When planning your visit to Walt Disney World, it’s important to consider which of the Walt Disney World Resort Hotels is best for you and your family. If choosing one of the more cost-efficient options, it’s even more important to know how to make the most of your trip by avoiding common mistakes often made by guests of WDW’s cheapest value resorts!
Disney’s All-Star Resort Hotels offer affordable rates and are a great option for guests planning a trip on a budget. However, what guests may not know when planning their stay is that a common mistake is made at the most affordable hotels on property. Below, we’d like to explore this mistake (and a few others) to make sure you know how to avoid it and make the most of your trip. At Mickey Visit, we help you enjoy the underrated resort perks and track the latest closures.
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The Cheapest Hotels at Disney World
Walt Disney World’s All-Star Sports, All-Star Music, and All-Star Movies resorts offer a cost-effective and family-friendly environment that is sure to bring joy and the magic of Disney to guests from around the globe. These resorts are located in WDW’s Animal Kingdom area, making them a prime location for guests planning on frequently venturing to the parks during their stay.
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WDW’s All-Star Resorts offer fun and inviting themed pools, arcades, playgrounds, and food courts, sure to be enjoyed by all. Each All-Star Resort hotel offers two full-sized pools (one feature pool and one quiet pool) as well as one kiddie pool. Each All-Star Resort hotel also has a spacious food court, arcades, and a gift shop, so there is much to do while at the resort. Each of the hotels also offers frequent outdoor movie nights and poolside activities, making these hotels a favorite for the whole family!
The All-Star Resort hotels are one of the best options for guests’ stay when selecting a hotel because they offer the essentials of a trip to Disney World at a much less costly price than most other hotels (even among the other value resorts), but there are additional strategies guests of Disney’s All-Star Resorts can take to make their trip even more effective.
Let’s get into the top mistakes at the All-Star Resort Hotels.
Wasting Money on Preferred Rooms
While preferred rooms sound like a great option for accessing all of the amenities of Disney’s All-Star Resorts, this option is not necessary and can actually make accessibility to all amenities of the resorts a bit more challenging for guests. Because of the All-Star Resorts’ proximity to one another, some of the amenities of the respective neighboring resort may actually be closer to the neighboring resort than to their own!
A prime example of this can be experienced by guests staying at Disney All-Star Movies Resort. Guests who choose to stay in a standard room at All-Star Movies and find themselves in the Mighty Ducks’ themed rooms will actually find themselves closer to All-Star Music’s Melody Hall (Music’s Food Court) as well as All-Star Music’s bus stop. If guests of All-Star Movies choose to stay in a preferred room and find themselves in the Toy Story themed rooms, for example, they will be closer to the amenities of Movies, but with a heavier price tag than those who choose to go with a standard room.
Don’t get me wrong, there is not a bad choice when it comes to choosing between standard and preferred at one of the All-Star Resorts, but having stayed in both multiple times, I can say from experience that going with a standard room can potentially carry closer proximity to all resort amenities without leaving such a large hole in your wallet.
Aside from the #1 mistake guests make when staying at WDW’s cheapest hotels, there are a few other common mistakes guests make that can be easily avoided with a little knowledge and preparation.
Waiting For Disney Resort Bus Transportation
Because the All-Star Resorts are located so close to one another, an easy Disney hack can be found by guests using All-Star bus transportation. Whether departing from the resort to venture to the parks or leaving the parks after a long and tiring day, guests can easily make the mistake of waiting for a specific hotel’s bus when they can simply hop on to one of the neighboring All-Star Resort buses.
WDW bus transportation runs on a loop, and guests can find themselves just missing a bus when leaving the resort or the parks, but not to worry! When staying at an All-Star Resort hotel, guests can simply choose to ride another All-Star bus rather than wait the specified amount of time for another bus to return. Park bus stops don’t actually have wait times, so this hack is a bit more challenging to use when leaving the parks, but each All-Star hotel has wait times displayed for the return of the next bus to each park.
If guests find that their bus is not returning for ten, fifteen, or twenty minutes, for example, it might be very worthwhile to walk over to the neighboring All-Star bus stop and use their transportation.
Being Unaware of Resort Refurbishments
Walt Disney World Resort Hotels remain in pristine condition because of the routine care and maintenance provided. Because of this routine care and maintenance, guests can often find themselves experiencing amenity closures during their stay. It’s important for guests to do a bit of research to ensure that they have the knowledge necessary to make the most of their trip despite an inconvenient refurbishment.
An example of a refurbishment at the All-Star Resort hotels coming in 2026 can be found with the closure of All-Star Sports’ Surfboard Bay Pool from January to April 2026. Guests staying in the Surf’s Up area of the resort, for example, will find that the resort’s main pool is closed during this time. Being Sports’ main pool, this could be upsetting to guests who were not aware of the refurbishment. There is no need to panic, though, as Music and Movies both have fully functional main pools during this refurbishment.
Not Planning to Appropriately Store Food
This mistake is not exclusive to Disney’s All-Star Resorts, as this can be a mistake experienced by guests at any WDW hotel that is not a Deluxe Villa resort or Family Suites at a value resort. Disney’s value resorts (outside of the family suites) offer a cooler refrigerator, which remains at 41 degrees Fahrenheit, making the cooler a great amenity for snacks to keep cold. However, this temperature may not be suitable to keep perishables, such as milk and lunchmeat, fresh.
A good idea to keep perishables fresh is to purchase a cooler (even a cheap styrofoam cooler) from a nearby store and have it delivered to the resort. The All-Star Resorts have ice machines located throughout each resort, and guests can simply fill their coolers with ice and store their perishables in them rather than in the cooler. Trust me- as someone who has had to throw away milk, pizza, and lunchmeat because of improper storage during a stay at the All-Star hotels, it is important to plan accordingly for storing food!
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