Contemplating Split Stay ASMovies/Yacht

[pixiegoose]

So, we’re planning a trip for this December. It will be our first trip in 4 years and we’ve decided to splurge and finally stay deluxe. Planning on Yacht Club for Epcot proximity and Stormalong Bay (kids will be 9 and 12 and are finally strong enough swimmers that I can relax enough for them to enjoy it and I won’t fear their imminent death by drowning).

I’ve been playing around with dates a bit and have discovered if we shift things a few days, we can still get 6 nights at Yacht PLUS a night at a value (thinking Movies because we’ve never stayed there but for an extra $50 could do Pop again) for less than the original 6 nights at Yacht. The plan would be to fly in on a Saturday morning, check into value, bum around the pool, maybe do Disney Springs or resort hop for dinner and then on Sunday check into Yacht and start hitting up the parks (6 day hoppers) before checking out the following Saturday. My husband thinks I’m nuts to even consider this but I told him that people do split stays all the time and that Disney will move your luggage for you from one resort to the other.

Thoughts? Disney will move our luggage, right? And would you start at Pop or MOVIES (edited because I originally put Music here! Brain=mush when I wrote this! )? I’m so frustrated with myself because I just can’t seem to make a decision about any of this! Help!

 

[Her Dotness]

Yes, Disney will transfer your bags except for anything refrigerated that must stay cold. You'll have to haul that yourselves but can simply take it over to the new resort and ask bell services to stash it until your room is ready.

Starting Value and moving to Mod or Deluxe is the most recommended way to do a split. To "split up" is how some refer to it because people usually enjoy the stay more going from Value to Deluxe rather than the reverse.

I warn you, though, staying Deluxe hooks you and won't let go.

 

[Marthasor]

I would do it. If it means you, basically, get a full extra day at YC since you will have already traveled and it's cheaper than the original plan, why not? We did something similar to this in October - we had a late flight in and I really didn't want to "lose" a day just traveling, so I booked a night at the Dolphin before we moved to VGF. We really enjoyed it and we ended up getting a whole park day in before our room was ready at VGF. Yes, WDW will transfer your luggage for you. You could also take a car service (we used lyft xl) and just take your luggage over to YC in the morning and go to a park from there. I would do Pop, but ASMo is cute, too.

 

[iheartglaciers]

I would definitely do it! Disney makes it easy to transfer luggage. Since it’s only one night, I lean towards going with All Star for the $50 cost savings. Especially since you it doesn’t sound like you’d take much advantage of the Skyliner with your day 1 itinerary.

 

[Foreveraprincess17]

Yes we have done this numerous times. It has given us an opportunity to try a bunch of the resorts-we love doing this. We prefer ASMo over Pop by a smidge. I think ASMo has one of the best gift shops on property.

If you do have Disney move your luggage make sure you know that this will take several hours to be delivered to your second resort (don't forget to take meds, swimsuits etc. just in case).

We don't unpack everything at the first resort. I place the second days clothes in Ziplock bags on top of the other items in the suitcase when I am packing-easy peasy!!

You will love the Yacht Club-enjoy your trip!!

 

[summerlvr]

Pop would be worth the extra $50 for me, Music is my least favorite Disney resort. The way it's laid out makes it a long walk to food court/buses if you are staying in a standard room.
Also, if you have Disney transfer your luggage, you won't get it until late afternoon. Not a big deal if you are going to be in a park all day though. I usually just take Uber/Lyft to my new resort and bring my luggage with me, but I'm not usually a rope dropper.

 

[Nabas]

We have done split stays many times. You mentioned:

The plan would be to fly in on a Saturday morning, check into value, bum around the pool, maybe do Disney Springs or resort hop for dinner and then on Sunday check into Yacht and start hitting up the parks (6 day hoppers) before checking out the following Saturday.​

And also asked:

And would you start at Pop or Music?​

The pool, food court, and store are roughly equivalent at the Value Resorts. If the theming of one appeals more to you, that would be a reason to stay there. Otherwise, these are a tossup for these specific reasons.

The $50 difference is a reason to stay at Music, but you are spending much, much more to stay at the Yacht Club, so I just don't think the $50 is enough to stop you from choosing between the two.

The Skyliner is a reason to stay at Pop, but since you are transferring to the Yacht Club, you'll have access to that for the rest of your trip.

Your room might not be ready till 3 pm, so the question becomes: What do you do before then, and what are you going to do after you check-in? Staying at Pop would give you a chance to explore Art of Animation, Caribbean Beach, and the Riviera in the morning. Alternatively, you could go to Disney Springs for the morning until your room at either Pop or Music is ready. Or you could just hang out at the pool, and go to Disney Springs or hotel explore in the evening.

We like trying out new hotels. It appears you already have stayed at Pop twice. Music would be a chance to try something different. Even if you don't like it as much as Pop, you're only there one night so what's the big deal?

If you're going to use the Skyliner to explore other Skyliner hotels, then stay at Pop. If not, then go with the one that appeals to you more.

 

[pixiegoose]

Thanks for all the input! I’ve emailed our travel agent about our new plans (but I priced everything out a million times on Disney’s site, so I’m pretty sure I got it all right), so we’ll make our final decision once she gets us the for-sure numbers.

Ideally we’ll get to the resort around 10/10:30 on Saturday and will have swimsuits/toiletries packed in our carryons so we can hit up the pool if our room isn’t ready (which I know is a high likelihood though our room was ready that early last time at Pop, so fingers crossed this time) and potentially head to Disney Springs or resort hop. Last trip, at OKW, we got in around the same time and our room wasn’t ready until 2ish, so we headed to Disney Springs to eat and shop before getting a quick break in the room before heading to a park for the evening (but we won’t have tickets for the first night this time).

DH is open to either Movies or Pop (normally the extra $50 would make the decision for him but since we’re doing Yacht he’s like “what’s an extra $50 for a night?”), so we’ll have to figure out which one we want to do. Last time we were at Disney, Skyliner was still under construction, so we haven’t used it yet, but it might be a nice option to get to other resorts for dinner that night. But I do like the idea of trying out Movies for something new. Argh, decisions decisions.

And I edited the title- for some reason I put ASMu in the thread title but I meant Movies (though I did get that right in the post itself- I’m telling you, I have been messing around so much on Disney’s site I can’t keep anything straight anymore ).

 

[SleeplessInTO]

Your plans sound fabulous to me! We did something similar one year, had a night at All Star Sports before moving to Boardwalk. Haven’t stayed at Movies or Pop before, I’d personally go with the cheaper option. Can put the $50 towards dinner!

 

[summerlvr]

Well, Movies (rather than Music) vs Pop would make the decision more difficult for me. The theming for Movies is great, and even though you wouldn't have the skyliner access for exploring other resorts, you could Uber to AKL or Coronado for lunch or dinner and explore those resorts if you've never stayed at there. Would probably need to have an ADR to assure being let in as it seems to be hit or miss getting past the guard without the ADR.

 

[lockets]

I wouldn’t do a split stay unless I were arriving very late. If coming in at 10 AM I would just find the money to stay at the same hotel by cutting something else in the trip or cutting the trip a day short or increasing the trip budget. I understand that the above plan extends your trip by one day but I feel like time is inherently lost when you have to move everything again (and if not move it yourself then at least re-settle it again) plus the hassle factor. Disney trips are already complicated enough right now with all the planning it takes to tour the parks. My motto would be keep it simple.

Another instance where I’ve done split stays is if trip is split in half with enough time in each place. But I wouldn’t want to stay one night somewhere and then the rest elsewhere unless I was arriving around bedtime. Just my 2 cents!

 

[pens4821]

We are doing this exact thing in March. Although we are starting and yacht club for 5 nights then 2 at movies. We did this because we are going to get there early so we should be able to enjoy stormalong bay after about 1 on arrival day. Figure I’d rather do that than swim at movies. And you can use it in checkout day so we will swim there before we go to movies and maybe even head back in the evening after parks. It helps a little we are driving so it won’t be as hard to move luggage (especially wet swim trunks). We will sleep two nights at movies but won’t really be there much. Doing this saves us about $1000 instead of staying at yacht all 7 nights.

We did a split stay once before, and got our luggage transferred for us and it was very easy. We did aoa then contemporary. It’s a good way to experience the deluxe hotels, but save some money.

 

[Her Dotness]

I wouldn’t do a split stay unless I were arriving very late....I understand that the above plan extends your trip by one day but I feel like time is inherently lost when you have to move everything again (and if not move it yourself then at least re-settle it again) plus the hassle factor.

I'm disagreeing with all of the above because we've found an arrival night split works great no matter when we arrive. It gives us time to get really psyched for our first full WDW day as well as to relax and rest from travel.

We even move our stuff ourselves because we have our own car at WDW and don't consider that an inconvenience at all because of our split philosophy.

That first night is simply a place to stash our stuff, chill for the rest of the day and not go to any park. We live out of bags, removing only necessities. We used to do this off-property but then found we'd rather be in the Disney bubble immediately.

We load up the next morning, drive to our main stay resort and leave stuff with bell services. When we didn't have a car, we arranged for Disney to move our stuff before going to eat or to the park of the day.

We like to really settle in at our main resort, unpacking and putting clothes into closet and drawers, setting other items (a few decorative like a small Christmas tree) around to make our 5-6 night stay homey.

A night or two elsewhere at the end of our trip isn't as enjoyable, we've found. However, we've done those after having used park tickets so suspect we'd like it better with at least 1 day still at a park.

We like to settle in too much to do a more even split, 3 nights at one, 3-4 at another. We probably also won't ever bracket our long stay with 1 night elsewhere on arrival and another before leaving. That'd be too much moving for us.

But, arrival night as a lowkey, necessities-only stay works well for us.

I would agree with lockets that moving wastes time if spending every possible moment in the parks is a priority. That is a consideration if parktime is your main focus.

 

[pixiegoose]

We’re officially booked for 1 night at Pop followed by 6 nights at Yacht! I’ve made our 6 park day reservations (based on last year’s hours, so obviously subject to major changes), so now I have to impatiently wait to make more plans! 317 days to go! Thanks for the help!

 

[vetrik]

We did this for our DD's first trip and loved it! We had a package at Wilderness Lodge starting on a Sunday (for the first day of free dining), but it wound up being much cheaper to fly in on Saturday morning. We added a night at Pop and walked around Art of Animation, swam in the afternoon, and headed to Disney Springs for dinner and shopping. My daughter actually loved Pop more than Wilderness Lodge and was pretty sad to leave the "play-doh hotel"!

 

[kylenne]

I would do it. If it means you, basically, get a full extra day at YC since you will have already traveled and it's cheaper than the original plan, why not? We did something similar to this in October - we had a late flight in and I really didn't want to "lose" a day just traveling, so I booked a night at the Dolphin before we moved to VGF. We really enjoyed it and we ended up getting a whole park day in before our room was ready at VGF. Yes, WDW will transfer your luggage for you. You could also take a car service (we used lyft xl) and just take your luggage over to YC in the morning and go to a park from there. I would do Pop, but ASMo is cute, too.

I don’t mean to threadjack but I’m contemplating something similar for July 4th weekend since I plan to fly down after work on Friday, possibly spend the night at the Dolphin and then move to CR. Will they move luggage to a Disney resort? Or would I be better off just taking it over myself in a Lyft?

 

[ktink]

Yes! We just did our first split stay between BWI and GF. I will continue to do split stays. It’s so effortless!