Advantages/Disadvantages onsplitting resorts

[matt&jakesmom]

I am in the process of already thinking of our trip for August 2006. I am thinking of staying at 2 different resorts for our week trip. It will be my husband and I and our 2 boys ages 9 & 7.
We have stayed at all the value resorts except AS Sports. We have also stayed at all the moderate resorts. Our goal is to try and get to the deluxe resorts, however, without breaking the "bank".
So I was thinking of the Sports and AK or Wilderness Lodge. What is the best way to go?? Do the Sports first with the tickets/food and save the other resort for 2 days of just enjoying the resort???
What are the pros and cons of this? Is is more hectic? What is the process to change resorts? How does luggage get there?
Sorry for all the questions, but I will have to convince DH that this could be a good thing and possibly the one way to get to the deluxe resorts without having to go broke.
Thanks.

 

[DisneyKidds]

We seem to split stays between two resorts on every trip now. We usually go for 7 or 8 nights and split between a MK resort and an Epcot resort. It's like having two vacations in one.

It's not much of a hassle. You might need to allot a couple of hours to check out of one resort and into the next, but it's pretty easy. We usually have a car so we move ourselves, but Disney will transfer your bags for you. You could make the transfer without losing much of any time by having Disney move your bags. Check out of one resort, have Disney take you bags, go to a park for the day, and go back to your new resort and check in. Your bags should be waiting for you. Yeah, you have to pack your stuff up mid trip, but that isn't that big a deal.

If you split between a value and a deluxe, I'd save the deluxe for last....it might spoil you.

 

[InstImpres]

The one down side is it will be costly if you get dining as you will pay more for tickets. Your best bet is to get a longer ticket (from the first resort) with dining if you want it and than do room only at the second resort.

Keep in mind you will lose a few hours as the OP said with packing and unpacking twice as well as checkin. If you are a mid-day break person, you also may be "homeless" on the switch day as your new room might not be ready for early checkin.

That aside, if you want to experience more resorts it is the way to go

 

[Sammie]

As to moving during the trip someone else asked this recently and this was my reply based on our experiences.

We don't do this anymore due to the disadvantages so I can share those with you since others have provided why they do it.

On the day of the move you are essentially homeless. You can not get your luggage until after 3pm so plan accordingly. Also there is no way to know for sure when you will get into the new room therefore its very hard to plan ADRs for that evening. We have missed a few due to moving, did not get our room until late, luggage arrived late etc.

On the day of the move it always seems the little ones in our group, nieces, nephews etc really, really needed a nap and we had no place to go. One time one got sick right after lunch and it was a miserable afternoon. My Dad just went on and on about how if we had stayed put the kid could be back in the room.

Also you can't get settled in, as you know in a few days you will have to pack up and move. Also my Dad did not like the thought that on the day of the move he was paying for a room we might not get into until late afternoon. If we had stayed put he would have had use of a room all day instead.

Due to check in times, you truly at times pay a full day's for not much time before bedtime especially with little ones.

Many do this and it does not bother them. It is not worth the advantages to us anymore. We love all the Disney resorts therefore we are happy to just get somewhere and settle in.

 

[Ladyhawke10]

We usually split up each trip about two or three times--I do it by location (a few nights at AKL, a few nights at an Epcot resort, and a few nights at an MK resort--usuallly GF!). I spend the days that we are switching at the parks, so I don't notice the downtime between rooms. I usually call the new resort from our old one before switching to see if our room is ready. Many times, I can go directly from one resort to the other and go straight into the second room. If the room isn't ready, we hang around the parks instead. I have done this as a single mom with my son since he was under two (he's now six). We love experiencing the different resorts in one trip. With all our favorites, it would be too hard to narrow down our stay to one hotel per trip! (And given that we only take about one to three trips per year---some who live closer to FLA get to go much more often, of course )

 

[mouseketeer_times_2]

Some one please correct me if I am wrong but...

We have not split between two resorts because we do the dining plan. My understanding is that it is considered to be two separate packages. This means that we have to have at least one day of tickets at full price on one set of rooms which greatly increases the cost.

If I am wrong I hope someone corrects me because we would love love love love to stay at least a couple of nights at a deluxe but like the OP we don't want to break the bank and we cannot afford a whole trip at a deluxe.

 

[InstImpres]

We have not split between two resorts because we do the dining plan. My understanding is that it is considered to be two separate packages. This means that we have to have at least one day of tickets at full price on one set of rooms which greatly increases the cost.

You are correct, it is more expensive if you want dining at both. What I recommend to clients that have their heart set on a spit stay, is do one resort first with dining and a MYW for the total number of days needed. Do a room only for the 2nd resort and make sure you got your expensive dinining in the first part of the stay.

 

[Ladyhawke10]

You are correct, it is more expensive if you want dining at both. What I recommend to clients that have their heart set on a spit stay, is do one resort first with dining and a MYW for the total number of days needed. Do a room only for the 2nd resort and make sure you got your expensive dinining in the first part of the stay.

This is exactly what we're doing our next trip--we have magic your way tickets for the whole stay, but got a room only for the second two hotels. It should be great!

 

[Ilovestitch]

We did a split stay this past May- 4 nights AKL/5 nights Poly and Disney made the process really smooth and easy.

That said, I'd prefer not to do a split stay again b/c I really only like unpacking one time. I didn't like having to pack everything up mid-way through the trip.

I didn't buy any souvineers for the first half of our trip figuring that it would be less to pack up but I ended up forgetting to get things that I wanted to buy.

I just like unpacking and settling into the resort- but if you don't mind doing it twice, then go for it!

 

[shellybaxter]

We like to do split resort stays, but its only myself and dh. We plan for moving when I pack. One suitcase with the essentials we will need at both hotels, toothbrushes, shampoo, sweatshirts, etc (usually the carry on bag). Then one suitcase for each hotel with the clothes for that part of the trip. That cuts down on the packing, unpacking, and repacking part.

We've never found the change over day to be that big of a deal. We ususally call bell services in the morning before we leave for a park and have them take the bags for transfer. We stop by the counter on the way out to check out. Then we go to the park of our choice. We head for our new hotel about two in the afternoon and check in. We usually make an early ADR at that hotel resturant for dinner so if our room isn't ready yet we can still wait while we eat. Each time our room has been ready no later then two. It takes a few minutes to check in and we are in a new room. It ususally only takes us about an hour tops of check out/check in time.

We come from California, which is a long way to fly, so we try to stay a minimum of nine days (have stayed up to 15 days before). That means if we only stay in two hotels we still get a least 4 days in each. That seems worth it too me and the split stays feel like two different vacations.

 

[singitalto]

I've split stays a couple of times. A couple of years ago, we stayed 12 nights- we stayed at Coronado 5nights, Port Orleans French Quarter 5 nights and Dolphin 2 nights. It was great to stay at different hotels- BUT- I would not do it again(not with a family) Just the packing time was a pain, the actual moving of the luggage is a breeze but moving kinda wastes the afternoon that you move hotels.
That being said, I loved staying at different hotels. Since we found Disneyworld in 2000 we have stayed at ASSports, Coronado, POFQ, Dolphin, BVW,POP(Plus a bunch of offsite hotels)
It's just easier not to move.

You'll have fun no matter what you do!

 

[smfnj]

You've already gotten a lot of good replies, I'll just add my $.02 worth.

We've split our stays between 2 resorts (never done 3) 7 or 8 times. Don't think I would do it for less than 3 or 4 days minimum per resort though.

Packing is no problem the morning we head to 2nd resort. I don't think it takes me more than 15 - 20 min to pack up; myself, wife and son. We do get up a little extra early. I like to check-in to the new resort by 7 - 7:30.

We always have a rental car so after getting showers and packing we call bell services/valet to bring up our car and come get luggage. Drive to resort and check-in, better chances of getting room requests early. Several times our room was ready. If not, we leave luggage with bell services, go eat breakfast and head to a park. There really is no "down time" doing this.

We're splitting 8 nights next week, 4 at Poly and 4 at BWI, it's the best of both worlds.

steve

 

[Camping Griswalds]

We are trying the split stay in Jan of 06. we're staying at POP and AKL. When the packages came out, it really would have saved us about 500 to do POP only, or we could have had the same cost if we did AKL only, BUT DS 9 really wants to go to POP and I just know DH will adore AKL. So I stuck with the split and saved a whopping 24 bucks. Well also priced adding the dining to both packages and it really stunk too ( really made price go up). So we have decided We are going to use this as our "experimental" trip ie... do we like 2 rooms at a value or one room at deluxe.... thinking of adding dining to pop stay to decide if we like dining plan...do we like staying in hotel (we used to have camper and would stay at Ft. Wilderness in camper)

To be honest, depending on what we like, I will probably book a 2007 vacation when we get back to see where we'll go next. I have planned at each resort one "off" day to just enjoy the resort all day, and we are staying 6 nights at POP and 5 nights at AKL so we'll see. I never would have thought to try a split stay until reading into it on these boards. I am really excited!

 

[Ron from Michigan]

We split our stay between POFQ & AKL in this past Sept. and just loved it. It was like we had two different vacations. We had no trouble at all with getting our luggage moved.

 

[matt&jakesmom]

Thanks for all the replys. My family is excited about the split stay and it seems like it will be a GO for next year.