We finally arrived at our resort: The Pop Century. Looking at pictures of it online, I wasn't really thrilled and expected something very cheesy. From what I had seen, it looked like someone threw up onto a hotel, and the only thing missing were a bunch of pink flamingos. To my surprise though, it was immediately a fun place to be. The Resort is separated into 4 distinct areas: the 1950s, 60s, 70s, 80s, and the 1990s.

Once off the Magical Express, we headed to the lobby to do the check-in process.



The girl checking us in handed us maps of the park, instructions about the check-out process, and two giant yellow buttons (that we would never take off for the next few days) that said "1st VISIT" in big letters.

The cool thing about the lobby is that it is decked out in memorabilia from the 1950s through the 1990s. The Pop Century Resort is supposed to be a celebration of nostalgia, and you're CONSTANTLY surrounded by something calling back to the second half of the 20th-century. Toys, gadgets, music, movies, fads, and catch phrases are littered everywhere in order to make this place prime real estate for pop culture. There was never a dull moment, and never a time where I didn't have something interesting to look at while we were there.



We headed straight to our room in order to see where we would be staying.

(from Wikipedia):
"Each themed area of the Resort features motel-style buildings adorned in gigantic (3 meters+) phrases and iconography of the particular decade being represented. The resort has 2,880 rooms in ten separate buildings, three pool areas, and one central area that houses the front desk, gift shop, arcade and food court."



Our room was located in the 1950s area, so onward we went...

Walking to our room we passed a giant-sized Lady (from Lady and the Tramp) and Tramp - in front of the opposing building. Just so you know, Lady and the Tramp came out in 1955, hence the reason why those characters are in this section of the hotel.





As we passed Lady and the Tramp, we entered a bowling alley themed swimming pool area(complete with lanes, giant shoe racks, and a bowling ball rack).











At the end of the pool was an old diner table Jukebox, which hides an elevator behind it that we had to take in order to get up to our room.



There were also giant bowling pins housing the staircases on the sides of the buildings in our area.



The view from our room:



It's 5:30 or so at this point. We're checked in to our room and ready to head to the food court!



When we got to the food court, I was ready for a massive sea of people (I had read horror stories online about it). Good thing we were there during a non-busy week. I hate food courts, and I hate crowds of people even more. We decided to get a quick dinner, and then head off to the Magic Kingdom for the rest of the night.

The LIFESAVER of this resort was that they had a hard plastic cup that you could buy for $12. After that, you had unlimited refills for the duration of the stay. We decided to buy one, share it, and continue to use it until the paint peeled off the sides (well, not quite, but it was well worth it). It was here that we noticed that we were no longer in California. Dinner for $6? 6% state tax? We were so used to the near 10% tax in Los Angeles that it was a godsend.

Ok, ok, enough about the Resort. Let's go to The Magic Kingdom!