Walt Disney World has revealed a primary look contained in the renovated visitor rooms at Pop Century Resort, that are at the moment within the strategy of a year-long gentle items refurbishment mission. This shares photographs of the up to date lodging, progress report, and whether or not it’s best to keep away from staying at Pop Century throughout the mission.
The visitor room renovations at Disney’s Pop Century Resort are one of some lodge tasks in 2025-2026, with a number of different in style resorts below refurbishment now or within the coming months. Regulate our Walt Disney World Lodge Building Tracker for additional updates.
Let’s begin with the official announcement from Walt Disney World concerning the Pop Century room redo: From late March 2025 to mid-February 2026, visitor rooms at Disney’s Pop Century Resort will bear refurbishment. Whereas all resort facilities will stay accessible, you might discover building throughout daytime hours.
This isn’t the one latest main change at Pop Century. The resort has been within the midst of a prolonged refurbishment of The whole lot POP Purchasing & Eating that has been prolonged a couple of instances, however is now lastly completed. The whole lot POP has revealed a contemporary colour scheme and new seating areas to make it extra inviting.
This new seating space is good. The colours, patterns, and textures all work nicely. It seems to be clear and has a mid-century aptitude because of the upholstery, flooring, and lighting fixtures. There’s additionally a larger selection to the seating, with cubicles, tables, and chairs including a extra laid again lounge kind of vibe.
Walt Disney World introduced a New Espresso Store Coming to Pop Century Throughout Worth Resort Refurbishments a few months in the past. That opened shortly earlier than Easter, providing specialty drinks to perk up company all through the day, and is the entire cause why Disney switched up the fashion of seating round The whole lot Pop. Talking of which, listed here are photographs of the completed seating space exterior the espresso store:
Final month, Walt Disney World rolled out Airport Baggage Switch on the Worth Resorts, which was a pilot program that began at Pop Century. Friends staying at these Walt Disney World Resort lodges can drop checked baggage off with Baggage Help to be delivered on to your flight.
A brand new third-party service, referred to as BagCheck, will take your baggage on to the airport on your Southwest Airways flight. At present, this pilot service is accessible at Worth Resort lodges for Friends with Southwest Airways flights departing from Orlando Worldwide Airport (MCO).
Along with this, this summer season company staying at choose resorts – Artwork of Animation Resort, Pop Century Resort, Caribbean Seaside Resort and Wilderness Lodge – will have the ability to take pleasure in much more Disney-themed actions for “Cool Child Summer time.” These actions will embrace character visits with set look instances that will help you plan your day and an expanded itinerary of issues to do with your loved ones all through your keep at these 4 resorts.
All in all, a fairly good slate of “plussings” at Pop Century Resort. Now, the primary redone rooms are rising, and are likewise good enhancements. Listed below are photographs of the redone rooms, courtesy of Walt Disney World…
For many who are unfamiliar with the previous/present visitor rooms at Disney’s Pop Century Resort, right here’s a rundown of the key modifications.
First, the partitions have been painted blue. If I had a nickel for each fan who described the earlier Pop Century rooms as bland, boring, sterile, hospital-like, antiseptic, naked, or dystopian…I’d have no less than $5. Which isn’t some huge cash, nevertheless it’s however a number of nickels.
On condition that, one in every of our hopes for the 2025-2026 Disney’s Pop Century Resort room refurbishment was that they’d add extra colour to handle visitor quibbles with these being bland and boring. We beforehand wrote that “portray the wall behind the tv purple or mild blue would alone do wonders.”
This isn’t the wall behind the tv, it’s the partitions round and behind the beds–so much more has been painted mild blue. We’ll take it! (For the sake of comparability, a photograph of the previous rooms is beneath.)
Different modifications are extra minor. For instance, there seem like new chairs that accompany the desk. These look similar to the earlier chairs, however now have plush backs with a noticed fashion.
There’s additionally a brand new curtain protecting the window, which seems to characteristic Mickey Mouse in a pop artwork fashion. Not an enormous distinction from what was there earlier than, however extra distinctly Disney, which is a win–particularly given frequent visitor complaints concerning the lack of character.
The flooring has additionally been changed. It seems to be barely darker within the picture, however that may very well be a matter of lighting or modifying. We all know the flooring was changed, although, as a result of we noticed the contractor on web site and flooring removing taking place final month.
Lastly and maybe most notably, there’s a coloured accent rug with an eye catching mid-century trendy sample. This rug ought to additional handle complaints concerning the rooms being bland and boring, whereas additionally serving to to muffle some sound. That rug actually ties the room collectively!
As famous above, that is solely a gentle items refurbishment. This sometimes means updating furnishings, together with however not restricted to wall coverings, flooring, linens, decor, flooring and a few furnishings.
The definition of a gentle items refurbishment is a bit nebulous, and has included formidable tasks for sure resorts. Some have obtained gentle items refurbishments in the previous few years that included set up of the brand new pull-down beds. Others have swapped out virtually the entire furnishings and furnishings, giving completely new seems to be to the rooms.
Others have merely refreshed the decor and infused extra character into the rooms by including character artwork, extra colour, and little particulars. These rooms would very a lot be recognizable in a earlier than vs. after comparability, however have been nonetheless incremental enhancements. As is fairly apparent from the earlier than vs. after comparability, this finest describes the Pop Century room refurbishment now that we’ve seen the completed product.
Just about all of Walt Disney World’s room refurbishment tasks within the final a number of years have improved upon their predecessors. Not all of them have been good (removed from it), however they’ve been upgrades for probably the most half. Followers would possibly disagree with this, however we’re usually viewing these modifications by way of the rose-colored glasses of nostalgia. Pop Century’s room renovations proceed this development.
The 2017 reimagining of Pop Century was one of many very first ‘trendy’ era of resort room designs at Walt Disney World. Previous to this, I’d argue that Walt Disney World room redos have been heading within the unsuitable course with overly generic and homogenized kinds and no purposeful enhancements to in any other case justify the tasteless designs.
Pop Century’s redone rooms provided huge enhancements to make them contemporary and purposeful, with a bunch of intelligent space-saving design options added. Whereas the footprint continues to be the identical, the ensuing rooms really feel a lot bigger. There’s extra storage, one of many beds folds up into the wall to disclose a desk, and rather more.
For probably the most half, the brand new structure has been uncontroversial with Walt Disney World followers. The design enhancements have been so well-received amongst company that the very same structure was subsequently adopted in any respect three of the All Stars. A number of managers on the Worth Resorts, have indicated to us that visitor suggestions has been virtually unanimously constructive.
Walt Disney World took a “don’t repair what isn’t damaged” strategy to Pop Century rooms, leaving the structure unchanged whereas addressing the largest criticisms about colour, bland and boring designs. This most likely nonetheless isn’t going to please everybody, nevertheless it undeniably addresses frequent complaints.
From our perspective, these are an incremental improve on the earlier rooms. We cherished them earlier than, and we love them much more now. I might’ve used one other piece of artwork on the wall, however in any other case am very happy by this. The accent rug, specifically, is a nice shock. I’m truthfully a bit shocked Disney would add rugs to the Worth Resorts–a number of the redone Deluxe Resorts didn’t even obtain this!
The 2025-2026 visitor room mission at Pop Century is being accomplished building-by-building. That is fairly customary, and implies that Walt Disney World takes a whole constructing out of the room stock, overhauls it all of sudden, after which reopens that constructing. Generally this occurs in halves, that means that it’s potential to be in a room with lively building occurring–particularly frequent when it’s solely a gentle items mission.
That is accomplished to reduce the development influence. This fashion, nobody is getting caught in a room proper subsequent to 1 that’s below lively building. It’s good for company and likewise for Disney, as they don’t need to cope with the inevitable complaints and relocating company. It’s totally potential that you may keep at Pop Century and never even notice there’s building taking place if the constructing being redone is on the opposite facet of the resort.
It’s our understanding that work is at the moment occurring within the 50s part of Pop Century, beginning with Constructing 1. That was the case final we noticed, which was the center of final month. It’s unclear if, with the discharge of those photographs, Constructing 1 is now completed and has reopened to company. In any case, we’d anticipate work to proceed within the 50s earlier than shifting to different sections of the resort. Buildings 2-3 will likely be subsequent as much as be redone.
After that, work might proceed to the 60s part, or bounce to the opposite facet of the resort and hit the periphery there with the 90s, 80s, and 70s. That strategy is usually taken to reduce the visitor influence, and avoiding working across the pool. On this case, my guess is that the buildings simply go in (kind of) sequential order.
The visitor influence of this building ought to be minimal. Pop Century having clusters of outlying buildings makes one of these mission much less impactful than it’d be at most of the different resorts. At this level, we do NOT suggest avoiding Pop Century in 2025 or 2026.
Acknowledged with out the double-negative, Pop Century stays one in every of prime resort lodges in all of Walt Disney World for 2025-2026. That is doubly true now that we’ve seen the brand new rooms, and together with the entire different latest enhancements at Pop Century.
As for room requests, that’s a tad difficult at this level. For one factor, we don’t have boots on the bottom at this second, so it’s unclear to us whether or not Constructing 1 has reopened. It’s potential that Walt Disney World is sharing these photographs as a result of the primary company are about to examine into the brand new rooms; it’s additionally potential that is the very first room to be completed, however the constructing continues to be below the knife.
Even when Constructing 1 is finished, requesting it will put you on the far facet of Pop Century and adjoining to Buildings 2-3, which is able to turn out to be lively building zones as soon as work strikes to these. So it’s actually your name–would you like a brand new room so badly that you simply’re keen to be subsequent to one of many buildings that’s a piece zone?
That’s the request we’ll be making with our subsequent keep at Pop Century, however to every their very own on that. Give it a pair extra months, and there ought to be extra of a buffer so you may request a brand new room with out being proper subsequent to a constructing below lively building. (Join our Free Walt Disney World Publication for updates on this and different developments. We’ll preserve you posted on Pop Century progress.)
Finally, we’re happy with the completed product of the room refurbishment at Disney’s Pop Century Resort. Once more, we have been followers of the rooms earlier than and this solely makes them higher. The bones of the room have been already good and didn’t must be addressed, in order that they targeted on addressing criticism concerning the rooms being overly sterile.
From our perspective, that is an incremental enchancment–however a significant one. The aesthetics are higher, giving the room extra of a mid-century fashion with extra character and pops of colour. I’m positive some followers will nonetheless be unhappy with these rooms, however for a Worth Resort, we predict these are distinctive. They’re as soon as once more finest at school, and arguably higher than some Reasonable and Deluxe Resort rooms. That’s actually saying one thing given the price differential.
To every their very own, however that is completely a win for us–achieve, don’t repair what isn’t damaged. Pop Century doesn’t “want” enhancements to almost the identical diploma as different resorts and already punches nicely above its weight. There’s a cause why it’s so excessive up our Rankings of All Walt Disney World Resorts from Finest to Worst!
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Your Ideas
Are you a fan of Pop Century’s renovated rooms or do you continue to suppose these look bland and boring? Are a couple of pops of colour ok for you, or does Disney want to return to the drafting board and completely redo these rooms once more? Any questions we may help you reply? Listening to your suggestions–even once you disagree with us–is each attention-grabbing to us and useful to different readers, so please share your ideas beneath within the feedback!