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Disney's Pop Century Resort is a celebration of 20th century pop
culture. The 2,880-room resort's larger-than-life "time capsules"
showcase the popular toys, fads, dance crazes and catch phrases
of the 20th century. How people lived. How they played. How they
celebrated. Guests have the opportunity to live and play inside
these unique time capsules and experience popular culture that defined
the century.
Disney's newest value-category resort, Disney's Pop Century Resort
features lodge buildings and furnishings inspired by different decades.
Giant pop culture icons were constructed to celebrate the decade
they were introduced in, or when they gained their greatest popularity.
Some of these icons tower more than 60 feet.
Opening Date: Dec. 14, 2003
Room Rates: Beginning at $77 per night, based on season.
Location: 1050 Century Drive, Lake Buena Vista, Fla., 32830. Near
Disney's Wide World of Sports Complex and Disney's Caribbean Beach
Resort.
General Manager: Dave Vermeulen (also serves as general manager
of Disney's Caribbean Beach Resort).
Features:
Accommodations: 2,880 guestrooms. Rooms are 260 square feet, with
two double beds or one king bed, a table and two chairs, vanity
area and sink with separate bathroom, 27-inch color television,
in-room wall safe, telephones with voice mail and data port. Available
on request: non-smoking rooms, rooms accessible to guests with disabilities,
hearing-impaired TDD telephones, visual smoke alarms, bed boards
and bed rails, refrigerators (extra charge), cribs, iron and ironing
board. Room furnishings include custom-designed and themed bed coverings,
wall art and wallpaper borders.
Food and Beverage: Offerings include Everything Pop, a 640-seat
food court area; Classic Concoctions, a quick-service lounge; pizza
delivery to guestrooms; and Petals Pool Bar (located adjacent to
Hippy Dippy Pool).
Resort Shopping: A 5,000-square-foot retail center in Classic Hall
offers resort-specific merchandise and Walt Disney World souvenirs.
Resort Recreation: Three feature pools -- the Bowling Pin Pool,
the Hippy Dippy Pool and the Computer Pool; a kiddie pool; playground;
and the Fast Forward arcade. Goofy stands watch over Pop Jet Playground,
a playland of popping water located near the 1970s lodge buildings.
The Fun
 The bowling
pin icons tower more than 65 feet high. A regulation bowling pin
is 15 inches tall.
If you count
the giant bowling pin icons, there are nine standing around the
resort. Where's the tenth? It's actually the bowling pin pool in
the courtyard!
Take a closer
look at the pool deck around the bowling pin pool and you'll spot
the triangular lane markings that are seen on bowling alleys everywhere.
The Rubik's
Cube icons reach a peak of 41 feet off the ground. By comparison,
a Rubik's Cube puzzle toy stands nearly four inches at its tallest
point.
The resort's
8-track tapes are more than 35 feet tall, with "tape"
that is more than one-foot in width. A real 8-track tape is a mere
five-and-one-quarter inches tall, with a tape that is only one-quarter
inch wide.
The table
soccer players are more than 12 feet tall, and the "toy"
ball is more than two-and-one-half feet in diameter.
Nearly 125,000
gallons of paint were used to create the bright colors and tie-dyed
hues on the buildings' interior and exterior walls.
In the 1960s
area, giant "thumbprints" can be spotted on the ears of
the elephant peeking out of the giant Play-Doh canister. And can
you name the child depicted on the Play-Doh can? That's Play-Doh
Pete!
The giant
Big Wheel icon can "accommodate" a child rider that weighs
up to 877 pounds (or so says the sticker on the towering riding
toy). That matches the stickers that were affixed to the original
Big Wheel toys of the 1970s that designated a "recommended
child weight."
Service
and equipment buildings are cleverly disguised all over the resort.
At the 1950s bowling pin pool, the laundry looks like a bowling
shoe storage bin. In the 1990s, an equipment building appears to
be a larger-than-life stack of computer floppy disks.
The 1970s
courtyard pays tribute to the age of disco, with a motion-based
disco light mounted in the middle of the courtyard. This color-changing
light sends streams of light across the '70s-inspired outdoor "dance
floor."
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