Let’s Rank the Walt Disney World Hotels Part I
Deciding where you should stay probably causes your family lots of stress.
You know that you want to pick the perfect place to hole up for a few days at Walt Disney World.
Your hotel will double as your home away from home during your vacation, and choosing where to stay isn’t easy.
I want to help as best I can. So, let’s rank the Walt Disney World hotels!
I’ll divide this debate into two or possibly three sections, starting with Value and Moderate Tier resorts.
Disney’s All-Star Sports Resort
I’ll start with two acknowledgments. Most importantly, please remember that this is only one person’s opinion.
I’ve visited all these hotels and believe that you’ll find excellent value at all of them.
The Disney amenities for on-site guests will make your vacation magical. And that brings me to the second point.
Those of you who want other unbiased opinions should ask the experts at MickeyTravels.
These travel experts follow a mission statement of “making magic one vacation at a time ®.”
Frankly, they know more about the resorts than any of the rest of us could since they live and breathe all things Disney.
They’re happy to help, and their services are free to you.
Keeping all the above in mind, I’ll be blunt. The various Disney All-Star resorts are fairly similar in a kind of cookie-cutter architecture way.
I enjoy staying at All-Star Sports the least because it’s close to the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex.
So, the hotel itself sometimes seems chaotic due to all the excited children, high school students, and college athletes competing in events at the sports complex.
Parents traveling with such competitors should prioritize this resort for its convenience. Everyone else may want to find a place with less traffic.
Disney’s All-Star Music Resort
The other two All-Star resort options come down to personal preference.
I never learned a musical instrument, at least not very well. So, I always feel like I’m missing a lot when I visit All-Star Music.
The hotel campus is quite charming, and some of the rooms here work well for larger families.
They can sleep the same number of guests as larger resorts that will charge more. So, you can stretch your vacation budget more at All-Star Music.
Disney’s All-Star Movies Resort
I prefer this option among the three All-Star hotels for two reasons.
One is that I’m a movie buff who was a listed Rotten Tomatoes critic before Rotten Tomatoes even had a Tomatometer.
I care so much about movies that I’ve dedicated a decent part of my adult life to watching and discussing them.
The second reason is that World Premiere Food Court offers a secret menu that’s sooo much fun. Seriously, how great is this?
Disney’s Coronado Springs Resort
For many years, Coronado Springs earned a reputation as the Disney convention hotel.
While that’s still true to a certain extent today, the resort doesn’t feel quite as chaotic.
The introduction of the Gran Destino Tower has centralized the resort campus a bit. Typically, you’ll pay more for those rooms, though.
So, I still view the least expensive rooms at Coronado Springs as the “worst” of the Moderate Tier options.
Of course, that’s like discussing your least favorite flavor of ice cream. It’s still ice cream.
Coronado Springs also offers superior dining to anything you’ll find at any of the Value Tier resorts. Then again, you’ll pay more for the privilege.
For this reason, I think it’s objectively better than the cookie-cutter All-Star options, but it’s not as good as the best Value Tier options.
Disney’s Art of Animation Resort
Okay, now we’ve entered a different level of grading.
For me, choosing the lower half of this list wasn’t a problem. Ranking the top five has proven much more challenging.
I very much enjoy every remaining entry on this list and highly recommend all of them to friends when they travel to visit.
For fans of Disney animated movies, this particular resort is like a little slice of Heaven.
You can hang out in the hotel lobby and look at the creation of characters like Ursula, including some pictures that never appeared in the film.
Those touches are decidedly Disney and will elevate the hotel stay of any fan.
Also, this property offers family rooms themed to many of your favorite Disney titles like The Lion King, The Little Mermaid, Finding Nemo, and Cars.
As I mentioned earlier with All-Star Music, you will pay more for these spacious family rooms at Art of Animation and Pop Century.
Disney’s Port Orleans Resort – Riverside
MickeyBlog has a soft place in its collective heart for Yehaa Bob Jackson, the stage performer who performs several times a week at this resort.
In fact, here’s an interview Yehaa Bob did for our podcast last year:
Port Orleans – Riverside offers several unique, familial amenities like this.
I’m also a big fan of Boatwright’s Dining Hall, a restaurant Disney has themed as a shipbuilding facility. And the food here is exquisite!
Honestly, the only reason why I haven’t ranked this one higher is that it suffers from the same issue as Coronado Springs.
This campus sometimes feels challenging to navigate, and its popularity works against it in terms of crowds, too.
I still love Riverside, but it didn’t quite make the top three.
Disney’s Pop Century Resort
Many of the advantages of Art of Animation apply here as well, and I haven’t even mentioned the best one.
The two resorts share a Disney Skyliner station, which connects them to Disney’s Hollywood Studios and EPCOT.
So, you can avoid the bus system entirely when you visit these two parks…and not taking the bus at a Value Tier resort is a tremendous benefit!
Also, the family suites at Pop Century strike me as better overall than the ones at Art of Animation.
Finally, I’ll add that I could spend hours admiring the Pop Century lobby decorations…and I have!
Somehow, the décor here makes me feel old AND provides warm recollections from childhood.
Disney’s Caribbean Beach Resort
The point you should take from a lot of what I’m saying here is that logistics matter during a Disney vacation.
Also, I trust the Disney bus system about as much as someone who claims they’re a wallet inspector.
So, the Disney resort that functions as the hub of the entire Disney Skyliner station automatically earns massive bonus points from me.
Caribbean Beach is that much better because it hosts some exceptional restaurants like Sebastian’s Bistro.
You’ll find Caribbean cuisine and seafood at multiple places, saving you the aggravation of leaving the hotel for food.
Should you choose to go elsewhere, the Disney Skyliner ensures you’ll have your pick of eateries, all of which are mere minutes away from the hotel.
Caribbean Beach does face the same size issue as Coronado Springs and Port Orleans – Riverside, which is why it didn’t win.
When you stay in one of the less convenient regions (named after countries), you’ll feel a bit disconnected.
That’s a trifling concern compared to all the advantages of staying here, though.
Disney’s Port Orleans Resort – French Quarter
If you knew me or had read my work for years, you would have immediately guessed what would win.
I’m an evangelist for French Quarter, even to my own detriment.
The genius of a hotel stay here is that you’re avoiding the crowds by staying at a more intimate Disney locale.
The buildings here tilt toward the smaller side, and they’re all conveniently located relative to the hotel lobby.
That’s the spot where you’ll find the restaurant and general store, along with some other amenities.
So, French Quarter claims a more centralized experience than the other Moderate Tier listings here.
Plus, when you eat here, you’ll sample the best of New Orleans cuisine, including beignets and several staples of Cajun/Creole cooking.
I actually prefer French Quarter to several Deluxe Tier resorts. It would make my top six hotels overall at Walt Disney World.
Even better, a stay here costs a fraction of the cost of most Deluxe Tier hotels!
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Feature Photo: Disney