July 29 to Aug 14 Disney World trip report, primarily for Canadians

[Reepicheep]

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ROOM COMPARISON: ART OF ANIMATION VS ALL-STAR SPORTS

On this trip, we started out at Art of Animation for six days, followed by ten days at All-Star Sports. I thought I'd do a post comparing the two rooms. Both rooms were regular (i.e., non-suite) rooms.

I assume the Disboards forum allows links to youtube videos which give room tours, if the reviewer isn't affiliated with a travel agent. So, I'll provide links to two videos below (if I'm breaking a Disboard rule, then I imagine the links will disappear from my post). You may find it useful to refer to the videos to confirm the comments I will be making about the rooms.

Disney's Art of Animation Room Tour | Little Mermaid Standard Room

Disney's All-Star Sports Resort Room Tour

One minor interesting point: Art of Animation has a painting of Prince Eric and his dog on the wall, with the painting deliberately attached to the wall at an angle. Within minutes of entering the room, all three of us independently tried to straighten the painting, which of course can't be done. While it may be a trivial thing to complain about, the crookedness of the painting was kind of annoying, although I imagine not all guests would think that.

ROOM SIZE: The Art of Animation (from now on, Animation) room has a small round table at the room entrance which All-Star Sports (from now on, Sports) lacks. This additional piece of furniture implies that the Animation room is slightly larger. The Unofficial Guide to Disney World confirms this, with the Animation room having an area of 277 square feet vs 260 square feet for Sports (rooms at all three All-Star resorts and Pop Century are 260 square feet and have similar floor plans). Advantage Animation for room size.

MIRRORS: I didn't notice this myself, but my wife and daughter noticed that Animation has an extra mirror above the small table. They said this helped when multiple people are getting ready in the morning (we must all look our best when meeting Mickey and his friends). Advantage Animation for mirrors.

INTERNAL DOORS: Animation has a curtain separating the sink from the sleeping area, while Sports has a much superior sliding barn door. Likewise, the Animation shower/bathtub has a shower curtain, while Sports has sliding doors. Advantage Sports for doors.

STORAGE SPACE: Animation has a dresser which appears to contain six drawers, but three of the drawers are faux and hide the fridge. Both rooms have three drawers, but the ones at Sports are wider by an inch or two. The other half of the dresser at Sports contains the room safe and two additional shelves which contain two extra pillows. Removing the pillows would create two storage areas which are each roughly equivalent to a drawer. Animation has four coat hooks, while Sports has a mini closet with additional shelves for storage. Sports has many more shelves by the sink than does Animation. Rather than a small table, Sports has a narrow piece of furniture with the fridge at the bottom, coffee maker and supplies in the middle, and a couple of small shelves at the top. In terms of storage, a landslide victory for Sports.

MURPHY BED: I was a bit leery of the Murphy bed, but my fears were totally unfounded. It can easily be raised and lowered with one hand. When raised, the room seems to open up, and a table much larger than the small table at Animation magically appears. I slept on the bed, and there is no difference when comparing it to the regular bed. Game, set, and match to Sports for the Murphy bed.

The unanimous opinion of my family is that the All-Star Sports room is vastly superior to the Art of Animation room.

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In my next post, I'll give my opinion on regular rooms vs suites, standard rooms vs preferred rooms, and give my final opinion on which resort is better over-all.

 

[kuhltiffany]

I’m curious to see what you think. We’ve done regular rooms at Sports, or a family suite at ASMU in the past. Our latest stay was split between POP and a Cars Suite at AOA.

 

[Reepicheep]

Sorry for the long delay in posting this next installment of my trip report. Those pesky real-life responsibilities are keeping my leisure time to a minimum.

In this post, I'll be talking a bit about the layout of the All-Star resorts, so those of you who aren't familiar with the resorts may wish to refer to the following map:

https://vipdisneytravel.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Disneys_All-Star_Resorts_80010402a.pdf


THE MOVE FROM ART OF ANIMATION TO ALL-STAR SPORTS

Changing resorts at Disney World during a split stay has always been a painless experience for us: on checkout day, drop off the luggage at bag services, tell them where to move the luggage to, and when we go to the 2nd resort at the end of the day, pick up the luggage at bag services.

My daughter, who was working at Disney World for the summer, made the reservation at All-Star Sports. Curiously, a preferred room (i.e., closer to the lobby) was less expensive for her than a standard room. Because of room availability, she had to book a total of three back-to-back stays (first, in a preferred room, then 2 days in a standard, then back to a preferred). As expected, at check-in they assigned us a preferred room for the entire ten-day stay, so we didn't have to pack up and change rooms at any point.

Disney castmembers have always been extremely pleasant when I've checked into a resort. On this occasion (and on two previous trips), it was one of my daughters who was checking in. It is my observation that the castmembers are even more friendly with my daughters than with me, I assume because the castmembers felt a comradery with my daughters. On this occasion, at the conclusion of the check-in process, the castmember gave my daughter a nice set of Disney luggage tags, which was a nice bit of Disney Magic.

To get to our room, we headed south towards the football field, then at the first building turned east and walked to the end of the wing, which put our room adjacent to the road which passes the resort. This meant we had only a one minute walk to the park buses, which was very convenient. On our previous stay at Sports, our room overlooked the tennis court which contains statues of Donald and his nephews, which made the room feel more "Disney". I thought I'd be disappointed walking past the football field all the time, but it was actually very pleasent, especailly later in the day when there were usually parents with young kids, and on occasion teenagers, playing on the field. I've seen youtube videos which show three cheerleader squads simultaneously practicing their routines on the field, so if our stay had occurred during a cheerleading competition, my opinion would likely be different.

The walk to our room took us past the free marshmallow roasting area, which we took advantage of on three evenings.

I've already given a detailed review of our room in my previous post.


PREFERRED ROOMS VS STANDARD ROOMS AT VALUE RESORTS

The three All-Star Resorts and Pop Century offer what they call a preferred room at an additional cost of around $25/night. The only advantage to the preferred room is that it is usually closer to the hotel lobby/food court. I would argue that this additional cost is NOT worh it for the following reasons:

(1) we typically stay at Disney World for 14 days; I'd rather spend $350 on food or merchandise, than have a shorter walk to the room. Besides, we typically put in around 20k steps when we spend a day in a park(s). Making this 21k steps by staying in a standard room is no biggie, although I concede that at the end of a long day a shorter walk would be much appreciated.

(2) room location is a bit of a crap shoot; I'm sure the closest standard rooms are pretty well the same distance to the lobby as the farthest preferred room.

(3) on a previous trip, I booked a standard All-Star Sports room for part of our stay, but received a free upgrade to a preferred room.

(4) there may be advantages to a standard room; for example, on our first trip way back in 2019, we stayed for 16 days in a standard All-Star Movies room, which turned out to be at the far north end of the resort (in the Mighty Ducks section). This room had several advantages over a preferred room: we were beside a secondary pool which was always empty or near empty; there was a laundry room right there; most importantly, I realized after a couple of days that the walk to the All-Star Music lobby was actually half the distance of the walk to the All-Star Movies lobby. This meant that it was actually more convenient to go to Music for meals, to catch a bus at Music to go to the parks, and when returning to Movies from a park we could catch wither a Music or a Movie bus, which ever arrived first.


SUITES VS REGULAR ROOMS AT THE VALUE RESORTS

I must admit that, with two adult daughters, a 270 square foot room is a bit cramped, although having a Murphy bed in the room alleviates this to an extent. I've never stayed in a suite at either Music or Animation, but it appears that the cost of two regular rooms is usually less than the cost of a suite. So, for my family of four, if we ever decide we need more room and are staying at a value resort, I think I would book two regular rooms (one for my adult daughters and one for my wife and I) rather than a suite.


FINAL CONCLUSIONS REGARDING ROOMS AT ALL FIVE VALUE RESORTS

A regular (i.e., non-suite) room with a Murphy bed is definitely superior to a similar room with a non-Murphy bed (currently, I believe Sports, Music, and Pop Century all have Murphy beds). Regular rooms at all five value resorts are all pretty well the same size, with Animation being larger by 17 square feet, although this advantage is lost because of a lack of a Murphy bed. The outdoor decor at the resorts differs widely between the five resorts, but I personally do not think that the decor at (say) Animation justifies the much higher cost at (say) Sports. So, for my family, if we are staying at a value resort, it will be at All-Star Sports.

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My next installment will get to the good stuff: what were the four parks like?