It turns out that Animal Kingdom Lodge is uber-booked or something. Not much I can do about that I suppose. But I realized then that my three night constraint there was because of the expense, even though we planned to spend a lot of time at Disney. So I dropped my Royal Pacific reservation down by one day at Universal (I feel so dirty) to three nights, and booked Disney's Pop Century for four at $80 a night.
The change saves me like $450 oddly enough, and I suppose it's not that much less than ideal. So on transition day, we'll probably work the pool at RPR and maybe pop into the parks in the late afternoon, though I hate the 6pm closings. You actually need to go in at 9am when they open to get your money's worth. Price of going in the off-season I guess.
Animal Kingdom closes early almost every day, so that makes hitting the couple of worthwhile attractions at Disney-MGM a no-brainer on that evening. In fact, on Sunday, they have "extra magic hours" with a later closing, so we can hit the place after AK and see if we can get all of the different programs that Tower of Terror does. :) Cath will love that.
So the only real variable is finding reputable cab service on transition day, and I'm pretty sure there are already shuttles from Universal to the airport on the day we leave.
My family stayed in the All Star Sports resort the last time we went to Disney. The room size and furnishing are typical for a value priced hotel. They were very clean and served their purpose, providing a place to sleep at night, well. A little more room would have been nice, but I would rather put money towards having fun in the parks and enjoying nicer meals than blowing cash on a pricier room.