Several ideas come to mind...
One, Pricing varies quite dramatically from season to season - especially if you look at all the discounts Disney offers. Also, travel expenses in how you get TO vary considerably by dates and method. When we fly, I can save hundreds often by tweaking our departure by as little as a day- and even if I look among different airlines. If you live near mulitple airports, that's another consideration. MCO is the main airport to Orlando and that's the only one that has ME - but Sanford airport is not far away - and some discount carries fly to Sanford.
Second, a money saving method I've used in the past was to stay just one night at AKL. I prefer to do it on our last night, and spend the last full day mostly enjoying the resort.Heck, if you go that route - you might even want to spring for club level - which will give you 3/4 your food, and all your beer and wine. (so long as you stay near the resort) (or maybe two nights depending on your budget. Multi resort stays do require a little extra planning, but it's not that difficult to chage hotels. Disney will even transfer your luggage ! Free - except for a tip to bell services.)
The mods have several new exciting themed rooms. POR has new Princess rooms, and CBR has pirate themed rooms. In both cases, the rooms they upgraded are in one of the further buildings. So that's the trade off. But the theming is really fun!
The mods themselves have much going for them! You get an in-room fridge, coffeemaker, a great pool, a good sized room, most have big food courts, nice theming, and a TS option. You also get limited room service as an option. The downside of the mods is that it takes a little longer both to get around them by foot and by bus. Oh - also important - CSR has queen sized beds, the rest of mods and values have 'double' sized beds. Only deluxes and CSR have queen sized beds.
Of the values, ASMo has the best outdoor theming, but the interior of the rooms have not been updated- where the other room interiors are newer. (either newer or renovated more recently.) If you pick an All Star, I suggest ASMu. It's in the middle of the three, which means you can EASILY walk to the other two bus stops, food courts, and pools. IF you are going in thenext four months though it may well be too cold to swim no matter.
In the cooler months, resorts Like AKL and WL have the advantage because the pools are hugged by the buildings. (wind protection, and a short walk when you get out of pool.) Also, the mods and deluxes have a hot tub - we can go in the hot tub in almost any weather - or you cna hop betweenthe pool/hot tub. The values have no hot tub, and no water slide. The mods have some excellent pools. The values also lack an in-room coffeemaker, and the rooms are smaller. All values have great food courts, all are super clean.
Among the values one of favorites is Pop. Pop has rather good busing - we've stayed several times and rarely had to wait more than afew minutes for any bus at any time of day -
except leaving parks at closing. At park closing all the bus waits can be a little long, esp during busy weeks, but Pop is among the longest. (along with CBR and POR). For me, I still think the Pop buses ar quite great - they are speedy getting TO the parks and fairly good for mid-day breaks. Pop is our favorite value resort.
I think Pop has some fun theming. Then again, the All-Stars are kind of fun to explore, as you get three times the resort. When we stay at the values though we tend to to spend most of our time inthe parks. There are no TS places to dine at the values. In cold weather- if you have regular
DDP - you have to go to apark, DTD or a resort to use your TS credits.
Another way we ALWAYS tweak our vacations is inthe duration. If you shorten your trip by one day - you can often trim the costs quite a bit. It depends how much it costs you to get TO WDW though. Rooms are far from the only way to tweak costs: food is another big consideration, skipping park hopping and the water park option. Arriving early on arrival day and staying late on departure day are another way to get more for about the same price (though soemtimes red eye flughts are cheapest).
One more option is the Dolphin. It's located right in the heart of WDW, and rooms can often be had for around $150. You'll need a car (or take taxi), and no DDP- but the resort is on par with the deluxe resorts. The multiple pools are excellent. The dining is excellent.
Still one more option that LOTS of folks like is staying offsite. Some options are very inexpensive. As I said - you can play around with the idea of multiple resorts: staying partly off and partly onsite. Thre are several hotels in DTD that share some onsite perks, there are also several other very nice places rather close to WDW. Caribe Royale is quite nice, and has an awesome pool! I think I've seen specials around $125 there. Another really pretty resort is the Gaylord. In winter, it has it's own ICE! attraction. It also has pretty rooms, nice dining, and a great pool. I think they also have some moderate priced deals. Still other folks prefer to stay in condos. They can be quite nice and some are quite inexpensive - but some can be a drive to WDW. You also might end up cooking in a condo.
If you have any kind of hotel points at any chains you could cash those in. Most resort chains have hotels in the area.
