Resort Day- Wednesday, February 18, 2026

      We were all moving a little slower today for various reasons, so it was a good thing that we planned this to be a slower day in general.  Scott slept okay last night, but had trouble getting in and out of bed.  He's also a side sleeper and usually changes sides often, but he had to make do sleeping only on his right last night because of his ribs.  Today, he's still got the band aid on his face but the bruising underneath is showing.  His left pinky is swollen, but doesn't hurt that much.  Abby says her head still hurts too.

    When we were finally up, Julie, Scott and Emma went to what Julie has been dreaming and talking about for weeks now-- breakfast outside.  We got Disney breakfasts at the hotel.  Scott had Mickey waffles, potato barrels (i.e., tater tots or hash browns) eggs, bacon and sausage.  Abby got an Uncrustable peanut butter and jelly sandwich (which has become her default standby this trip) and some potato barrels.  Julie got a bacon, egg and cheese bagel.  We rearranged the chairs at the table so that Jule could be sitting and looking at sunshine in the palm trees when she was eating.  We didn't note the temperature, but it was very comfortable outside in short sleeves.

     Months ago when we were starting to book this trip, we reserved two nights at the Pop Century Resort.  Later, we decided to add on more Disney days, we found that Pop Century was completely booked.  Now we see the crowds that are responsible for that this week.  We were able to book two more nights at the All-Star Movies Resort, which is where we have been the last two nights.  We knew that sometime today we would be checking out of the first hotel and into the next, so a portion of our morning was spent packing things back up and moving them to the car.  

    Disney's Pop Century Resort is a value hotel like the All-Star resorts that we came from.  Because of that, it has a very similar layout and the room we have tonight is almost the same as last night.  It features a double bed and a Murphy bed that, when closed, also acts as a table.  We've never stayed at Pop Century before, but we were at its sister resort, the Art of Animation, last February.  Julie has always said that Pop Century looked "dookie" but Emma and Scott had toured around it last year and convinced her it wasn't so bad.  Each of the areas is themed to a different decade of the late 20th Century-- the 1950s, the 1960s, the 70s, 80s and 90s. More on that later.

     We knew our room wouldn't be ready until the afternoon, but we decided to drive the car and park it at Pop Century and go off and do some resort hopping via Disney transportation.  Pop Century is on the Skyliner route, which is the gondola ride that can take you to several other resorts, Epcot, and Hollywood Studios.  The buses don't go between resorts, but they do connect all the resorts to the four parks, so if you want to go from resort to resort, you can do it by connecting at a park.  The Skyliner is almost an attraction itself, and we rode it to Hollywood Studios.  From there we caught a bus to Fort Wilderness.

     Fort Wilderness is the campground that has been at Disney World since its beginning, but none of us had been there before.  Julie listed three things that we wanted to do there: rent a golf cart, get lunch, and see the horses.

    The golf carts are available for campers to rent because Fort Wilderness is such a large, sprawling property.  We thought it would be fun if we could rent one for an hour or two and explore around the campsites.  Unfortunately, when we got there we learned that only registered campers can rent the vehicles, so we had to remove that from our to do list.  Because Fort Wilderness is so large, there are also buses that regularly run from one end to the other, making several stops in between as they go.  We got on one of these and went to the other end of the campground.

     We found lunch at Trail's End Restaurant.  Scott got a pulled pork sandwich, while Emma and Julie shared a Settlement Skillet, which featured fried chicken, pulled pork, and ribs along with several sides.  Abby got an Uncrustable again.  Scott also had a Blue Moon.  He's not having a beer at each hotel today like he has other years, but since he had never had one here before, he wanted to check it off of his all time list.  Nearby was a playground that Abby wanted to play at, so we let her do that while we took turns going to browse in the Settlement Trading Post.  By now, when the sun was out, it was getting quite warm, in the low 80s.

     Before leaving, we went to see the horses too.  There are two locations for the Tri-Circle D Ranch, and both are here at Fort Wilderness.  We saw one as we arrived on the first bus, and it looked like people were getting ready for a trail ride.  The larger location was where near where we had lunch, so we went there before we left.  It's at this location where the Disney horses are kept.  After they are done doing things like pulling Cinderella's carriage, they are stabled here each night.  It's free to go in to look around the front of the building, where there are several horses saying hello.  Touching them is not allowed, though, because one "has a tendency to mistake human fingers for carrots," or so we were told.  There are many pictures of Walt with horses.  There is also a large calliope decorated with dragons that was once used at Disneyland.  The biggest attraction for us here were the pony rides.  Abby really wanted to ride one.  She was taken around the track on a brown pony named Dory who had a beautifully braided mane and tail.  Abby learned that Dory was six years old, just like her.  Once she was sitting on the pony, Abby started to get a little nervous, but the cast member who was working with her was very good.  Abby kept talking all the way around the short track, and once she had finished she asked to go again, so we "ponied up" the extra money and let her.

     From Fort Wilderness, we took a short bus ride to the Magic Kingdom where we transferred to a bus to Pop Century.  On the ride back, we found that our room was ready.  We stopped at the car and took everything right in.   We're in the 60s section, so our room is decorated in "Mid century modern," which is not Julie's favorite style (to put it mildly).  Julie paid a little extra for a "premium room" here.  The room is basically the same as any of the other value resort rooms on the inside, but its location makes it premium.  We are on the first floor and the pool is right outside the door.   This pool is the "Hippy Dippy Pool," in the middle of the '60s section.  Baloo and Mowgli statues tower over the area because The Jungle Book came out in 1967.  A giant can of Playdoh stands opposite them.  The colors are all day-glo and with giant flowers and peace signs on the balconies.   Large words like "Peace, Love, Happiness" and "Can You Dig It" are around the roofline. 

     Of course Abby was anxious to go swimming.  Mom and Dad joined her while Emma rested.   The pool water itself was very warm and fun to be in.  Mom and Abby were in the pool for over an hour.  When Abby came in, she wanted to turn all the lights off and take a nap.  Since Emma was still resting, we let them, though we had to revise our plans for dinner.  None of this was a surprise.  Scott got a Yuengling lager from the pool bar because he didn't think that he had ever had a beer at Pop Century before.  He got Julie a "Lava Smoothie" which was a non-alcoholic treat with piña colada and raspberry flavors while we were waiting.

     We were planning on going to the Coronado Springs resort where Julie and Emma could split a flight of sangria and Scott could get the Buffalo chicken sandwich that is only served there.  But that probably needed us to be there at 4:30 and the two girls slept way past 5:00.  Besides, Coronado Springs is out a ways and isn't really connected to much else.  

     We revised the plans and decided to go to the monorail and go to the resorts along it.  We got on a bus to the Magic Kingdom, then we rode the monorail two-thirds of the way around to the Polynesian Village resort.  It's a favorite of Julie's.  Even though we've never stayed there as a couple, her family stayed there for one night when she was younger.  We needed to find dinner.  The 'Ohana restaurant is very popular, but also requires reservations.  We knew from several YouTubers that we watch that you can get food in the bar next door called the Tambu Lounge and you don't need reservations.  We wanted to sample the famous 'Ohana noodles because the YouTubers have raved about them so much they've taken on an almost legendary status.  So we did get a table there.  Julie got a non-alcoholic drink called a Keiki Lemonade, and she quickly said it was the "best drink ever!" partly because of the pineapple flavor that was in it too.   Emma got aPiña CoLAVA which seemed to be the alcoholic version of the smoothie that Julie had earlier in the afternoon.  It came with an edible flower on top.  Scott had a Kona Longboard lager that he has gotten here before, and even Abby got a Shirley Temple that she liked.  For food, we shared three different plates of the "lounge bites."  First, we ordered the 'Ohana noodles which were the reason we came.  They were okay, but not as amazing as we thought.  Emma said it best when she called them "understated."  We had some honey-coriander chicken wings which were sticky and small.  We also had the potstickers, which are dumplings with pork and vegetables, and we decided were the best of the three.  The food was fine, but very expensive and we all agreed that we wouldn't need to come back to get it again. 

     Julie didn't want to leave the Polynesian without having her favorite Dole whip, so we went down and outside for some.  She got a big bowl of the pineapple Dole whip, and got Abby a vanilla swirl.  Abby didn't care for the hints of pineapple in it, but ate about half of the large bowl anyway.   We shopped a little at the Polynesian before we left, of course.

     From the Polynesian, we hopped back on the monorail and went to the Contemporary Resort, where we knew there were a few more nice places to shop.  Abby bought a set of jewelry themed to Sleeping Beauty so she could put it in the jewelry box she bought a few days ago.

     One thought we had was to stay and watch the Magic Kingdom fireworks at either the Polynesian or the Contemporary where we knew that there were pretty good views of them.  However, doing that would mean that we'd still have to circle back to the Magic Kingdom and fight the crowds for a bus back to our hotel at Pop Century.  We decided that we didn't really want that and wanted to get an early start tomorrow anyway.  Instead, we caught a bus at the Contemporary that took us to Hollywood Studios.  From there, we hopped on the Skyliner for a relaxing ride back to the hotel.  Scott stopped in the lobby there to buy some pins for the collection in the living room.  Then we called it a night in order to rest for a busy day tomorrow.