Disney's ALL-STAR MOVIES RESORT Information & Questions

[Shadowcat70]

Anyone have prices for the half-gallon milk and multi-pack of boxed cereal they sell?

 

[hdrolfe]

Anyone have prices for the half-gallon milk and multi-pack of boxed cereal they sell?

I believe the milk was $4 05 after tax. I didn't get cereal as we had packed some. Milk was in the gift shop.

 

[la79al]

Can anyone tell me how the fridges are at ASMo? Trying to decide how good of a cooler I am going to need.

 

[jeal]

They are inconsistent - some rooms they are so cold they freeze whatever is put in them and some rooms they barely keep anything cool. Just call the front desk if you have a problem.

 

[dansdad]

Can anyone tell me how the fridges are at ASMo? Trying to decide how good of a cooler I am going to need.

Unless you happen to get a defective/bad one, they work great. And if you do, just call Maintenance and they will replace it with one in good working order.

 

[fla4fun]

I just returned from my first stay at ASMo. I have stayed at Pop many times since their renovation and found the ASMo room to be just as comfortable. They appear to be working on Music now, as well as doing some parking lot repairs (some of the lots were blocked off). I didn’t have any issues with buses except returning from Disney Springs when they combined all three resorts and didn’t send a bus for over an hour (we had a very nice transportation worker trying desperately to get us a bus, and they kept telling him a bus had been there when it hadn’t - he stayed with us until one did come). I might still slightly prefer Pop just because I really like a water feature and missed the lake, but the rooms at All Star are going to give them a run for their money!

My fridge worked fine. I wonder if the room temperature has any bearing, as I keep my room as cold as it can get . . .

 

[WaltsMartini]

Here goes - a VERY long review of our stay at All Star Movies with some pictures!

Summary: Stayed here September 11-15, 2019. My husband, 4 year old son, and myself chose this resort over the other values because of the Toy Story theming and Pop’s main pool being closed for refurb during our stay.

Things that worked for our family:
Price
Awesome staff
Room layout
Fun pool
Plenty to do for kids
Size of resort

Things to be desired:
Transportation system
Food court options

Price: We booked alllllll the way back in January under the Fun and Sun package. I’ve had many Disney trips but this was the first for my son; we knew there would be some kinks to work out and we felt not spending an arm and a leg would remove some of the pressure. Factoring in the current value of our 4 day tickets, a preferred room ended up costing $112.50 a night including the tax.

I think this room was worth $150- $170 a night; they are new, clean, and have a great layout. The resort has lots of activities that additionally made me feel like we got a great bang for our buck.



Awesome Staff: I can’t say it enough - the staff was AWESOME! From the front desk to the food court to the lifeguards, they were exceptional, not just pretty good. I would go so far as to say that it’s the best experience with cast members I’ve ever had.

The front desk staff were efficient and helpful when checking us in, explaining room location, as well as later when I was attempting to receive packages at the resort. All staff seemed genuinely happy to be there and wanted to know about our trip - they really made the trip magical!

Room Layout: I’ve read the Value rooms are the smallest on property, but their excellent layout and design makes them very functional. We had 3, not 4, in a room; 4 adults would be pretty cramped, and an extra kid may have been a bit much by the end of the trip.

The layout makes the most of the small space. Sliding doors save on space and wall the bathroom area off so that you can get ready without waking everyone up. The Murphy bed and regular bed setup was great for moving around during the day (and my 4 year old really got a kick out of the Murphy bed!)





The mini fridge held a lot (three six-packs and then some - no I’m not joking lol). There were lots of shelves and storage space everywhere, and plenty of outlets and chargers. The only thing missing was an alarm clock, but as everyone has a cell phone now anyway, that wasn’t too missed.



Fun Pool: we hit the pool each afternoon sometime between 1-4 pm, and the activities and music were a hoot. The awesome staff leading the activities - trivia, scavenger hunts, tie-dye shirt making - were so fun and really into the activities. We aren’t usually “joiners” but their enthusiasm was infectious and we participated more than once!



Plenty to do for kids: my son LOVED the theming, the arcade, the pool, the playground, and having his caricature done. I saw some older kids walking around and playing around the themed areas as well. There is a smaller pool in the Mighty Ducks area that we didn’t even realize was there until our last day - I could see this being a great space for older kids/ teenagers (or adults!) to hang out away from the more crowded big pool.



Size of the resort: the time to get from the farthest section of the resort - Love Bug - to the pool is about 3 1/2 minutes, and to the buses would be 5 minutes. From our location in Toy Story, it was 3 minutes max to the buses, and we also found a walkway that went straight from building 9 over to the bus area. (Note - I am posting this 9/24/19 and I do NOT know if the Love Bug section has refurbed rooms as yet - they were working on Fantasia while I was there).



For parents with small kids, I would definitely recommend “preferred,” which would get you Toy Story or 101 Dalmatians sections; for those really wanting to save money, the walk is not bad at all.

Transportation System: despite ALL the amazing things about this resort, I would not stay here again, and the transportation situation is the reason.

All Star Movies is “last” in the line of All Star resorts. When leaving the parks, we mostly had our own bus straight back to Movies; however, when going TO the parks, Movies is last on the loop. We frequently had to get on a bus that already seemed packed, as it had picked up Sports and Music guests already.

Time to the parks was also an issue. I felt this might be somewhat mitigated because Disney now shows you when you can expect the next bus for a specific park, so that we could wait in the room or grab a bite to eat while waiting; however, these times were often not correct, or were not available at all.



The All Stars are pretty far removed from other locations on Disney property - they are at the southern most end of Disney property, and about as far as you can get from the Magic Kingdom. All in all, it took 40-60 minutes to get to MK factoring in waiting for a bus, the drive there, and going through security. If you are planning to take a midday break, that’s at least two hours and 40 minutes of your day spent commuting. I don’t mind some travel time, but I feel the lost time I could have been spending in the parks, at the pool, or just relaxing in the room really lowered the value overall.

In addition, we ended up taking a Minnie Van or a Lyft in several instances. The buses were such a cluster that we felt it was money well spent to have a relaxing ride and get there 20 minutes earlier than waiting for a bus. We ended up spending about $100 on rideshare services while there so that we could have more time to actually be places instead of waiting for a bus.

Food Court: if you like veggies, this is not the place for you. The food they had was good, and the service was excellent. However, there are no salads on the menu - the best you can do is a chicken Caesar in the take and go section - which was the only option. It was also not apparent that you could change up your sides - I ended up throwing away lots of fries before I used the mobile ordering one day and discovered that they would allow me to select other options.



The food court was also the only option on-site for dining; Values do not have table service restaurants. I suppose we could have walked to the food courts at the other resorts, but that seemed inconvenient.

OVERALL: I would stay here again if I was on a trip with a budget and did not intend to take mid-day breaks on my Magic Kingdom days.

Thanks for indulging me and reading this review!

 

[Nathan Banks]

Just stayed here and genuinely agree with everything here ^^

Transport to and from the parks is horrendous. I won't be staying again, which is a huge shame because it used to be my favourite resort. Stayed here every year since we started going to WDW yearly.
They seemed less frequent than all the other resorts; I'd see buses passing by for ASM and ASP but Movies would be at least a 20 min wait. The queues for the bus rarely went down because the wait was just so long.

Staff are great; rooms are better than before! The transportation system let us down. I didn't want to moan about it, I spoke to a lady and my words were "they are free though" and she replied "we spend a lot of dollars to stay here, the least they could do is make sure the bus system is up to scratch".

That for me hit the nail on the head.

 

[WEDWDW]

I'd see buses passing by for ASM and ASP but Movies would be at least a 20 min wait.

We always when staying at Movies and leaving a Park just hop on whichever comes first-Music or Movies-love having that option.

 

[DuskKodesh]

Was the trouble with the buses first thing in the morning or was it after the parks opened? The hubs and I are extremely rope drop people and I was hoping maybe first thing in the morning the bus situation wouldn't be so terrible.

 

[Flagge]

Was the trouble with the buses first thing in the morning or was it after the parks opened? The hubs and I are extremely rope drop people and I was hoping maybe first thing in the morning the bus situation wouldn't be so terrible.

Specific details are important with the review provided as this might just be during the day when bus usage is lower as the majority of guests are in the parks. This sounds like a post morning-afternoon bus review but that's just an assumption.

 

[Helvetica]

Was the trouble with the buses first thing in the morning or was it after the parks opened? The hubs and I are extremely rope drop people and I was hoping maybe first thing in the morning the bus situation wouldn't be so terrible.

In my experience it depends. If you're trying to get to the park exactly at rope drop, then it's going to be a bit of a pain in the butt. If you hit up an earlier bus, then it's typically fine. The transportation situation at the values are less than ideal, but they're also the largest resorts. The price point also makes it really easy for me to just forget about it and grab an Uber.

I will say that the transportation situation getting back at the end of the night from Epcot has always been a bit of a nightmare at all of the Values.

 

[DuskKodesh]

In my experience it depends. If you're trying to get to the park exactly at rope drop, then it's going to be a bit of a pain in the butt. If you hit up an earlier bus, then it's typically fine. The transportation situation at the values are less than ideal, but they're also the largest resorts. The price point also makes it really easy for me to just forget about it and grab an Uber.

I will say that the transportation situation getting back at the end of the night from Epcot has always been a bit of a nightmare at all of the Values.

I'll be sure to plan for an early arrival then and a more leisurely trip back to the hotel. Cruise the shops till the crowd thins out. I was already planning on packing a little cash to take an Uber to our breakfast reservations so maybe I can scrounge more in case. Thank you!

 

[Rich M]

I'll be sure to plan for an early arrival then and a more leisurely trip back to the hotel. Cruise the shops till the crowd thins out. I was already planning on packing a little cash to take an Uber to our breakfast reservations so maybe I can scrounge more in case. Thank you!

FYI Uber does not take cash. You have to put a card on the app or buy a gift card and put that on the app.

 

[DuskKodesh]

FYI Uber does not take cash. You have to put a card on the app or buy a gift card and put that on the app.

Can do! If there's one thing I have no shortness of it's credit cards! LOL!

 

[Rich M]

Can do! If there's one thing I have no shortness of it's credit cards! LOL!

One thing to consider is in my area (San Francisco Bay Area) Lyft is actually cheaper than Uber. If it is your first time using Uber or Lyft make sure you look for promo codes. Most times you can get a free ride up to $25 value. Southwest Airline has partnered with Lyft and you can even order one on the Southwest App.

 

[DuskKodesh]

One thing to consider is in my area (San Francisco Bay Area) Lyft is actually cheaper than Uber. If it is your first time using Uber or Lyft make sure you look for promo codes. Most times you can get a free ride up to $25 value. Southwest Airline has partnered with Lyft and you can even order one on the Southwest App.

I'll have to check that out before my trip. So far I've never used either because Dayton has a good busing system and I'm not crazy about the whole 'they are contractors, not employees.' thing so I'll probably have to sit and do a few hours of research on who treats their drivers better. XD I'll have the Delta app on my phone because they had the best flight (Though they keep moving it around! Darn you Delta! I didn't want to fly home at 7AM!!!) and Garden Grocer because I already threw three hours into that research. XD Hubs says I would have made a fabulous boy scout. Always prepared!

 

[Disneyhanna]

We are afternoon break people and have always had varying luck with buses at that time. It seems to be luck of the draw and I generally don't judge a resort by their bus service, unless it's completely dreadful at every time of day.

We usually end up with a few great rides (empty bus pulls up as we are walking up) which are always offset by a few bad ones (waiting 30+ min for any bus to come) for all stays we've had. At POP we would often end up taking the AoA bus and when we stayed at POR we found the POFQ bus always seemed to arrive first. But since our own timing matters as well (maybe we just missed the POP/POR busses by a few minutes) it's hard to really judge the buses, especially when only using them for 4-5 days. Maybe they're running a bit short staffed the week you travel and that's your only impression of that particular resort.

For every stay, we've found that mornings (before 10AM) are significantly better than evenings. We don't usually close the parks, but if we leave around 8 I feel like we end up waiting forever no matter what. I tend to watch other resort stops and I've never noticed a pattern of certain resorts seemingly having more pick ups than others. I'd be curious to see a local sit at the bus stop and do some tallying to see if there's actually any rhyme or reason to it all...sounds like a ton of fun, right?

I am staying at Movies for the first time next spring, so I'm curious to see how it compares to POP. Anyone know if it's a short walk between the resorts if I hop on any All Stars bus coming back to the resort? Probably a better strategy for Music since it's in the middle...

 

[Haley R]

I'll have to check that out before my trip. So far I've never used either because Dayton has a good busing system and I'm not crazy about the whole 'they are contractors, not employees.' thing so I'll probably have to sit and do a few hours of research on who treats their drivers better. XD I'll have the Delta app on my phone because they had the best flight (Though they keep moving it around! Darn you Delta! I didn't want to fly home at 7AM!!!) and Garden Grocer because I already threw three hours into that research. XD Hubs says I would have made a fabulous boy scout. Always prepared!

I completely agree with the PP. We used Lyft before we started bringing our own car and they are normally cheaper and ALWAYS give us promo codes. We literally get codes like every two months or so that last awhile. We've gotten rides at WDW for as cheap as $4.

 

[fla4fun]

I was at Movies last week and the only bad bus situation I had was the Disney Springs return bus. They combined the three resorts and then didn’t send a bus for over an hour (documented by a transportation worker who worked hard to get us a bus and remained with us until it arrived). I seem to always have trouble with Disney Springs buses no matter what resort I am staying in. I have a longer stay booked at Movies next year and I am looking forward to it.