Walt Disney World Resort Review: All-Star Movies Resort
All-Star Movies will always hold a special place in my heart. It is the first on property resort we stayed at as a family. Seeing the kids faces light up as we walked into the lobby, and then their smiles taking up their entire face when they saw the larger than life statues of their favorite characters…priceless.
As a family, we have stayed at All-Star Movies nearly as many times as all other resorts combined at this stage in our Disney travels. So it holds a special place in our heart, and this will likely be a biased review because of that.
So with all that said, let’s talk about All-Star Movies.
Overview
All-Star Movies, and all the All-Star resorts, are the cheapest resorts on Disney property. They give you an opportunity to stay within the Disney bubble, have Disney transportation, allow you to enjoy larger than life characters from some of your favorite Disney movies, and give you a modern room with a few Disney touches.
This resort is ideal for anyone that fall into one of a few categories.
1) You are looking to go to Disney on a budget. You can generally find a great deal on this resort. With it being in the value category, this is the top reason this resort is booked, and why we have stayed here so many times in our Disney travels.
2) If you aren’t planning on staying at your resort outside of sleeping, this is a perfect place. You don’t need anything fancy except a bed. You don’t need too much room. You don’t need an abundance of restaurant choices, activities around the resort, or extra amenities.
3) You will be over at Disney Wide World of Sports for an event, and you want to stay at the closest on property accommodations.
What We Love
You cannot beat the price of All-Star Movies. It is, and has always been, the top reason we have chosen to come and stay at this resort. When Disney has a slower season, I’ve seen rooms here for as little as $99/night. I don’t know if we will see those rates anymore, but it will always be the cheapest room on property.
Some people would argue they can get a better deal on an off-property hotel, or a non-Disney on property hotel. And, with the benefit of free parking going away, it does reduce some of the cost savings compared to staying off property and driving to the parks. However, there is no denying that having reliable Disney transportation, versus driving ourselves or relying on inconsistent non-Disney hotels, is a huge perk that comes with this resort. We’ve stayed off property, and driving to and from the parks after a long day, is not what I enjoy doing. Standing and waiting on a hotel bus, that maybe comes to the parks once an hour, and can’t use the same Disney routes…also not fun. We won’t even talk about the nightmare situations where those buses never show up, you have to hope an Uber or Lyft shows up, and hope that they have enough car seats. Save yourself the trouble, and just stay on property to relieve the transportation headache.
The last thing we love about All-Star Movies is the larger than life characters. The first time we stayed on property, our kids were six and four. Seeing giant characters from movies like Toy Story, Fantasia, and 101 Dalmatians was something they loved!
And a bonus thing we liked, we ended up in one of the first renovated rooms, and this was also something that really made us like the resort. No carpet, a Murphy bed to provide more room for us during the morning rush to get our the door and head to the parks, and a raised bed we could slide luggage under.
Areas of Opportunity
Value resorts are what they are. They don’t have a lot of bells and whistles, and they don’t have a lot of perks for a reason. It helps keep the cost down.
With that said, I would love to see some better transportation for these parks, maybe specifically for Disney’s Wide World of Sports Complex or Animal Kingdom. Neither of those areas have transportation options outside of buses, and all of the All-Star resorts only have buses as an option. On top of that, the All-Star resorts are some of the closest resorts to both Animal Kingdom and the Wide World of Sports complex.
Would adding another Skyliner for those areas (and maybe circling over to Disney Springs) be too cost prohibitive? Would adding that cause the price of the resorts to increase dramatically, as both the demand (and necessary price increases to recoup cost) we factored in? I don’t think so. You’d be getting people from value resorts, where there isn’t a lot of opportunities to spend money, over to Disney Springs, to the sports complex, or to one of the parks even faster. The current Skyliner already picks up from two other value resorts, why not add another over at the All-Star Movies, Music, and Sports resorts?
Overall Rating
Overall, it really is a great resort, and one that we would always recommend to anyone looking to visit Disney on a budget. While I do think staying at other resorts will give you more bang for your buck, you might not need that extra bang.
Now that our family is up to five people, our options are getting two of these rooms, or staying somewhere with a suite or 5th sleeper. So while this is a great resort for smaller families, once your kids get a little older, or once your family can’t fit in one room, it is time to move to the next resort.
Overall, a solid resort. We would always recommend it for our clients with a smaller budget, and it is a resort that we will fondly remember visiting with our small kiddos.
