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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. They are both considered “value” hotels. That means you can find more affordable rates at these hotels than at other more expensive on-site Disney hotels, but still get the perks of being at a Disney hotel. We talk about all the perks of staying at an onsite Disney hotel here.
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. Even those rooms, though, are slightly larger than the rooms at All Star Movies (they are 277 square feet). So if you are looking for a little more space, Art of Animation will be your pick.
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. While the suites are (understandably) more expensive than standard rooms, even the standard guest rooms at Art of Animation are more expensive than standard rooms at All Star Movies.
And speaking of price, I highly recommend using Priceline to book your Art of Animation room or your All Star Movies room. You can get prices here that are even cheaper than the passholder rates you can get on Disney’s website.
But back to the subject at hand – if you are looking to save money, then go with All Star Moives.
Winner: All Star Movies
3Transportation to the Park
Both All Star Movies Resort and Art of Animation hotels offer bus transportation to the theme parks. It’s one of those perks you get from staying at an onsite Disney hotel. The busses run all day long unlike the shuttles you get at other hotels that only run a few times a day.
But here’s Art of Animation really shines. Art of Animation has a Skyliner station.
This means you can take a Skyliner to Hollywood Studios and Epcot theme parks. I much prefer this form of transportation to the busses. They are typically quicker and just a more pleasant ride. They don’t stuff a bunch of people in the Skyliner vehicles the way Disney does with the busses. This alone really gives an edge to Art of Animation.
Winner: Art of Animation
4Movies Represented
Both Art of Animation and All Star Sports are divided up in sections (which makes finding your room at night a lot easier). Each of these sections is themed to a different Disney movie.
For All Star Movies, it is a mix of live action and animated movies. 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. There’s a decent 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. Those are all classic Disney animated movies, and you’ll be spending less than if you stayed at even a Little Mermaid standard room.
Winner: Art of Animation
5Food 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:
- They have a lot of variety in the food they offer, which helps if you have picky eaters in your group
- The pricing is a lot more affordable than some of the sit-down restaurants at Walt Disney World Resort
- 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
- 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. 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 bit better variety of food – but the World Premiere Food Court isn’t far behind.
Winner: Art of Animation
6Pool
Art of Animation has 3 pools. The main pool, The Big Blue pool, is themed to 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