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If you are planning a family vacation to Disney World in Orlando, Florida you may be deciding between Disney’s Art of Animation hotel and Disney’s All Star Movies hotel. Here are our virtual tours of both hotels so you can get an idea for them yourself:
As you can see, these are both great hotels. My family has stayed at both and have loved our stays. These are great hotels to choose if you love Disney movies & characters and they are both considered “value” hotels, so you can find more affordable rates here than at other more expensive on-site Disney hotels but still get the perks of being at a Disney hotel (free magic bands, free “Magical Express” or airport shuttle, busses to the theme parks, etc.).
But if I just talk about how alike they are, it’s not going to help you decide between the two, right? So I’ll highlight some of their differences to help you pick between them:
1Room Sizes
All rooms at the All Star Movies Resort are 260 square feet non-suite rooms. Art of Animation, though, has mostly family suites that are 565 square feet. These family suites sleep up to 6 adults plus 1 child under 3 years old in a crib. They have 1 queen bed, 1 double-size table bed plus a double-size sleeper sofa, so they are incredibly ideal for larger families. Art of Animation does have standard, non-suite rooms, but even those rooms are slightly larger than the rooms at All Star Movies (they are 277 square feet).
Winner: Art of Animation
2Price
So here’s the one area where All Star Movies really wins. The rates at All Star Movies are far more affordable than most of the rooms at Art of Animation, though
You can book a room for as low as $114 a night if you book through Undercover Tourist (this is who I recommend to get a good deal on Disney hotels – and they also have good deals on Disney tickets, too).
If you book a standard size room through Undercover Tourist instead of a suite you can get it as low as $158 a night, but All Star Movies is still cheaper, and the difference can add up if you stay multiple days. And a suite from Undercover Tourist is a lot pricier – the lowest you can get it for is $357 a night through Undercover Tourist.
Winner: All Star Movies
3Movies Represented
Both hotels are divided up in sections, and each section is themed to a different Disney movie. For All Star Movies, it is a mix of live action and animated movies, and the sections are Toy Story, Fantasia, 101 Dalmatians, The Love Bug, and Mighty Ducks. For Art of Animation, the sections are Cars, Finding Nemo, The Lion King, and The Little Mermaid (by the way, the suites are available in the Cars, Finding Nemo and Lion King sections whereas the Little Mermaid section only has standard size non-suite rooms). I think the movies of Art of Animation have kind of held up better over time and there’s a chance you or your kids have never seen a few of the movies from All Star Movies, so if you are choosing your hotel based on the best movies, you’d be better off with Art of Animation.
Though here is a tip – if you really love Disney animated movies in particular and you want to save money, consider booking a preferred room at All Star Movies. If you book a preferred room, you are guaranteed a stay at either Toy Story, 101 Dalmatians or Fantasia section, which are all Disney animated movies, and you’ll be spending less than if you stayed at even a Little Mermaid standard room (you can get a preferred room at All Star Movies as low as $138 a night through Undercover Tourist versus $158 a night which is the lowest you can get for a Little Mermaid room at Art of Animation Resort through Undercover Tourist).
Winner: Art of Animation
4Food Court
One great thing about both hotels is that they both have great food courts. I like it when Disney World hotels have food courts because 1) they have a lot of variety in the food they offer, which helps if you have picky eaters in your group 2) the pricing is a lot more affordable than some of the sit-down restaurants at Walt Disney World Resort 3) you can get in and out a lot quicker than sit-down restaurants which is good when you want to get to the parks and 4) they have a lot of seating, so you don’t have to sit around waiting for your table. Both hotels have that and with good theming too that fits the hotel’s theme. The All Star Movies food court, the World Premiere Food Court, has a movie theater theme and the Art of Animation food court, Landscape of Flavors, has beautiful pictures up from the different animated movies (the colors are just amazing). But Landscape of Flavors is the winner here as they have a greater variety of food – but the World Premiere Food Court isn’t far behind.
Winner: Art of Animation
5Pool
Art of Animation has 3 pools. The main pool, The Big Blue pool, is themed to Finding Nemo and a really neat thing about The Big Blue Pool is that when you swim underwater, you can actually hear lines from Finding Nemo. There’s also a Cozy Cone Pool themed to Cars and a pool themed to The Little Mermaid. There are only two pools at All Star Movies: a main pool themed to Fantasia and a smaller pool themed to Mighty Ducks. I love the pools at All Star Movies, but there are more pools at Art of Animation with greater features.
Winner: Art of Animation
