Disney - Our Resort

One of the very first questions people ask when they hear(d) we went (were going) to Disney World was, "Where did (will) you stay?" 

The last time we went to WDW, we were going with my sister and her family, and we used a time share, split it (and everything else - car rental, groceries, etc) with them and it was a very good deal!

This time, however, we were going alone and after pricing out the cost of staying off property vs. staying with Disney, we decided to go with Disney.  And to be honest, I don't think we'll ever go back to staying off-property.  The cost ended up being about the same (factoring in we would have to rent a car and then pay for parking and gas) and we got some other really cool deals that made it totally worth it!

Disney has several resorts and we chose to go with their newest (for now) value resort, Pop Century.  (They are building a new value resort right now.)  Staying at a value resort is the cheapest (besides camping at their campground) way to stay at Disney, but you still get the same benefits as other resort guests. All of our transportation was covered, even to and from the airport), we got to go into the parks early and stay late by using Magic Hours (available only to resort guests), whenever we bought anything, we could have it delivered to our hotel instead of having to carry it around all day, and we were able to use their meal plan (more on that later). There were other perks, like getting a free round of golf that I encouraged Ryan to use, but he didn't want to leave us girls behind (awww), and discounts at some of the activities you can do on property, but we didn't really get into those this time.

All of the Disney Resorts are elaborately themed and decorated.  Pop Century features HUGE icons from the past few decades.  Roller skates, juke boxes, hula hoops, walk mans, etc.  It was fun!  I wish I had taken more pics of the girls in front of some of the icons.

One of the reasons why we went with a value resort, besides that it is so much less expensive, was that we knew we really wouldn't be spending a lot of time there and we didn't feel like we needed the fancier pools and nicer restaurants that the moderate and deluxe resorts have.  And this was the right choice for our trip this time.  We had a good time while we were at the hotel, but we really did spend nearly every waking moment away from it.  In the future, I would like to stay at one of the nicer hotels because I hope as the kids get older that Ryan and I will get to have more of a relaxing trip together, and I can see wanting to be at the hotel more if its a more relaxing atmosphere.  Pop Century was more of a party atmosphere. lol

One thing we really had fun with though, and I don't think this would be any different at any of the other resorts, was the "mouse"keeping.  If the girls left their stuffed animals/dolls out, the cleaning lady would "play" with them and leave them set up for us when we got back to our room that night.  It was so fun! 

Here they all are, watching TV while we were out:

Sometimes the toys were just waiting for us, facing the door, staring... and waiting... lol.  Another one of my favorites was when Cadi left her book out, too, and while we were gone Perry read to the rest of the toys. lol

We really liked staying with Disney, it gave us access to perks that really helped us not worry about anything while we were there.  We just sat back and let them do all the worrying/managing for us while we just focused on having a ton of fun! :)