, but this boggles my mind!
I hear you! I have something like 40 stays at POP, and I about choked in 2016 when I had to pay $150 for New Years Eve. Prior I never paid more than maybe $120 (for Free Dining) but most trips where I paid closer to $70 with a few lucky rates like yours.
For our August dates with a Disney Visa discount a 1BR at Saratoga Springs is less than a family suite at Art of Animation. We are a family of 5, so our Value options are limited - no Pop for us
For our on-site nights, we booked a Studio at Boulder Ridge villas for about $100/night LESS than AoA! After that we’re moving to WBC, where we’ll have a 2BR because we need extra space, and I refuse to pay $300/night to stay at a Value - even if it is a family suite! The loss of DME and many of the on-site benefits being diminished have led us off-site for the first time.
Yes, the single bathroom issue is part of why we didn’t just book a week at SSR in a 1-BR - our oldest is 12, but needs her sweet time to get ready…
Yes, the single bathroom issue is part of why we didn’t just book a week at SSR in a 1-BR - our oldest is 12, but needs her sweet time to get ready…
We do appreciate the kitchen, primarily for the full sized fridge/freezer which is probably part of why I didn’t seriously consider AoA/other family suites. We like to stick up on groceries and snacks so we can do breakfast and some easy lunches in the room. It’s nice to be able to eat out as much as we want to but not have to eat our every meal
The extra space is worth a lot to us now, which is part of why we’re trying off-site for all but 2 nights. When the kiddos were younger we were fine in a “normal” hotel room, but now even a small 1 BR (embassy suites style) feels cozy - totally fine for a night or two, but not ideal for a whole week
. Not to mention closer to the main road so Uber drivers don't get lost finding it. Without fail, every time I stay at Pop we have a lost driver either picking us up or dropping us off. I thought it was a navigation issue years ago but my driver got so lost trying to drop us off last year and we ended up just asking him to let us out at AoA
As recently as 2016 we stayed at Beach Club standard view for $300-something a night (don't remember the exact numbers, and that was with a discount, but still - not happening these days, sadly).
Disney values your money...........
The skyrocketing prices at Pop are what caused me to explore other options, namely Swan/Dolphin and renting DVC. On all my recent and upcoming trips, I have paid about the same or less to stay at the Dolphin (w/ AP rate) or at AKL or Riviera than I would have paid at Pop with rack rates.
I stayed at Movies and Pop back to back in 2022 and thought the Skyliner upcharge was ridiculous. It's around $60-$75/night more to stay at Pop vs. All Stars and that's just crazy to me. The Skyliner is nice, but it's not exactly a short ride from Pop to the parks, and assuming you only go to Epcot/Studios on 50-75% of the days of your trip, you're probably effectively paying closer to $100+ per day for the Skyliner on the days you use it. Gosh, you could probably use a Minnie Van from All Stars and still come out ahead if you don't hit surge pricing.
I love Coronado and would 100% go back there before Pop. The rooms feel twice as big, so much quieter, walls feel like they're made of two layers of cardboard instead of one layer at Pop
For us, it's totally worth the extra cost of staying at a Skyliner resort (just like some people are willing to pay more to be at a monorail resort), but I realize not every one spends as much time at EP and DHS as our family. It's great to have so many choices since one size definitely doesn't fit all when going to Disney World. I'm not sure how anyone with a GPS service has trouble getting anywhere.
It is obscene pricing for all the resorts lately. I am doing a split stay in September at Coronado/GDT just to get the bigger discounts. 2 nights are booked direct with Disney for the 35% off and the other 3 nights are from Priceline at $30 less a night than WDW was charging with the 25% discount. (the discount rate changes during my stay so they were charging rack rates for the 3 nights if I was to book one stay for 35% off).
FUNNY, in another thread the theme was that Disney was having a hard time filling resorts and had to deeply discount them....
That’s great you get so much use out of the Skyliner! Taking breaks definitely helps get more value out of it. I compare AP rates at S/D and DVC rental rates to Pop rack-rates because I book far in advance, and Pop discounted rooms are not available when I book! This year I paid $220/night (with fees!) for the first few days of January at the Dolphin. I paid the same to rent at AKL this year and am paying the same next year to rent at Riviera! Funny enough I am dreading having to rely on the Skyliner at Riviera as when I stayed at Pop I ended up in long lines at park close. I think we waited 45 minutes one evening to get home from Epcot after fireworks! Not sure if I just have bad luck or what! That’s when I switched to Dolphin so I would walk right past that long Skyliner line! But since I am at Riviera for a race weekend I figured I won’t be up til park close more than once or twice, so I’ll survive.Comparing AP/DVC rental rates at one resort to rack rates at another resort isn't really a fair comparison. What were the discount rates at Pop at the same time? We usually stay in a suite at AoA and when comparing rates, I can almost always get a standard 5-person room at certain Deluxe resorts for about the same price as a suite at AoA (but we prefer more space and 2 bathrooms, so we stay with AoA). But if I compared the discount rate at the Deluxe resorts with the rack rate at AoA (even thought that's not what I'd be paying -- we've never paid rack rate for any room for any of our stays over the last 20 years), the discount standard Deluxe room is almost always going to be cheaper than the rack rate AoA suite.
When pricing rooms for our trip next June, Pop is $42/night more than All Star so that's not a huge premium to pay for the Skyliner -- $10-20/person per day depending on how many people are in the room and how often you use the Skyliner. Now, a Little Mermaid room is $112 more per night than All Star. There's no way I'd pay that premium for that room. If I was staying in a standard room, I'd choose Pop over LM any day and we'd still choose Pop over All Stars as well as we find the Skyliner to be worth that small premium. On our 8 day trip last June, we used the Skyliner 6 days -- and 4 of those days we used it twice a day as we typically go back to the resort for a few hours in the afternoon and return to a park in the evening. There were several times that we hopped over to one of those parks in the evening simply because of the convenience of the Skyliner. It was about a 7 minute trip to DHS and about 12 minutes to EP for us which we found to be faster than when we had to take buses (before Skyliner) to those parks. And we also found ourselves dreading the ride to MK & AK because we had to take a bus to get there!.
That's pretty sad that your Uber/Lyft drivers had so much trouble finding Pop Century. We drive to Disney and even before GPS/Waze/Etc. existed, we never had trouble getting to Pop or AoA even when all we had were printed out Mapquest or AAA directions.
Now we know better and put the resort as the destination and not the restaurant, but to this day we wonder how he ended up there!
That’s great you get so much use out of the Skyliner! Taking breaks definitely helps get more value out of it. I compare AP rates at S/D and DVC rental rates to Pop rack-rates because I book far in advance, and Pop discounted rooms are not available when I book! This year I paid $220/night (with fees!) for the first few days of January at the Dolphin. I paid the same to rent at AKL this year and am paying the same next year to rent at Riviera! Funny enough I am dreading having to rely on the Skyliner at Riviera as when I stayed at Pop I ended up in long lines at park close. I think we waited 45 minutes one evening to get home from Epcot after fireworks! Not sure if I just have bad luck or what! That’s when I switched to Dolphin so I would walk right past that long Skyliner line! But since I am at Riviera for a race weekend I figured I won’t be up til park close more than once or twice, so I’ll survive.
I agree I have no idea what the WDW drivers are up to. One year (when we were not yet familiar with the resorts) we were going to Cape May and our driver ended up behind MK
We just wrapped up a stay at POFQ, it was $185/nt, that 35% promo they ran for summer stays was worth it.
End of March is easter/spring break so it's def peak season so prices will be insane for sure. However, $299 for POP or CSR any time of year is not a good deal. But as others mentioned, if you book, keep checking back for discounts you can apply and/or cancel and rebook.
Very odd. For my dates in Sept rack rate at Pop is noticeably less than rack rate at CSR. Wonder if they pushed through a big Pop price increase for ‘24?
