Is a split-stay a good thing?

[Princess Disney Mom]

You have to plan for a split stay. Don't unpack everything and get all cozy in the first room. It worked very well for us when the first resort was 1-3 days long and the second 6-7 days long. One year we switched 2 times. We would have one suitcase that was not needed at one or the other resort. We used a lot of ziplock bags for makeup, medicine, toiletries etc. to make items easy to find.

 

[JennaDeeDooDah]

I have done a split stay on my past two trips. The first time (December 2012), we stayed at Pop Century first and moved to Port Orleans Riverside for the rest of the trip. This was a bit of a hassle because we had free dining with the Riverside reservation, so we actually had to check in before going to the parks that day to have access to our dining plan. So, we had to take a bus from Pop to Hollywood Studios and then grab a bus to POR. Other than that, no real complaints. We took all of our luggage to Luggage Services at Pop that morning and they transported everything to POR for us.

When we did it this past week, we stayed at All Star Movies first and then transferred to Art of Animation. Easy breezy lemon squeezy! No meal plan or anything and they don't close out your account until midnight the day you check out, so we dropped our luggage off at Luggage Services at ASMo that morning, headed to the park (Magic Kingdom, if you are wondering), and at the end of the day headed to AoA and checked in. Now, they wouldn't put our luggage in our room until we actually checked in, so we did end up waiting about an hour for our luggage, but we ordered pizza, watched a movie, and didn't really notice.

My husband and I are on a mission to stay at all of the Disney resorts and since we aren't the most patient of people, split stays work well for us. That way, we can determine which hotels we love and which ones we would rather not stay at again. Oh, and there has only been one resort that has ever fallen into the latter category.

 

[DisneyRunner2009]

My family did it, not a fan. It eats up a lot of time, when I could be doing other things.

 

[PaulaVonSchweetz]

The switchover is kind of a time suck. I'd rather just be in one place.
This last trip was our first with MB and split stay. There is a flaw in the MB system where dining plans don't carry over with 2 separate reservations so when we switched resorts, while we technically had the dining entitlements, since check in isn't till 4 PM we couldn't use them. We had to pay for our food, keep the receipts then get reimbursed at check out.
Kind of a PITA.

 

[harbin]

We have our first split stay coming up and honestly can't wait! We are doing an equal split. 5 days at Boardwalk followed by five days at contemporary. We have 9 day tickets with dining plan at Boardwalk and room only at contemporary. Decided to do this because I really dislike Disney transport with a stroller! This gives us the best of both worlds. The only park I will be taking transport to is AK, otherwise we will be on foot/boat/ or monorail. I am packing two suitcases one for BWI and one for CR... So we will not be packing/unpacking. Plan on giving bell services our stuff at BWI and heading to water park then will check in at contemporary prior to heading to Whispering Canyon for dinner and MK in the evening. I am looking forward to trying two new resorts!!