[dmallan]

When it was just DH and myself, we stayed at POR, but for this trip (January 08) we had DD26, DD23 and DS20 with us. We needed two rooms and could not afford two rooms at a moderate resort. We ended up getting a great deal at All Star Music. With our AAA rate we got each room for $65.50/ night.
We requested and received connecting rooms. We also requested rooms in the Jazz building, which we did not get. We were put in the Rock building, which turned out to be fine. It wasn't much farther than Jazz.
We were on the first floor and even though it seemed that there were lots of people at the resort, it was very quiet.
The rooms were clean, and during our stay mousekeeping did a great job keeping them looking nice and replenishing our soap and shampoo.

We ate at the food court several times. It always seemed to be crowded, but it didn't take too long to get served. Waiting in line to be checked out was sometimes a bit of a wait. They could have had a couple more CMs ringing people out (in the morning especially).
We brought cereal, poptarts, and our own coffee maker, along with coffee bags, tea bags and hot chocolate. It was much easier to eat in our room. But some mornings one or two of us went into the food court to get fresh fruit. Nice that this was available.
We also bought a half gallon of milk in the gift shop rather than pay $1.29 for a half pint in the food court. I had a soft sided cooler which we kept cold with ziploc bags of ice. Our millk and juice stayed nice and cold! Thank you to someone on these boards who gave me that idea!!

Ironing board in the room was used quite a bit, as I cannot stand to wear something that looks like it just came out of a suitcase! We also made use of the in-room safes and the girls used the blow-dryer.

We had mickey soaps and shampoos, which I was quite excited about. I had heard that the value resorts had gone to the shampoo dispensers in the showers. This was not true in our rooms.

We really enjoyed the theme of each of the buildings. Several mornings we even took a walk to All Star Movies and All Star Sports to see their theming. Very cute!

The buses were not bad at all. We never waited too long for a bus to the parks. Catching a bus at the parks back to the resort was generally longer, but only once did we wait more than 10 minutes. Sometimes the buses back to the resort would be picking up for all three All Star resorts, and sometimes, just Movies, Music or Sports. But in the morning, our bus always went straight to the park, no other stops at the All Star resorts.

When we checked in we got a calendar of resort activities. - movie nights at the pool, hoola hoop contests, trivia games, etc. We did not participate in any of these activities, but the movie night at least seemed to be well attended by families with young kids. (We didn't see any of the other activities - I think they took place during the day and we spent all day at the parks)

All in all it was a great stay. It certainly was a great value for the 5 of us! I would recommend it to anyone who is looking to do Disney on a budget.