Arrival and Lunch at Flame Tree BBQ!
We were so excited we were finally here! We had seen Pop Century once before and thought it was a really cute looking resort. I snapped a great picture on the way in.
Since we were sitting only a couple rows back in the bus, we were able to get off pretty quickly and didn’t have to wait to grab our carry on bag since Chris was holding it. We walked straight into the lobby, where we didn’t have to check in! The lines weren’t too long, but I was still glad to not have to even bother with stopping!
Side note:
I should say right now that this is one of the little details that we just absolutely love about Disney and make the price tag of a Disney vacation worth it to us. I’ll have a couple of these details scattered throughout here because I’m a nerd like that. DH is really into customer service and learning about how businesses train their employees and generally improve to provide a better customer experience, so he’s super into the behind the scenes stuff of Disney. I’m just really impressed by how Disney has streamlined the process so much that you can arrive and head straight to your room.
Anyways, we were cruising past lines and checking out the theming in the lobby. Unfortunately, we were cruising so fast that we didn’t take any pictures. Oops... Anyways, the lobby was super cute and we really liked seeing the different decades! That being said we headed straight out the backdoor on our way to our room. I actually did manage to get a couple shots here!
We quickly found our room in building 10. DH didn’t realize that value resort rooms opened to the outside, but he didn’t care. At exactly 11:00, I scanned my magic band and... voila! Welcome to Room 343!
Uhh... which I also forgot to take any pictures of... except these two.
Ok, we were in a hurry to get to the parks, so don’t judge me! Anyways, we had your basic room with two double beds. We didn’t get the king bed we requested, but that was ok. My main priority was that we were close to the buses, and we definitely were. Our room was overlooking a small playground and the sidewalk next to it lead directly to the bus stop.
The room seemed nice and was certainly clean. We were both a little surprised that there wasn’t more theming. There was nothing wrong with it, but I guess I was thinking maybe the theming would be more similar to Art of Animation? I don’t know, I think I just expected a little more Disney. But again, nothing wrong with it at all.
After dropping our bags and taking a restroom break (P.S. why does these toilets flush with the force a great typhoon?), we were out the door and on our way to the bus stop!
We made the short walk to our bus stop and found only about 10 other people waiting at the Animal Kingdom stop. I was a little concerned that the mounted screens didn’t show an incoming bus time for Animal Kingdom, but after less than five minutes a bus pulled up. So far, A+ on resort and transportation!
On the ride over, DH said that he was pretty hungry and wanted to get lunch as soon as we got inside, which was fine with me. The bus ride wasn’t too long and we were quickly there and disembarking.
Side note 2: Here’s another little thing I love- they have the bus stops perfectly measured out to have the bus pull up and stop and then be able to turn and take off without ever having to back up and waste any time. That one makes me sound really nerdy, but it’s just impressive!
We hoofed it into the park and I headed towards bag check while DH went through the guests without bags line. While in the bag line, I noticed the woman across the table from me had some really cute sunglasses on. I told her I liked them and quickly discovered she didn’t speak a word of English. With some pointing at my own sunglasses and then gesturing at hers, I got the point across though!
Once I reconnected with DH, we got in line to scan our magic bands. The crowds looked a little rough here, but weren’t terrible.
I snapped two quick pictures on our way in.
And then it was time for lunch at a new (to us) restaurant- Flame Tree Barbeque! I’d read a lot of good reviews of this restaurant and DH likes BBQ, so I figured we’d give it a try. It also looked like it had some really large samplers that we could split with one quick service meal, thereby stretching our dining plan out further.
We decided to split the ribs, chicken, and pulled pork sampler ($19.99), which came with beans, coleslaw, and jalapeno cornbread. We also got a side of fries ($3.29 which we used a snack credit for) and a Coke ($3.29, which was included as part of our quick service meal). We almost ran into a problem when I scanned my magic band and my pin number was not what I thought it was! I tried two different options and neither worked! I was about to panic when DH suggested one more and that did the trick!
We took our food and sat down.
Everything was delicious! I liked the ribs the most as far as the meats went, but they were all good. The jalapeno cornbread was EXCELLENT! I don’t really like jalapeno, but this was really good! I was very glad we picked this as our first quick service option of the trip. It was plenty of food for us to split and an excellent value for one quick service credit. We also really enjoyed the outdoor seating which was very shaded.
Up next, we kick off our Animal Kingdom day right!