Disney’s Pop Century Resort is one of the most popular value resorts at Walt Disney World. This pop culture themed hotel is a really popular alternative to the All-Star Resorts and almost a cult favorite for some people. Here’s everything you need to know when considering a stay at Pop Century!
Pop Century Resort Basics
Disney’s Pop Century Resort is a value resort located near Epcot and Disney’s Hollywood Studios. Rack rates for standard rooms at Pop Century in 2024 range from $183 to $392 per night. If you can snag a lower hotel rate, or a discount, Pop Century’s slight premium over off-property resorts will be more than made up for by the Disney spirit and convenience, in our opinion.
Staying at Pop Century, you get the perks of any Disney stay. You’ll have access to free transportation (by bus and Skyliner, as discussed below) to and from the parks and Disney Springs. We’ll talk more about transportation below, but the Skyliner does make this hotel a good option if your trip will be heavily focused on Epcot and Hollywood Studios.
You’ll also have access to Early Theme Park Entry and the ability to book your individual Lightning Lanes at 7AM (as opposed to when the parks open).
If you’re considering Pop Century, you may want to read some of our other posts, including reviews of the other value resorts. We have a ranking of the Disney World value resorts. We also have a guide to all the hotels of Walt Disney World. Here are our reviews of all the value resorts (links open in new tabs):
Review of Disney’s Pop Century Resort (you are here)
Review of Disney’s All-Star Movies Resort (refurbished room)
And if you’d like to see where this resort falls overall, check out our complete Disney World hotel rankings.
Booking Pop Century
Our most recent stay at Pop Century was booked as part of a 25% offer for Disney+ subscribers. We paid $226 per night for three nights.
If you’re interested in booking Pop Century, we suggest contacting our go-to travel agent, Lauren Quirk of Travel With Character LLC, who also booked this trip for us, about the nights you’re interested in.
Most of the time these days we use Disney’s online check-in service. We used it this time, but still wound up going to the front desk to request a room when one wasn’t ready by about 1:15PM. Check-in is technically 3PM, but a lot of times you’ll be able to get a room earlier by visiting the front desk.
Pop Century vs. Art of Animation
Disney’s Pop Century Resort is across Hourglass Lake from Art of Animation, a similar resort at a similar price point. The biggest differences between these resorts are:
Theming: Art of Animation celebrates Disney Animation, Pop Century celebrates pop culture in the 1950s through 1990s
Rooms: Pop Century has four room categories (standard/preferred and pool view/regular view); Art of Animation has one category of standard rooms (Little Mermaid Rooms) and three categories of suites (Lion King, Cars, Finding Nemo)
Food Court: Art of Animation has the better food court
We have a review of Art of Animation. We also have a full post comparing Pop Century and Art of Animation.
Pop Century Grounds & Theming
The theme of Pop Century is pop culture from the 1950s through 1990s. Each section of buildings is themed (on the exterior only) to a decade.
Pop Century comprises 11 buildings and three pools. The main building is Classic Hall. That’s where you’ll find the Everything Pop! store and food court, lobby, concierge, but stops, and arcade. Directly behind (west) Classic Hall is the main pool—the Hippy Dippy Pool—in between the two ‘60s-themed buildings (buildings 4 and 5).
North of the ‘60s buildings are buildings 1, 2, and 3, themed to the ‘50s and with the Bowling Pool between them. South of the ‘60s are buildings 6 and 10 themed to the ‘70s. And south of those buildings are 7 and 9—’80s themed—and 8—90’s themed. Those three sit around the Computer Pool. All three pools have laundry rooms near them.
West of the entire resort—so straight out back and past the ‘60s buildings—is Hourglass Lake, which you can cross to get to Art of Animation.
Pop Century Pools and Activities
Here are some pictures of the pools. First, the Hippy Dippy Pool between the ‘60s buildings.
And the Bowling Pool by the ‘50s buildings.
And finally the Computer Pool in the ‘80s and ‘90s area.
Pop has a standard value resort lineup of activities. The list doesn’t run deep, but it would fill an afternoon. (This is an old schedule, but the newer ones are pretty similar.)
We don’t often highlight fitness opportunities around the resorts, but Hourglass lake between Pop Century and Art of Animation is a great route to run or walk. It’s a 1.2 mile loop with some great views. Along the way, you’ll see signs with fun facts about the different decades.
Shopping at Pop Century
Pop Century’s gift shop is “Everything Pop” (it shares a huge space with the cafeteria). Resort-specific merchandise is pretty thin at the value resorts. If something catches your eye, we highly recommend grabbing it because it might not be around long.
Pop Century Resort Review - Food and Drink
Pop Century’s restaurant is the Everything Pop! cafeteria. If you’ve ever stayed at a value resort or read any of our reviews, you know the food courts offer a standard lineup—pizzas, burgers, salads, pastas, sandwiches (and of course standard breakfast options of eggs, bacon, sausage, pancakes, waffles). You can also Mobile Order from the food court, and we had a positive experience using that feature.
We love the food court, and getting a full pizza can be a particularly great bargain. If you’re not feeling the Everything Pop! cafeteria, consider making the 10 minute walk to Art of Animation’s Landscape of Flavors. We’ve done this, and generally find the different options to be a good way to mix things up. (You can check the menus on the app in advance to see what options there are.)
As we’ve written nonstop, we love that the value resorts have reasonably-priced food courts that are open late. The deluxe resorts often have only minimal, way overpriced quick service options.
Pop Century has a pool bar—Petals. It’s not unlike the other pool bars, with an okay selection of beer and liquor, along with some mixed frozen drinks, like the Pina Colava. Like all the value hotel bars, you’ll mostly see a small cross section of your own guests passing through, with the occasional guest on the Skyliner bar crawl popping in.
Transportation at Pop Century Resort
Since Disney has ended their Magical Express shuttle service from Orlando International Airport you’ll have to find your own way from the airport if you’re flying in. To get to any of the four theme parks, Disney Springs, Typhoon Lagoon, or Blizzard Beach, you’ll rely on a combination of Disney bus transportation and the Disney Skyliner (to Epcot and Hollywood Studios, more below).
To Magic Kingdom, Animal Kingdom, and the two water parks, you’ll be relying strictly on buses. You can check approximate bus wait times for your hotel in the My Disney Experience app (“Resort Hotel” menu item) and they are also posted at all the resort bus stops in Disney World.
Travel times to the parks are, approximately:
Pop Century to/from Magic Kingdom — 15-20 minutes
Pop Century to/from Animal Kingdom — 10 minutes
Epcot (10-15 minutes) and Hollywood Studios (under 10 minutes) aren’t too far either, but between bus load times and wait times it’s usually going to make sense to take the Skyliner to those parks (read on for more about that).
When the Skyliner is running, bus frequency to those parks is reduced to once per hour or eliminated entirely. Generally this isn’t a huge deal, but if you wanted to rope drop Test Track at Epcot, you’ll probably want to drive or take an Uber/Lyft to the front of the park. (NB: Eventually, Guardians of the Galaxy Cosmic Rewind will move to standby. This will probably bring some changes to rope drop at Epcot.)
While relying on bus transportation isn’t ideal, it’s always going to be a part of a Walt Disney World Resort vacation, no matter where you stay.
We generally recommend using Uber to get around Disney World for things like dinner reservations at other resorts or early rope drops. Alternatively, you can spring for a Minnie Van.
If you have a car at Walt Disney World, your travel times will usually be similar to the bus times, plus a few minutes from the parking spot to the front gate. Going to Magic Kingdom you’ll almost always prefer bus to driving, as you need to account for 20 minutes from parking space to the Magic Kingdom gate if you drive.
Skyliner
The Disney World Skyliner gondola system connects Hollywood Studios, Epcot, Pop Century Resort, Art of Animation Resort, Caribbean Beach Resort, and Riviera Resort. The Skyliner station for Pop / Art of Animation sits between the two resorts on Hourglass Lake.
Approximate travel time to Epcot is 20 minutes, and to Hollywood Studios is 12 minutes (I’ve made these trips in 17 and 9 minutes, respectively). Both require transfers at Caribbean Beach.
We’re fans of the Skyliner generally, but it can make sense to take the bus (if available) or Uber/drive in a few situations.
First, if you’re heading to rope drop at Hollywood Studios, the Skyliner isn’t the best option. If you can drive and be at the front gate 62-ish minutes before the start of Early Entry, you’ll be in the best position. That said, we’ve been using the Skyliner for rope drop on recent stays with no significant issues. You might wind up with a mild wait for your first ride, but that isn’t a huge problem overall.
If you’re heading to Test Track for rope drop at Epcot, you’re going to want to drive/Uber to the main entrance. If you’re heading to Frozen Ever After or Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure, you’ll prefer to take the Skyliner. (Again, Guardians of the Galaxy Cosmic Rewind will eventually move to standby. This will probably bring some changes to rope drop at Epcot.)
Pop Century Resort Rooms
Pop Century’s rooms were fully refurbished in 2017 and are identical to the new rooms being rolled out at the All Star resorts.
The room is highly functional, with plenty of space, including under-the-bed space for luggage. Every room at Pop Century has the same size queen beds.
The television and counterspace are all updated, and there are outlets and USB ports directly below the TV.
The rooms use Murphy beds for the second queen bed (rooms with only a King bed are also available). Generally I really like this, but I do worry about how the mechanism will age.
The room does get noticeably smaller with the Murphy bed out, particularly because you’re left to find space for the chairs. It also seemed a bit dusty, indicating maybe they aren’t being really wiped down after every use.
The bathrooms use sliding doors both at the entrance and on the shower. Click the arrows for more photos:
In the past, we complained about the smell of the Pop rooms. In their early days, it seemed like they smelled “obnoxiously clean.” That wasn’t an issue on our most recent stay, which is hopefully a sign the rooms are past that growing pain.
One problem we do have consistently with the rooms is noise. Preferred rooms are close to the pool and to the front of the resort, which means they’ll get a lot of foot traffic which can be loud if the people are loud. You’ll also hear doors near you slamming shut once the sun rises.
Also, the rooms themselves aren’t very soundproof. There’s virtually no “sound privacy” for people in the bathroom. We live in a studio apartment so we’re used to this, but if you’re used to a bathroom down the hall, you might want to turn up the TV.
There is a mini-fridge in the room, but I’ve also noticed a recurring issue with the mini-fridge being relatively loud. It never kept me awake, but I do feel like when it comes to noises, if I noticed it, I report it to my readers.
That said, noise is a problem at pretty much every Disney resort. I was kept up for hours last time we stayed at Yacht Club because someone was fighting with their partner over the phone at 1AM.
Finally, it’s worth noting that we last stayed at Pop Century with our baby during our last visit and had no issues with noise. Granted, Zoe sleeps in a bedroom at home that gets noise from a nearby fire station, hospital, and drag racing strip, but it’s still comforting that—with a white noise machine—Zoe was able to sleep well at Pop Century.
Are there suites at Pop Century?
There are no suites at Pop Century. Pop Century’s sister resort across the lake, Art of Animation, has suites, as does All-Star Music. We reviewed the Lion King Suite at Art of Animation here.
Pop Century Resort Review - Conclusions
Hopefully we’ve given you enough information in this post for you to draw your own conclusions about Pop Century. But just in case you haven’t…
Is Pop Century a good resort?
We think that Pop Century is a good resort for anyone on a budget or for anyone who doesn’t plan to spend a lot of time leisuring around the resort. It’s our personal go-to for most of our visits.
In the past, we typically visited Disney World as adults without kids, so the space didn’t bother us (and the murphy bed is never down). (Indeed, Pop Century is our value recommendation for adults at Disney World.)
Now we visit with a baby, and while we didn’t mind the limited space once the room had a Pack ‘n’ Play, it was tight. Notably, we felt like Zoe had a lot more room to crawl around when we were at Grand Floridian. But with limited time in the room each day, we’d still consider Pop Century in the future.
If your group is larger or more heavily tilted toward kids, then Art of Animation might be more appealing, despite its “worse” standard rooms. Obviously the suites at Art of Animation and All-Star Music can’t be matched at Pop Century. Though if your party is large enough to be looking at those, you might be better served by an Airbnb near Disney World.
There’s always a few things that draw us in at Pop Century. The energy, the Skyliner, the price, and the great rooms make up for the shortcomings of the resort in our opinion.
The value resorts aren’t perfect. And maybe they aren’t even perfectly priced. But they’re reasonably priced, and they offer an unmistakable Disney energy. With its recently refurbished rooms, Pop is our go-to value resort.
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