Stayed at Pop Century for a split stay & absolutely LOVED having the Skyliner as an option instead of buses to both EPCOT & Disney Studios. Was able to secure room 4160 which is a standard room, but at the end of the building facing the water & Skyliner & a very quick walk to the Skyliner.
Pros:
SKYLINER
Mousekeeper was very nice & did an excellent job cleaning the room
Cons:
Buses to/from Magic Kingdom, Animal Kingdom & Disney Springs. These fill up fast, especially with so many scooters, so at the end of the park day, plan on waiting awhile (like 2-3 buses). The stop for Disney Springs is so far away from the entrance & to wait 30+ minutes for a bus, ended up using Lyft to get back to the resort.
Main pool is loud with music & constant kid games, so it’s not the best place to relax. Went a few times, but was not there long.
Luggage/deliveries storage & retrieval. Long lines & only 1 person out of 6 spoke & understood English.
I agree with the skyliner being a great pro. Our room was also not too bad of a walk from that. We were in the back of the 60s with a water view so it was nice to be able to get to both the main building and skyliner quickly.
Our room literally never got cleaned once which surprised me. I selected every 4th day but they didn’t come on the 4th day. Not even to take out the trash. We’d have to leave it outside in the breezeway for them to get it.
We didn’t experience bus delays. I do agree we were the last bus stop at Disney Springs (like quite literally) and I believe at DHS as well. But MK wasn’t that bad of a walk. And we never ever waited for more than the next bus including at Disney Springs.
The pool was very quiet when we there every time I walked by, but it was a bit chilly most days. So, I didn’t want to visit either.
We didn’t store luggage so I can’t comment on that. Our room was ready by the time we got there, and we left in the morning so never had a reason on this particular trip.
One other comment I have is our room smelled of mildew and the toilet handle would break. I found out super quick the source of the mold was related to the toilet water tank as when I opened it to fix the handle the smell was overpowering. That would be the only thing that kept me from a stay here again, but the thing is I’ve stayed 5-star hotels with mildew so I don’t think it’s related to the “value” aspect of this hotel but more to Disney dropping the ball on maintenance in general which could happen in any of the resorts.
As far as the bus situation, when leaving MK we often took for Riveria bus then hopped on the Skyliner back to Pop. Stop is closer and bus was never full.
we may use this tip, thanks! curious how long the walk was between the bus stop and Skyliner at Riviera? do you have to go through the resort? hard to tell from the resort map, thanks!
It wasn’t far. We always went through the resort and down the steps to the outside to Skyliner. Really quick and easy. This route takes you past the Peter Pan and Rapunzel mosaics.
Pretty sure you could have walked around the building outside to get there too.
The rule is that Skyliner closes one hour after the park it’s connected to. So normally Skyliner stops operating around 10:00 or 10:30pm unless there are extra hours. For parties, the Skyliner does NOT generally stay open.
When we stayed at Pop, it was August. About half of the days we were there, the Skyliner had a delayed opening, so if you wanted to hit HS or Epcot for rope drop on those days, you still had to take buses. I believe the cause was due to the need to “dry off” the gondolas or something. We would wake up, see the voicemail light flashing on the in-room phone, and then find out the Skyliner wouldn’t be open for a couple hours.
We also found the Skyliner would close seemingly randomly during the day due to wind or more likely lightning in the vicinity.
When the Skyliner was running, it was great! But you can’t count on the fact it will be running always. You may still need to use buses, as we did.
Thanks so much for this Pop summary review - appreciate it as we will be there in just 3.5 weeks. Curious if you used the TP Room Request Feature or the MDE Room Request feature (or both?) - and if so - did you get the Building/floor/room you requested through either of those avenues? Thanks again!
I’ve used the TP request and do not make requests in MDE. On my TP room request I add to the text box that I don’t want a specific room but would love to have any room in building 4 or 5 of the 1906’s section of building 6 of the 70’s section. When I’ve made that request I’ve gotten a room in one of those buildings every time–about 10 times. I’ve even been placed in the SAME room in build 5 twice.
I did use the TP Room Request Feature, but when I checked in they had me in building # 7 in the 80’s building on the backside so the room was the furthest from the main building & Skyliner. I pulled up the TPRR site & gave a few different room numbers to see if any of those were available & they were able to put me in room 4160.
If utilizing this great “go back to Pop” bus/SL strategy (and I’ve researched this before asking the question here) - other than asking the bus driver for the bus back to Riviera to get on SL - does MDE (or something else) provide alerts about whether SL is operational/down? I’d hate to get on the bus to Riviera only to find SL is down (I do realize SL status could change while travelling on bus to Riviera…)
I don’t think a Skyliner status is available via the App unfortunately. In general the Skyliner is only going to close due to lightning. So if there’s no chance of lightning you should be pretty safe.
It is also worth noting that in the App under Resort-Guest Services-Disney Skyliner at the end it says “During Skyliner and Friendship Boat downtimes - Complimentary bus service will be temporarily available…between the following Resort hotes: …”. Pop & Riviera are part of the list so I think it is saying as a worst case if the Skyliner is down, you can get a bus back to Pop directly from the Riviera. At least that’s how I’m reading it. As long as you’re still within an hour of park close though you could always bus back to a park and get a Pop bus from there as an absolute worst case…