Hi everyone, I just got back from my first stay at POP and to be completely honest, it will probably be my last. To preface I will say I really wanted to like POP, and was considering it for a family vacation (as this trip was just me), but quite a few things stopped me from wanting to stay there again. I arrived around midnight on Tuesday and I was happy with my room location, Building 4, 4th floor, non-preferred side. I had requested the ground floor, but I was okay with the 4th floor as well.
When I got to the room there were mosquitos everywhere, easily 30 of them. I assumed it was because of the heavy rain that had just finished. I was tired and just wanted to get to bed. The room it's self really was showing signs of age, including multiple areas in the bathroom where the wallpaper was pealing and the grout was disgusting. I know they are undergoing a reno, but I am paying the same to stay in a non-renoed room, standards should be kept up! We stayed at Coronado a while ago and the grout was discolored, but this grout looked like it hadn't been cleaned. Needless to say I didn't complain at that time, looking back I should have spoke up right away, but hindsight is 20/20.
The next morning I was up and out of the room EARLY and didn't return for the day. When I came back around 2am (after EMH) I was dead tired. I started to get into bed and found that the pillows were covered with dead mosquitos as well as the others that were still flying around. At 2am was not when I wanted to deal with this, and I am sad to say that I brushed them off and went to bed. In addition to the dead bugs on the the bed, there were dead bugs on the vanity and in the sink. Smeared across the ceiling and the curtains. The inside curtains were covered in a combination of dead and live mosquitos that were smeared into the fabric. My fault again for not speaking up, I know, but this was a short trip and I was trying to just "put up with it".
The next day I had lunch with friends, many of who were staying at POP as well, and none of them had the same issues as I had. This was the night of the DIS Epcot party so I was late getting in again. But again there were dead and live mosquitos everywhere. The worst was when I was washing my face and I grabbed the towel to dry my face and there was a dead mosquito on the towel. I decided to sleep and get up and go talk to a manager. At 6am I headed up to talk to a manager, and as a former general manager I know that the number 1 thing to do is to apologize to the customer. Let me just say he did not apologize, instead he blamed it on me, the construction, the weather, it's Florida, anything but saying I'm sorry. He said I must me leaving the door open... I told him I was closing it as fast as humanly possible. When I told him that he literally rolled his eyes at me.
He gave me one of two options. He could send pest control in to vacuum up the dead bugs or he could move me to another room. I took the new room since he did not plan on cleaning the ceiling or the curtains. I ask if there was anyway there was a room available now or I could stay in the current one until noon-1pm because I had been out late the last two nights and needed a rest before another long night. The answer was no. I had to be out by 11am in order to be moved to another room and he couldn't tell me when that would be. I headed back to the room and slept as long as I could before having to get up and pack up my bags.
I got my room email at around 5pm that evening but didn't get back to the room until around 1:45am after the Epcot party. I was in the same building just two floors down. The bug problem was not there thankfully. In fact I had no issues with ANY mosqitos in the room at all. But I again had issues that I don't think is very Disney like. First the refrigerator was loud, like incredibly loud. I couldn't hear the TV over it loud. I was only there for one more night after this so I felt I could deal with it. Secondly, the second night the AC didn't work correctly and I was FREEZING. I ended up taking the blankets off the second bed in the room to try and get warm. Lastly, I didn't get any new toiletries with housekeeping the one day I had it there. They didn't have a problem with taking the tip though.
I know that a lot of these things are small, but they really did equate to a subpar stay at POP. I have stayed at many Disney resorts and have never had the issues that I had a POP.
I'd gladly forgo getting a new mug each time, if I could use old ones.
