A Walt Disney World guest is speaking out after an unexpected experience at Disney’s Pop Century Resort, claiming a cast member mistakenly removed all of their personal belongings from their hotel room.
Disney’s Pop Century Resort, located at Walt Disney World Resort in Florida, celebrates the iconic trends, fashions, and fads of the 20th century. Known for its bold, larger-than-life decor, the resort highlights pop culture from the 1950s through the 1990s, with giant yo-yos, Rubik’s cubes, and record players adorning the property.
However, the resort recently became the center of controversy when a guest returned to their room on check out day only to find it completely emptied.
The Incident and Disney’s Response
According to a detailed account shared on Reddit, the guest and their family left their hotel room to enjoy breakfast at Chef Mickey’s at Disney’s Contemporary Resort before their scheduled check out. When they returned at 10 a.m. — an hour before the official check out time — their belongings were gone.
“We get back to our room around 10 a.m. to start packing and use the app to unlock our door and step in only to find a member of the housekeeping staff putting the finishing touches on a COMPLETELY CLEAN AND EMPTY ROOM,” they wrote. “That’s right, as in ALL OF OUR STUFF IS GONE from the room.”
When they questioned housekeeping, they learned a cast member had found the room empty during a final inspection. Checking their My Disney Experience app, the guest discovered they had been marked as checked out — a process they hadn’t initiated.
More than 30 minutes later, a manager arrived with their luggage. “She apologizes profusely and explains that since the system for some unexplainable reason showed that we were checked out, the cleaning and room changeover process began,” the guest wrote. “She then says a new staff member in training breached protocol by taking the belongings that were left out and throwing them all in the suitcase and then taking it to lost and found.”
The confusion deepened when a second manager explained the app’s geolocation services automatically check out guests if they move far enough from the resort on their departure day.
“My jaw had hit the floor at this point and while I tried to remain cordial during this whole ordeal I just looked at him and said, ‘That’s insane. You realize how insane that is right? I should be the one initiating the checkout, not the app behind my back,'” the guest wrote. “He looked flustered and reiterated that’s just how it works but that he would share that feedback with his superiors. I could tell he agreed with me though. For crying out loud, I was still on property! The idea that the app is programmed to make that checkout decision FOR YOU and WITHOUT YOUR CONSENT simply based on location is just bewildering.”
Other Disney Resort Guests Face Similar Issues
For the inconvenience, the guest was offered $250 in compensation, though they noted some of their items were never recovered.
“Nothing truly valuable was in our room to begin with but still we were missing a handful of small to intermediate priced items, the most valuable of them being a kid’s air mattress that our son sleeps on when we travel that we probably paid between $60-$80 for,” they wrote. “Throw in some missing phone chargers, a tote bag, and a handful of my wife’s hygiene items (body wash, lotion, moisturizer, makeup, etc.) and we’re well over $100 worth in missing items, maybe even pushing $150.”
Several Disney resort guests responded to the post, sharing similar experiences.
“Didn’t have anything thrown out but I was there last week and we were at the park around 8 a.m. and when I went to go check out on the app because I hadn’t yet (all our stuff was in the car already) it said we were already checked out,” one user wrote. “I thought it was odd, never thought about it until I saw your post.”
Another guest who stayed at Disney’s Riviera Resort added: “This happened to me. Went to a park before check out. Came back 30 minutes before checkout and housekeeping was already in there cleaning. Luckily, we had put most of our personal belongings in our car, but we did leave some miscellaneous items like swimsuits, food, sunscreen etc. in the room. They had taken those. Housekeeper was not friendly. We got the housekeeping manager and eventually the housekeeper came back with most of our stuff. The manager did not really seem to care. It was a very intrusive and frustrating experience.”
A similar incident occurred at Disney’s Beach Club Resort, where a guest experienced a split stay between Beach and Grand. “On the day we were supposed to switch we rope dropped HS. My child was on a med that needed refrigeration so we left all refrigerated items plus a few other bags in the room. My husband went back to retrieve the items and was going to drive them over to Grand to check them with bell services. He came back to our room empty.”
Two hours later, they found the medicine — after digging through the garbage. “We were financially compensated but no one seemed to care that this had happened to us,” they wrote. “Some of our stuff including merch was never found. Just a terrible experience. We are DVC and have stayed 6 times at various resorts since that stay and fortunately have not encountered a similar situation again.”
Have you ever been automatically checked out of your Disney resort?
This situation would cause me to rant! And I am not usually prone to that. Actually, we are going to Pop in April and I am going to mention to the front desk that I will throw a temper tantrum is I am checked out automatically before 11 am… Actually we often ask for late check out and that sounds like an even better idea.
If everyone started telling the front desk that they will check out in person so as not to lose their property to this kind of thing, Disney would probably get the message. Nice to know so we can make a plan to thwart the poccibility.
possibility… interesting that I could not find a way to correct my error. Is there not way to edit one’s own message?