Landslide! Wow, what a result! It truly was eye-popping!
With an astounding 64.79% of your support, Disney’s Pop Century Resort demolishes our former Value champion - Disney’s Art of Animation Resort – to become the new All in WDW Readers’ Favorite WDW Value Resort!
Why am I so shocked? Well, it was a cakewalk! After jumping out to a very early lead, POP just cruised to the title. It was never a competition. This wasn’t the case last year. In fact, for 2012-13, Art won a head-to-head (one-on-one) duel with POP after receiving 60.32% of your votes!
Our three resort polls have been an interesting clinic for me this year. I was concerned that after only twelve short months, we would never come up with a new result. In actuality, however, the All in WDW audience has grown over time. Our opinions have changed as well.
For example, this past December, we re-affirmed the Poly as our Favorite Deluxe. But, it really was a battle. One year earlier, with 60.4% of the finale vote, Disney’s Polynesian Resort utterly destroyed its competition. This year, it was a much, much different story. Only eight votes kept Disney’s Animal Kingdom Lodge from dethroning “the champ”!
Last month, Disney’s Port Orleans Resort – Riverside did pull off a coup in upsetting its French Quarter-themed sister resort from its perch atop the Moderate “mountain”. With a slim, one-vote, victory, it became our first new champion of 2014.
Finally, there is POP. Why did Disney’s Pop Century Resort flip-flop last year’s result and absolutely “take out” its next-door neighbor? We have a theory. Have you ever tried to book a rate for AoA?
Now, I’ll admit, if you have a large family, an Art of Animation suite will certainly afford you a lot more comfort by way of a larger room size. It might even be a cost-savings … if you often need to book two rooms to house your clan. It’s the AoA’s price-tag, however, that Mrs. All in WDW and I can’t get our arms around.
The currently-available Disney “Spring Vacation Offer” yields an early-April nightly rate of $335 for one of AoA’s suites. Comparatively, you could get a standard room at POP for $143 per night. Two rooms? Way less than half the cost.
The “atmosphere” at Pop Century and Art of Animation are largely the same. Lots of families and lots of children. To be frank, we find it a pretty fun environment in spite of the sometimes space-crunching crowds. Given the difference in price, we choose POP.
How about this? A room at French Quarter (Riverside was not available) clocks in with a rate of $235 per night. Or, a standard room at Disney’s Animal Kingdom Lodge clocks in at $347! Only $12 more than the AoA suite?
You wouldn’t want a deluxe room amongst the animals if you could get one? We’ll take it! I’m sorry, in spite of all the excitement and “life” of AoA and/or POP, we would rather stay at any one of the Moderates. Or, even a Deluxe, if we could swing it.
In the end, why did Disney’s Pop Century Resort just topple the former champion off the top of the mountain? Cost. Art of Animation was still the new “jewel” in late 2012 and early 2013. Now, its affordability is bubbling to the surface. Between POP and AoA, all other things being more-or-less equal, POP’s lower rate wins every time!
What do you all think? Let us know!
Cheers! Have a great day! Enjoy tonight’s big game!
IMO- A of A is out of our price range. I have looked it it on several trips and just can’t justify the cost. Now, we are more of a “we need a place to shower and sleep” kind of family, so we always try to save money when we’re talking about resorts. And with POP, you get the chance to stay in the 80′s- the greatest decade ever!
We completely agree, Lee. I have never been able to justify the cost of AoA either. Beautiful place, and we’d really like to try it once, but even a standard room has been more expensive than a Moderate every time I have run the rates.
We stayed at pop when we went in November. My family LOVED it! The first night we crossed the bridge and walked around to see the sights at AoA, and that was good enough. We didn’t spend a lot of time at the resort after that first night to out weigh the cost.
We felt the same way. We like that AoA was/is new, but we agreed it wasn’t worth the additional cost.