Choosing where to stay during your Disney World vacation can be a very difficult choice to make.

If you’re traveling to Disney World on a budget, staying at a value resort can be a great way to save some money. If you’ve narrowed it down between Disney’s All-Star Sports Resort and Disney’s Art of Animation Resort, let’s help you figure out which is best for you!

Your hotel may just be the most expensive part of your vacation, so let’s make sure you don’t have any regrets. We’ll be talking about the following categories for each resort:

• Common Ground
• Theme/Rooms
• Pools
• Food
• Transportation

Without further ado, let’s get started!

Common Grounds

Before we get started with the differences, let’s talk about some of the similarities. Both of these resorts are value resorts, meaning that they come with the same park perks. Both of these resorts also have similar layouts — one central building with a food court and shop surrounded by rooms and pools.

All-Star Sports will cost about $132-$180 a night (not accounting for any tax or current discounts).

Art of Animation runs a little bit higher, sitting around $208-$236 a night for standard rooms and $508-$559 a night for family suites (not accounting for any tax or current discounts).

Theming/Rooms

Both of these resorts are very heavily themed, which is one of the reasons why they’re such a hit for families.

All-Star Sports

As the name suggests, All-Star Sports is themed ALL around sports! Sports of all kinds too — football, baseball, basketball, you name it.

This means that EVERYTHING is themed to sports — the rooms, the lobby, and the decorations. This also means that the hotel is a popular booking spot for sports teams that come to the parks for events, so keep that in mind.

Art of Animation

On the complete opposite side of the coin, Art of Animation is themed all around Disney’s animated films!

All around the resort, you’ll find details themed directly to The Little Mermaid, Cars, Finding Nemo, and The Lion King. The hotel rooms are heavily themed to these movies as well, so you really can’t escape animation at this resort!

Pools

If you’re a pool person, this could be a really important category for you!

All-Star Sports

There are two pools at this resort — the Surfboard Bay Pool and Grand Slam Pool, plus a kiddie pool.

These pools are quite large and can seat many people. However, many people don’t have them on their lists of favorite pools around the Disney World Resort.

So while these pools will suit your pool-related needs, if you’re looking for epic theming, this may not be the best spot.

Art of Animation

Art of Animation however is home to the Big Blue Pool, Flippin’ Fins Pool, and the Cozy Cone Pool!

These pools are themed fantastically, are very large, and ARE on many people’s favorite resort pools list.

So if you’re looking for pools that will really wow you, these may be for you!

Food

Back to some similarities, both of these resorts are home to food court restaurants that serve a variety of different eats.

You can grab pizza, character-shaped waffles, and pasta, as well as a few more adventurous eats.

These are solid choices to find something for everyone in the family and to eat on a lower budget, but we usually aren’t super impressed with the food at either of these locations. Plus depending on where your room is, you may have to walk a LONG way to pick up your food.

Transportation

Both of these resorts have buses that run to and from the parks and Disney Springs, but they drop you off at the resort’s main building. Once again meaning that you may have to walk a LONG way back to your room after an even longer day at the -parks.

However, at Art of Animation, that higher price tag per night isn’t for nothing — you’ll get to use the Disney Skyliner to get to other resorts, EPCOT, and Disney’s Hollywood Studios!

This Skyliner stop is shared with the resort next door, Pop Century (also a value resort), and it can make a HUGE difference in how much time it takes to get to the parks. Plus, it’s a lot of fun (as long as you’re okay with heights)!

This is a huge make-or-break decision for some people, so if you don’t have a car, or don’t want to spend too much time traveling to EPCOT or DHS, staying at Art of Animation for the higher price may be very worth it.

And those are our comparisons of Disney’s Art of Animation and Disney’s All-Star Sports Resort! We hope this helped you make your decision, and stay tuned to DFB for all the latest Disney news.

Deciding between the Polynesian Resort and Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort? Check out our comparison here!

Which of these hotels are you leaning towards? Tell us in the comments below!