Pop Century Resort

New resort takes guests on historic journey of 20th Century American Pop Culture

Do you remember when. . .

• You saved every penny of your allowance to buy the latest 45 rpm record?
  
• "Walkin' the dog" wasn't about canines, but the yo-yo craze?
  
• You solved (or at lest tried to solve) your first Rubik's Cube?
  
• Tie-dyed shirts and bell-bottoms were fashion crazes?
  
• Rock-and-roll and table-top jukeboxes?

If any of these sound familiar, you're sure to take a walk down memory lane when you stay at Disney's newest value hotel — Pop Century Resort — which opened December, 2003. You can make reservations for the "Classic Years" phase with room rates beginning at $77.00 per night, based on season.

Pop Century Resort features lodge buildings and furnishings inspired by different decades with giant pop culture icons that celebrate the decade they were introduced in, or when they gained their greatest popularity. The resort will feature two phases – the 2,880-room "Legendary Years" of the 1900s-1940s and the 2,880-room "Classic Years" of the 1950s-1990s. Each phase will feature its own check-in lobby area, food court, lounge, merchandise location and arcade. There will be three themed pools in each phase: the Classic Years will feature pools shaped like a bowling pin, a flower and a computer, while the Legendary Years' pools will be shaped like a crossword puzzle, a soda bottle and highway sign.

The resort is located adjacent to Disney's Wide World of Sports complex near Victory Way.

Classic Years Phase

Here is a chance to reminisce about the "good ol' days" and introduce your children to the games you played, the TV you watched, and the music you listed to as a child.

Huge larger-than-life pop icons like the Big Wheel, Play Doh®, Rubik's Cube®, Duncan Yo-Yo, Brunswick bowling pins, a laptop computer, cellular phones and more will tower over guests in the courtyards and form shapes for giant-feature pool areas.

Inside the lobby, collections from mood rings to 8-track tapes, surfboards to pet rocks, Superman to saddle shoes take guests down a memory lane of wall-mounted "shadow boxes" brimming the the fads, fashions, music, toys and trinkets from the 1950s, '60s, '70s, '80s and '90s.

"Disney's Pop Century Resort showcases the impact that popular culture has had on our society, so it's fitting that we're opening the 1950s through the 1990s areas of this hotel," said Al Weiss, president of Walt Disney World Resort. "Those were the years when the term 'pop culture' really grew to become a part of the American lexicon."

Guests who can't remember the be-bopping 50s or the flower-child-inspired 60s will be surprised at the number of pop culture icons that still are around today from those decades, including the timeless "Lady and the Tramp" animated feature film (released in 1955) and the artful Play-Doh modeling compound that revolutionized children's creativity in the 60s. Everything seemed to be big in the 70s and that is reflected in the colorful Big Wheel riding toy icon in the courtyard and the eight-track tapes, the popular musical medium of the decade, are at the corner of each building.

The most "puzzling" toy of the decade, the Rubik's Cube®, towers more than 40 feet tall on each building in the 80s. Look closely and you'll see that they are designed to represent different stages of the solution process. Across the courtyard, one of the original Sony Walkman models, and accompanying headphone set, anchors the building.

Closing out the century, the 1990s area pays tribute to two personal technology marvels – the cellular telephone and the computer. A giant laptop computer is the centerpiece, while early-model cellular telephones stand at each corner. In the middle of the courtyard is a computer-shaped pool, complete with a spongy keyboard that offers guests an alphabet-filled pool deck area.

The biggest problem one might encounter at Pop Century is deciding in which area you wish to stay — book early enough and you get your choice.