Disney's Pop Century Resort
Pop Century is one of Walt Disney World's four Value resorts, themed as a walk through the pop culture of the 1950s to the 1990s and built at oversized scale, with giant bowling pins, a wall of Rubik's cubes and a Mickey rotary telephone. It sits on the Disney Skyliner gondola line to EPCOT and Hollywood Studios, with three themed pools and a large food court.
On this page
Is it worth it?
A Value resort with gondola transport to two parks and a real queen bed for everyone, strongest for a smaller family keeping the cost down.
Pop Century is the Value resort a lot of families settle on, and the reason is mostly the Skyliner. The aerial gondola runs from the resort to EPCOT and Hollywood Studios, a level of transport the cheaper All-Star resorts don't have, and the rooms are a step up from theirs, each with two real queen beds, alongside a large food court and three themed pools. For a smaller family who want to keep the cost down without dropping to the very cheapest resort, it's a straightforward choice.
The theming, all giant toys and decade catchphrases, tends to mean more to grown-ups than to young children. Where your room sits also matters more here than at most resorts, because the food court and the Skyliner are at opposite ends of a long site.
Best for
Two adults with one or two young children who want the gondola to EPCOT and Hollywood Studios while keeping the cost down.
The Skyliner catch
The gondola stops running in lightning and heavy rain and doesn't cover every park, so the buses stay part of most days.
Room size
Compact, and tight once the Murphy bed is down and a cot is in. Rooms sleep four, with no fifth bed and no suite.
Which section to request
The 1960s buildings, 4 and 5, are the only ones close to both the food court and the Skyliner.
The Art of Animation alternative
The sister Value across the bridge has family suites for six and a bigger pool, for more money.
Where is it?
The Wide World of Sports area of Walt Disney World, on Hourglass Lake, a short walk across a bridge from Art of Animation.
Quick facts for UK families
A Value resort themed by decade, built at giant scale
Ten four-storey buildings, each themed to one decade from the 1950s to the 1990s, dotted with oversized pop-culture icons.
Pop Century is a single large resort of 2,880 rooms across ten four-storey buildings, each themed as one decade from the 1950s to the 1990s. The theming is the draw, and the scale is what you notice. There are 65-foot bowling-pin stairwells in the 1950s section, a 30-foot Mickey rotary telephone and giant foosball players in the 1970s, a wall of 41-foot Rubik's cubes in the 1980s and 55-foot mobile phones in the 1990s. Each building is painted in its decade's colours, its own period music plays across that section, and the icons are lit after dark. Families photograph them a lot. The show is outdoors and on the buildings rather than in the rooms, which are kept simple, and parents who grew up with 8-tracks and Roger Rabbit recognise far more of it than young children do. A few of the icons appeal to little ones too, and hunting them out makes an easy photo game around the site: Baloo and Mowgli from The Jungle Book holding hands beside a giant Play-Doh can across the 1960s courtyard, the Lady and the Tramp statues facing each other in the 1950s section, Roger Rabbit and a Pac-Man in the 1980s. The 1990s building hides a small Easter egg for parents, its building-tall laptop showing an ABC News screen dated the day Animal Kingdom opened.
Pop Century was planned as two hotels facing each other across Hourglass Lake: the Classic Years, the 1950s to 1990s half you stay in, and a Legendary Years half themed on the 1900s to 1940s that was never built. The fall in US travel after September 2001 stopped the second half, and its shells stood empty across the water for years before being redeveloped into Art of Animation. The footbridge between the two kept its original name, the Generation Gap Bridge, and it's why the two Value resorts now sit side by side over the water.
Pop Century's rooms, food court and lobby have all been refurbished, so the finishes are relatively new. One change divided long-time guests. The lobby used to hold glass cases of real 1950s to 1990s memorabilia, from 8-track players to Cabbage Patch Kids, and the refit replaced them with painted Disney-character murals. If that kind of detail draws you to a resort, it's worth knowing it's gone.
In the festive season the resort dresses up in keeping with its retro look. A tree goes up by Everything POP under the Classic Hall skylight, hung with decade ornaments from vintage toys to peace signs and Rubik's Cubes, wreaths appear behind the check-in kiosks and garlands run along the entrance canopy. It's a seasonal touch rather than a year-round showpiece, so there's nothing on the scale of the gingerbread houses at the deluxe resorts to go and see outside the run-up to Christmas.
How the resort is laid out, and the section to request
The food court and the Skyliner sit at opposite ends of a long site, so where your room is decides how far you walk.
Everything that isn't your room is in or beside Classic Hall at the centre-front of the resort, including the food court, the shop, the single bus stop and the main Hippy Dippy Pool. The Skyliner station sits out on the Generation Gap Bridge, the footbridge over Hourglass Lake that also links the resort to Art of Animation. The ten buildings run from the 1950s section nearest Classic Hall round to the 1990s furthest out.
The 1960s buildings, 4 and 5, are the only section close to both the food court and the Skyliner station, a five to seven-minute walk to the gondola, so you walk less at both ends of the day. They're all Preferred rooms and, sitting right on the main pool, also the loudest. The 1950s buildings are nearest the lobby and the car park but the farthest walk to the Skyliner, at nine to twelve minutes. The quieter 1970s buildings are handy for the Skyliner and hold the playground and the evening marshmallow-roasting fire pit. The 1980s and 1990s end is the farthest from everything. A room request is only ever a request, never a guarantee, so keep it to the one or two things that matter most and make it when you book.
The rooms
Four room types, all the same compact size, with the real choice being view and how close you are to Classic Hall.
Every standard room at Pop Century is essentially the same room. There are four types on the booking, but they differ by view and how close they are to Classic Hall, not by size or layout. Each is compact and holds two queen beds: one fixed on a low frame, and one a Murphy bed that folds down from the wall and becomes a table with two chairs when it's up. A king is bookable on request but not guaranteed, and it's usually the accessible rooms that have one.
| Room | View | Sleeps | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standard Room | Hotel or car park | 4 | The entry-level room. Two queen beds, one a fold-down Murphy bed, or a king on request. |
| Preferred Room | Courtyard or landscaping | 4 | Closest to Classic Hall, the food court and transport. The same room for a higher rate. |
| Standard Pool View | Bowling or Computer Pool | 4 | Faces one of the two quieter pools, at the 1950s or 1980s ends. |
| Preferred Pool View | Hippy Dippy Pool | 4 | Overlooks the main pool, in the 1960s buildings. The top standard tier and the liveliest. |
All four types are the same compact size, a reported 260 sq ft (about 24 m²).
With both beds down and a travel cot added, floor space is tight, and the cot really only fits near the bathroom. There's no sofa bed, no rollaway and no fifth sleeper, so a family of five needs a second room or Art of Animation's suites next door. The room has a glass-door mini-fridge but no freezer and no microwave, and comes with a pod coffee maker, an in-wall safe, an iron and board, a hair dryer, a wall-mounted flat-screen TV and USB charging points at each bed. The bathroom is split, with a sliding door between the sink and the toilet and shower, which lets two people get ready at once, though it's a shower only with no bath, and the glass door makes bathing a small child awkward. The resort has around 200 accessible rooms. Roll-in shower rooms set both beds lower for easier transfer and add grab bars and more turning space in the bathroom, and hearing-accessible rooms can be booked with visual alarms, a door-knock alert, a volume-control phone and a TTY on request. If a bath would help at bath time, some accessible rooms have a tub rather than the shower and can be requested. Housekeeping comes every other day rather than daily, worth knowing with a baby and a bin filling with nappies. Rooms open onto outdoor walkways in the motel style, and none has a balcony.
Where to eat, from the food court to the pool bar
One large food court for every meal, plus a poolside bar.
The main place to eat is Everything POP, a counter-service food court inside Classic Hall with a bakery, a grill, a pizza and pasta station, a station for Asian dishes and a refrigerated grab-and-go market, plus a Joffrey's coffee window. You order at the counter or through the My Disney Experience app and eat in a big seating area that has a corner of toddler-height tables and Disney Channel on the screens. Children order from a set kids' menu, waffles and pancakes in the morning and cheeseburgers, chicken strips, mac and cheese and the like later, each a Disney Check meal that comes with a fruit or vegetable side and a drink. It runs from early morning to late, though the exact hours move with the season, so check the app for your dates. The resort's signature snack is the tie-dye cheesecake, a swirl of colour on a red-velvet base that's been sold here since Pop Century opened, tucked in the grab-and-go cooler rather than up on the menu boards. A newer standout, and the one reviewers now pick over the cheesecake, is the Flashback oatmeal crème pie, an oatmeal-raisin cookie sandwich with a marshmallow filling. Younger children tend to go for the Mickey and Minnie ice cream sundae, served in a keepsake ice-cream-truck cup they can take home.
There's no table-service restaurant anywhere in the resort, so a sit-down meal means a park, Disney Springs or the food court at Art of Animation, which is about ten minutes' walk away, over the bridge and then deep into the resort, and widely rated the better of the two. A refillable resort mug, bought for the length of your stay, fills up at the drinks stations here and at Art of Animation's food court, which is handy across a long trip. By the main pool, Petals Pool Bar does cocktails, beer, soft drinks and light food through the day and into the evening. In the room you can order Pop Art Pizza, delivered from late afternoon to around midnight.
Pools, the splash pad and the things to do
Three themed pools and a toddler splash pad, plus a run of free activities around the resort.
The main pool is the Hippy Dippy Pool, a flower-shaped pool between the 1960s buildings with flower-shaped water jets around the edge. It's zero-entry, sloping in gradually from the deck like a beach, so there's a shallow zone where a non-swimming toddler can stand and paddle before it deepens towards the middle. It's the busiest pool too, with daytime games and Movies Under the Stars on some evenings. The other two are quieter: the Bowling Pool, shaped like the tenth pin in the 1950s set, and the Computer Pool, shaped like an old monitor, over at the 1980s and 1990s end. All three are heated year-round, with free towels and life vests and lifeguards on duty during pool hours. None of them has a slide, a diving board or a hot tub.
Behind the Hippy Dippy Pool there's a small splash pad with pop-up water jets and a soft padded floor, the only water-play area aimed at toddlers. No lifeguard watches it, so it needs a parent close by. Short pool and deck closures for maintenance happen across Walt Disney World on a rolling basis, so it's worth checking the official pool page for your dates. You can walk over to Art of Animation to eat, but you can't use its Big Blue Pool or its splash pad. Pool-hopping between the two resorts isn't allowed, a rule that surprises people given how close the two are.
Free and low-keyThings to do around the resort
Beyond the pools the activities are free and low-key. There's marshmallow roasting at an evening fire pit, a playground in the 1970s section and the Fast Forward arcade next to the food court, plus a paved jogging and walking loop around Hourglass Lake of about a mile and a quarter, with decade-trivia signs along the way. The Everything POP shop has a build-your-own Mr Potato Head station, and pressed-medallion machines near Classic Hall turn out a cheap keepsake children like collecting. Cast Members lead a group dance in Classic Hall twice a day, The Twist in the morning and The Hustle in the early evening, and children are welcome to join in. There's no spa and no fitness centre. Activity times rotate by day and season, so the schedule posted at the resort is the one to go by.
Getting around by Skyliner and bus
A gondola to two parks and a bus to the other two, each with its own quirks.
The Skyliner is an aerial gondola line, opened in 2019, that carries up to ten people a cabin and runs from the station on the Generation Gap Bridge to EPCOT and Hollywood Studios. Every trip changes at a hub by Caribbean Beach, so there's no single direct ride, and the journey to either park runs to roughly half an hour door to door. It serves only those two parks. Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom are bus only. The gondola stops running in lightning, high winds and heavy rain, common on summer afternoons in Florida, and it closes for about a week each January for maintenance, with buses filling in. The cabins aren't air-conditioned, so they get warm when stopped, though they're comfortable on the move.
The buses go from a single stop at Classic Hall, used only by Pop Century guests, which keeps them quicker to load than the shared stops at some resorts. Magic Kingdom is around fifteen minutes away and Animal Kingdom around eleven, with buses also running to Disney Springs and the water parks. A pushchair can board the Skyliner unfolded if it's within the gondola's size limit, which is a little smaller than the parks allow, but it has to be folded on every bus. A large UK travel system may need folding for the Skyliner, while a lightweight fold-flat pushchair won't. If you're hiring a car, self-parking at the resort is free for guests, as is standard parking at the four theme parks.
Checking in and early entryArrival, the app and early park entry
You can check in on the My Disney Experience app before you arrive and use your phone or a MagicBand as your room key, your park entry and the way you order food and charge things around the resort. As an on-site guest you get Early Theme Park Entry, which lets you into any of the four parks ahead of the general public, usually by around half an hour, though it's worth confirming the current window for your trip. Staying on Disney property also opens the planning windows earlier: you can book dining up to 60 days ahead, set up a Lightning Lane Multi-Pass from 7am on the day itself and buy an individual Lightning Lane up to seven days before you arrive. For a family those earlier windows mean more of the trip can be settled before you fly. The separate Extended Evening Hours, the late-night sessions, are limited to the deluxe and villa resorts, so they aren't part of a Pop Century stay. Check-in is from 3pm and check-out is by 11am, and bell services will hold your bags on either side.
On-site guests also pick up seasonal perks on top of the everyday ones. Free water park entry is due back for arrivals from summer 2027, so it's worth checking whether your dates qualify when you book. Most UK families book Pop Century as an ATOL-protected Walt Disney Travel Company package, flights and hotel together with tickets and dining added if you want them, or room-only through a UK Disney specialist. How the perks, ticket types and UK booking fit together is on our tickets and passes guide.
Babies, toddlers and the day-to-day
What the resort lends, what the shop stocks and the practical gaps to plan around.
A travel cot is free on request, one to a room, though not guaranteed, so add the note when you book and confirm it with the front desk when you arrive. It's Disney's standard pack-n-play rather than a full-size cot, and if you'd rather have a proper cot the Orlando baby-kit rental firms deliver one to the resort. With no microwave in the room, warming milk or baby food means a trip to the food court or a word with the front desk. The Everything POP shop is one of the biggest resort shops at Walt Disney World and carries the everyday things you run out of, from sun cream and children's medicine to toiletries, snacks and bottled water, though it's safest to bring your own nappies and formula rather than count on a particular brand or size being in stock.
There's no kids' club or in-room childcare at Pop Century, as those are deluxe-resort features, so an evening sitter has to be booked through an outside service. The resort is popular with school groups and sports teams on tour, and the pools and food court can get loud and busy when a tournament is on, which is worth timing around if you can. The buildings have outdoor corridors and the walls are thin, so an upper floor away from the main pool is the quieter ask for nap times.
Laundry, first aid and the everyday services
Washing clothes, holding deliveries, getting help and hiring a pushchair, the day-to-day things a family ends up needing.
Three self-service laundry rooms sit by the pool areas, one at each, open around the clock and paid for with a MagicBand or a card. The LaundryView service shows which machines are free before you head over, and after 9pm you use your room key to get in. On a longer trip with a baby or a toddler a mid-stay wash is usually unavoidable, for pool clothes, nappy accidents and the odd sick-in-the-night change, so it helps to know the laundry is on site and always open.
Deliveries from outside come in through Bell Services. Grocery and shopping orders from the likes of Instacart or Amazon are taken in and held there, and because Bell Services has fridges and freezers it can keep cold and frozen items, so a UK family can have nappies, formula, water and other basics waiting rather than hauling them from home. A small fee applies to have held items brought to the room.
A Value resort has no staffed nurse station like the ones inside the parks. If a child is unwell in the room you can call the front desk at any hour and they'll arrange assistance, and for anything needing a doctor the nearest walk-in clinic is AdventHealth Centra Care over by Disney Springs.
The resort desk doesn't hire out pushchairs, wheelchairs or ECVs. Those are rented at the four parks and at Disney Springs, or booked ahead for the length of your stay through ScooterBug, Disney's provider, or an Orlando firm such as Kingdom Strollers and delivered to Bell Services before you arrive. A family who wants a sturdier pushchair or a wheelchair waiting at the hotel needs to arrange it this way, since you can't pick one up at the desk on the day.
A handful of smaller things round out the day-to-day. There are dressing rooms and showers by the pools, useful for changing a child before the room is ready or on your last day after check-out. Alongside the usual toilets, Classic Hall and the pool areas have single-stall companion restrooms with space for a parent and child together. Every room has the Hey Disney voice assistant, a speaker the children can ask for extra towels, a joke or the weather, and Wi-Fi is free across the resort.
Loves and gripes
What families praise most, and the gripes that keep recurring.
Families come back calling Pop Century the best value of the four Value resorts, the biggest bang for your buck as reviewers often put it, with rooms and a food court a step up from the cheaper All-Star hotels. The 2024 to 2026 refurbishment gets credit too, so a booking now comes with a freshly redone room. Parents of a non-swimmer single out the zero-entry main pool, and the tie-dye cheesecake and the refillable resort mug come up again and again.
The steadiest complaint is noise. The outdoor corridors and thin walls carry sound, and the pools and food court get loud when school groups and sports teams are staying, which recurs through the busy US school weeks. No pool has a slide or a hot tub, the thing families most often wish for here. Housekeeping every other day is the other gripe that comes up with a baby in the room.
The choice next doorHow it compares to Art of Animation
Art of Animation shares the Skyliner station and the bridge over Hourglass Lake is only a couple of minutes across, so it's the resort families most often weigh Pop Century against. Art of Animation gives you more space and stronger theming for young children: its family suites sleep up to six with two bathrooms and a kitchenette with a microwave, its Big Blue Pool is the largest hotel pool at Walt Disney World and comes with its own splash pad, and its rooms are themed around Finding Nemo, Cars, The Lion King and The Little Mermaid, which children who know the films will recognise. At Pop Century you pay less, everyone gets a real queen bed rather than a pull-out, and the shallow main pool suits a non-swimming toddler. For two adults with one or two little ones who need a cot but not a suite, Pop Century is often the cheaper, simpler choice. For a bigger family, or one that wants the space and the character rooms, the suites next door are the better fit.
Questions parents ask
A few things families check before booking, plus the official links and when this guide was last updated.
How do we actually get a room near the Skyliner?
Put the request on the booking when you reserve, then repeat it at online check-in and once more at the desk on arrival. Disney assigns the actual room close to your arrival date, so none of it is promised, but a single specific request lands more often than a long wish-list. If the gondola is what you're after, name the 1960s buildings, 4 and 5, specifically. A plain Preferred booking isn't enough on its own, because that category also covers the 1950s and 1970s buildings, so the 60s is the specific request to make rather than something the Preferred rate alone secures.
Will a family of five fit in one room?
No, so a family of five either splits across two rooms or moves next door. For two rooms, add a connecting-rooms request when you book and reconfirm it at check-in, treating it as a request rather than a guarantee. For Art of Animation's family suites the trade is the higher cost against keeping everyone under one roof, so it comes down to whether the extra outlay is worth staying together.
Where can we keep milk and formula cold?
Every room has a glass-door mini-fridge, so bottles and made-up formula keep cold. There's no freezer in the room, but Bell Services has freezers and will hold frozen ice packs or expressed milk for you, which covers the gap.
Is the Skyliner reliable enough to count on?
The mistake guests most often regret is booking Pop Century for the gondola alone, which reviewers single out as the biggest booking error here. The value, the rooms and the pools are the reason to book Pop Century; the Skyliner is a useful extra, not a reason to book on its own.
Is not having a sit-down restaurant a problem?
For most families it isn't, since park restaurants, Disney Springs and the two food courts cover the trip. The question to ask yourself is whether you'd really book a table-service meal inside your own hotel on a park-heavy holiday. If that's something you'd use often, a moderate or deluxe resort with its own sit-down restaurant is the better fit, and you pay more for it.
Pop Century photos
The resort's giant icons, from the Mickey rotary telephone to Baloo and Mowgli, all in one place.
Open the Pop Century photo gallery →
Useful links
- Disney's Pop Century Resort: the official hotel page for rooms, dining and live prices.
- Disney's Art of Animation Resort: our guide to the resort next door that families most often compare it with.
- EPCOT: our guide to one of the two parks on the Skyliner line.
- Tickets and passes: how tickets, Early Theme Park Entry and UK booking work.
- Walt Disney World with little ones: our guide to the resort, its parks and getting there.
Last updated 9 July 2026.
