Category — d. Where to Stay at Walt Disney World

Where to Stay    Resort Features by Price    Kid Appeal    Large Families

The Value Resorts    Art of Animation   Pop Century    Movies    Sports    Music

OVERVIEW: DISNEY’S ALL-STAR MOVIES RESORT

I’ve stayed at all five of Disney’s Value Resorts more than a dozen times. These visits confirm the order in which the value resorts are recommended.

• Disney’s Art of Animation Resort is number one among the values.
• After  Art of Animation, the rank is, in order, Pop Century, All-Star Movies, All-Star Sports, and All-Star Music.

These last three All-Star Resorts are very close. Of these three,

• All-Star Sports is the most convenient, but kid appealing only if your kids are into baseball, football, basketball, surfing, or tennis
• All-Star Movies is the most broadly kid-appealing, and the most comfortable of the three
• All-Star Music is the most compact, most lovely, and the only one of these three with family suites (Art of Animation also has family suites).

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FlOORPLANS OF SUITES AT DISNEY’S POLYNESIAN RESORT

Steve at TikimanPages.com was kind enough to let me use his floorplans for suites at Disney’s Polynesian Resort.

They are below, and also in this site’s pages on suites at Walt Disney World, and on Disney’s Polynesian Resort.

For more on these suites, see Steve’s material on suites at the Polynesian that begins here.

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For the first page of this review, click here

MORE ON DISNEY’S POLYNESIAN RESORT

There are currently 8 official Disney owned and operated deluxe resorts at Walt Disney World.

In their recommended order for first time family visitors, they are

1. Polynesian
2. Wilderness Lodge
3. Animal Kingdom Lodge
4. Contemporary
5. Grand Floridian
6. Beach Club
7. Yacht Club
8. BoardWalk Inn

(Many of these also offer Disney Vacation Club studios and villas, all for rent to the general public–see this for more on the Disney Vacation Club resorts.)

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OVERVIEW: DISNEY’S POLYNESIAN RESORT

Our most recent stay confirms what this site has recommended since the day it was launched: for those who can afford it, Disney’s Polynesian Resort is the best place for first time family visitors to stay.

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For the first page of this review, click here.

MORE ON DISNEY’S SARATOGA SPRINGS RESORT AND SPA

There are currently 8 official Disney Vacation Club resorts at Walt Disney World.

However, I have come to count them as ten, because two of the resorts–Saratoga Springs and the Animal Kingdom Villas–have two very different areas.

In order of their appropriateness for first time family visitors to Walt Disney World, they are:

1. The Villas at Disney’s Wilderness Lodge
2. Disney’s Animal Kingdom Villas–Jambo House
3. Disney’s Animal Kingdom Villas–Kidani Village
4. Bay Lake Tower at Disney’s Contemporary Resort
5. The Villas at Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort and Spa
6. Disney’s Beach Club Villas
7. Disney’s BoardWalk Villas
8. Disney’s Old Key West Resort
9. Disney’s Saratoga Springs Resort and Spa, main resort
10. Disney’s Saratoga Springs Resort and Spa, Treehouse Villas area.

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REVIEWS OF DISNEY WORLD HOTELS

There are dozens of hotel reviews on this site, based on my 170 stays in Disney-owned spaces, and two dozen stays in other on-property hotels that also offer early access to pre-booking Lightning Lane Multi Pass and Lightning Lane Single Pass rides, and/or access to its Early Entry program. This page brings to one place links to all of these reviews.

The hotels are grouped first by Disney owned and then those owned by others, and within groups by price category. See this for details on the features of the various resort price categories.

Within price categories, they are in order of how well they suit typical first time family visitors. See this for more on where to stay.

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