All Star Sports Resort is an on-site hotel in the Animal Kingdom area of Walt Disney World. Like the other All Star Resorts, Sports fits into the value resort category and routinely is among the cheapest of the WDW hotels. The hotel has a larger than life sports theme with oversized props like a football field and surfboards. Naturally, there’s Disney characters too! In this post, we’ll review the All Star Sports rooms, amenities, perks and value while sharing photos.

Generally speaking, there are 3 groups or families that stay at All Star Sports. The first of which are people who are looking to vacation at Disney World but do it as budget friendly as possible while enjoying the perks of staying on-site. I respect the grind and these are the people that I wish the Disney Parks catered to more. Next comes the people that stay at there so that they can splurge elsewhere. I do this all of the time! Maybe those groups want to go on a tour or use the Dining Plan all trip or are doing as many after hour events as their budget allows, so staying somewhere cheap allows for that to happen. The last group that fills the hotel are youth sports teams or groups that are competing at the nearby Wide World of Sports.

Starting with the latter, this will make All Star Sports the most chaotic and rowdiest hotel in Walt Disney World. Of course, not every single day of the year includes those groups but more often than not there is something going on. I don’t mean any disrespect, I think kids should go and live it up! I know I would have loved going to WDW with my sports teams at that age. This is just the downside of All Star Sports for those that are looking for a relaxing place to come back to after a long theme park day. The other All Star Resorts can be chaotic but Sports definitely takes the cake. If that’s a major deterrent for you, then I’d look elsewhere.

The other two groups I mentioned are why I appreciate the value resorts existing at Walt Disney World. Yes, there are design flaws, overcrowding and worse rooms here than you can find at the other WDW hotels but they are also way cheaper. Whether they are cheap enough to be a good value is worth considering, and something I’ll get to shortly, but plenty of people want on-site perks at the cheapest possible rate. I’m glad the values exist simply for that reason.

Now, I’ve justified the existence of the hotel but is All Star Sports Resort a good hotel? We all love a low price point but when is it worth it to pay 20, 50 or 100 dollars more? Let’s start by taking a look at the hotel’s rooms.

A few years ago, most of the value resort rooms were uniformly changed. The designs are all pretty similar. For the most part that’s a good thing but they all did lose a little bit of character. The above photo shows a good portion of the room – there’s a queen bed and another pull down queen bed that goes over the table. It’s a tight space but used well. Spending most of a week here with four adults would get cramped but it’s enough room to be manageable. These rooms have been updated in the last 5 years (or so).

Here’s a photo with the bed pulled down. Huey, Dewey and Louie are dreaming about the three All Star Resort motifs, which is a nice touch. The beds here aren’t uncomfortable but it is definitely a step down from a deluxe or moderate mattress. Also, the space between the beds is enough to navigate but it is tight. That’s the biggest downside of the room.

The bathrooms in the newly designed value resort rooms offer a nice use of space, with a door that pulls across for privacy from the rest of the room. There’s space to navigate here.

The rest of the room is generic but not bad. All Star Sports rooms amount to a no frills hotel that uses space wisely. The downside is that there’s just not much in the way of square footage. But the positives are that this is an up to date hotel room that looks pretty good and has a few unique Disney touches. You’re not going to be wowed but I have a hard time seeing groups being overly disappointed with the rooms unless they try to crowd too many people in there.

As far as amenities, the three I care about most are transportation, dining and the pool. We’ll start with the buses, which are notorious for having frustrating waits. Our experience didn’t fit that at all but it’s hard to know if we just got lucky. In 2 of our 3 days, we were up early and getting to the park for the extra half hour on-site guests get in the morning. Neither of those occasions had an extremely crowded bus. Getting back at night was a little more crowded but, again, it wasn’t as bad as expected. Leave yourself extra time and keep expectations in tow, then just hope that the WDW bus system doesn’t let you down. It probably will! 😉 A good trick is just to not leave the parks at busy times like right after a fireworks show.

The All Star Resorts are pretty close to Animal Kingdom so that results in a short bus ride! Magic Kingdom takes 20-25 minutes to get to while Epcot and Hollywood Studios are a little bit under that. It’s not a great location but, again, it’s nice to have complimentary transportation to the parks.

The pool and dining at All Star Sports are just fine. Giant surfboards along the hotel are a nice backdrop to the pool but overall it’s one of the weakest pool areas in Disney World. It’s fairly large but without anything distinct about it. Meanwhile, the End Zone Food Court is the dining option which offers pizza, sandwiches and a few other generic items. It works in a pinch but there’s better options in the park.

Elsewhere at All Star Sports, there’s a gift shop, arcade and small playground. Like the other amenities, these are all pretty generic. Same goes with the underwhelming lobby. But if you keep in mind the real world hotel comparisons, this is more than what’s typically offered. And in that frame of mind, I think the theme here is kind of fun.

I can’t say I love the outsized and overly colorful design of the value resorts. They all look a little too 90’s to me. But the giant football helmets, basketballs and tennis rackets are fun! Add in some typically animated ducks playing baseball on a tennis court and I enjoyed the zany aspect of it all. This is all clearly geared towards kids but it’s entertaining. There are even sections of the resort that look pretty good and I had a nice time staying out late to take photos around the hotel.

No, this isn’t Animal Kingdom Lodge’s immersion. I’m guessing anyone reading this would rather stay at a resort replicating a tropical island than a place with oversized sports equipment, unless a group of 11 year old jocks find this post. To be clear, that is not the target audience for this post. But it is maybe the target audience of this hotel while still having enough interesting touches to hold the attention of everyone else. In short, the hotel’s theme works the way it was meant to.

All of that adds up to a good value for a hotel that can be found for $100. Factoring in that staying here can add half an hour of park time each morning plus a few other perks is a good bonus too. While I mention $100, chances are that All Star Sports will be a little bit more than that. Depending on other availability, I’d put the breaking point for the hotel at about $150.

Perhaps a more relevant question is where it falls among the other value resorts. I prefer All Star Music over this because it’s less crowded and has a relatively cheap family suite option. Art of Animation is so much more expensive that it doesn’t feel like an apt comparison. Pop Century is easily my favorite of the value resorts but it does cost more. Personally, I’d pay around $50-$70 more per night to stay there depending on the situation. But there are plenty of times where just going for the cheapest room at WDW makes sense and All Star Sports Resort fills that role admirably.

Overall Rating – 7/10

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