, lol. Can't blame them. Being employed in food service stinks...even in Disney I would imagine.Mousekeeping
Was very hit and miss. They kept arriving late in the afternoon, which didn't work with our schedule at all. We have a son with P.O.T.S. (you'll have to look it up) and he requires frequent breaks, which we were taking in the afternoon. They were very nice and cordial when we did cross paths. They did a great job on the rooms when we were able to give them space to work a few times, but overall we probably could have done w/o them.
One of the annoyances of the Gift card program, is that people are putting trash and used towels outside their doors now. Maybe this isn't new, but I don't recall seeing this during any of our previous visits. Our neighbors had 2 cases of empty beers laying outside their door when we left the one morning.
That's about it. If anything else pops into my head, I'll update.
