RIV and either VGF or BLT. This are what I strive for. I have done splits as small as 1 night and 2 nights.
On the change day, we sleep in, enjoy the pool, check out at 11 am, go to lunch somewhere and then usually do DS or the spa for some/parks for others.
By the time, we do those and go to new resort room is ready!
MK area + EP/HS area is our preferred split as well. I typically prefer to do MK area first because we usually take the first flight in the AM and checking in to VGF or BLT and then seeing the castle, first thing, is our favorite way to celebrate our arrival. Also, I tend to like a more mellow pace at the end of the trip, and sometimes MK can be too much. That said, our next trip is BCV/VGF so we'll be doing more MK/AK at the end.
What a fun question! We have only had 2 trips so far as DVC members and both have been split stays. We’ve learned a few lessons too.
1st trip: 3 nights CCV, 2 nights AKV Kidani, both 1BR. Learned not to do a park on transfer day and to always end on CCV. The Savannah is of course frickin’ awesome, but the room at AKV looked more worn out in comparison to CCV. We probably would have been way more impressed with it if we had seen it first.
2nd trip: 1 night at ASM (for 4 people after driving, met up with larger group the next day) 3 nights OKW, 2 nights CCV, both dedicated 2BR. Learned we’d like the longer stay to be at CCV and not to stay at the resort with the larger rooms 1st if you’re traveling with people who might need to point that out a lot if you move to a smaller space.
We drive, so we’ve now decided we need to break up the travel days by stopping somewhere overnight or stay longer at WDW. We like the split stays now so we can try out all of the resorts, but will probably stay at CCV for part of most trips.
LOL. Before we succumbed to addonitis, we used to split with a hotel room at Swan/Dolphin on points, so we'd always start our split stays there. The first time we split with BLT (our first contract) we went from a hotel room to a 1BR standard at BLT that had a park view and my then-6 year old exclaimed, "THIS IS THE MOST AMAZING HOTEL ROOM I'VE EVER STAYED IN!!!"
And last year, we were deciding between 5 nights in am AKV 1br value or moving for the last 2 nights to a Riviera standard studio, and DH said, "let's do 2 nights at Riviera to finish on a more luxurious note"
For example, it's good to know that having a park day planned for transfer day isn't the best idea.
We've done parks on transfer day as well as resort days. For us, it depends sometimes on what ADRs we have for dinner. (see below)
I am excited to do the split stay, but I am not sure I am excited about two different transfers. We only did the Hilton because of the amount of Hilton points I have saved up (and we are banking DVC points into next year for a planned trip to Aulani), but having to transfer twice in one trip seems a little much. I am glad we don't have a park day planned on the Hilton-Poly transfer day, because Hilton doesn't transfer bags to the other resorts. I think going forward we will probably do split stays consisting of 3 days at one resort and 4 at another resort, but we'll see how this 3 resort trip goes next month.
feel like I’m ending on a high note (whether that be room type, or preferred resort/location)
Totally agree.
We have APs and usually go for 9-10 days at a time. After a 4(BCV) - 3(AKV) -2(RIV) split over spring break last year, I'm even more sure that 3 days is our minimum amount of time to spend per resort. Since our home resorts are BLT, VGF and RIV, we usually try to split between MK area (where we will go to MK/AK) and EP/HS area. Problem is that we have a lot more MK area points, and so we often stay in a RIV studio to save points, even though as
@SorcererC points out, this means we should stay in the EP/HS area first and then move to larger accommodations near MK, which conflicts with my preference to go to MK earlier in the trip and slowly mellow out.
Transfer days:
If we go to a park, we don't rope drop. We will usually have lunch/brunch at 11 or 12 near resort 1, right after we've checked out, and then schedule a dinner around 5 or 6 at or near resort 2. If going from Riv to MK area, this usually means (hopefully) late brunch at Topolino's or [EP WS of Brown Derby] if we plan a park day, and then dinner in MK or at VGF/BLT depending on which resort we're going to. The benefit to scheduling a dinner at the resort is that we are going to wind up there anyway, and if it's a relatively early dinner, even if the room isn't ready until well after 4, it's almost always ready by the time we are done with dinner.
When we're checking out of BCV, we will usually spend the AM at the pool and then go to a park near resort #2 in the afternoon/for dinner. we've also done resort days when checking IN to AKV. It varies when we are at RIV or VGF. BLT's pools are boring and it's so close to MK that we usually go to a park (MK or EP/HS) if we are transferring to/from BLT.
(sorry for the extremely delayed edit - DIS error.... - will go back and delete previous post)
