Is it worth it?

[simba20]

Having only 160 points, I have to use my points in a crafty way if I want to have a magical Disney experience or go at least 2x/year.

My home resort is AKV, and looking at the point charts, this seems to be the cheapest use of my points (value room or not).

Anyway, at some point I'd like to be able to experience a stay at most of the DVC resorts, but looking at the "cost" point wise, I am fine with staying at the same place year after year. Thanks to my DPs I stayed at SSR three times this year, and I am an SSR lover/liker.

Next year, I had the thought of staying at AKV (aka my home resort) and I know that my daughter would love it (she's 2). But then the thought occured to me after reading a recent post -- HAVE A SPLIT STAY!

So I got to thinking and looked at the points for two resorts I'd be interested in doing this -- BCV and AKV. I'd stay at BCV earlier in the week when the points are cheaper and then move to AKV in a value room or standard room later in my stay. I totaled the points and the "cost" was not much different than if I stayed a AKV in a standard room all week long.

So what do you think? Experienced split stayers, is it worth it to swap resorts? Is it worth the "hassle"? Is there anything that I'm not thinking of that I should be concerned about -- of course I know I'd have to check on availability but I do have a fallback plan in mind (aka plan A of staying at one resort, depending on what's available, for the entire week). Any ideas? Thanks, I'd appreciate it.

 

[zev]

Did a split from Vero and SSR. Worked out great since we did not want to spend our entire time at WDW. Rental car not that bad $ and used it to tour the other resorts and eat in other places. Buses can take some time. Nice that once on property you can park pretty much anywere in WDW. Still you do not have to have a car. Not sure if ME will transfer you to other on property hotels but I am sure the conceirge/bell desk could help out on that one.

 

[bookwormde]

I do it every visit, it takes a little planning and effort but it is worth it. I would suggest booking your whole vacation at AKV at 11 month and then try to pick up BCV at 7 month (call 9am 7 months out exactly) to try to get BCV. There is a chance you might have to wait list for it but no big deal if you already have AKV.

boowormde

 

[Tink-n-Belle]

YES!!!

I will be doing a split stay every trip now that we own at BW & BLT--- Being close to the parks is the best!!!

This Feb I will stay at BW for 3 nights, move over to the BLT for 4 nights and then rent a car and drive to VB for 2 nights.

The only hassle is the packing up and unpacking, but Disney takes care of transportating your stuff. The days we switch we can either go to a park that is closest to the new hotel or spend the day enjoying each resort. BW and BLT have a community hall and the kids love it there. On the day we go to VB Budget Rent a Car will pick us up and drive us to the rental counter where we will pick up our car around 11:00ish and head out to VB -2 hours away.

Plus with a split stay you get to experience 2 different resorts. 2 years ago I wanted to try AKV and switched out 1 night and just spent 2 days exploring and enjoying the resort.

HAVE FUN!!

 

[dvcdisney]

This past August we did a split stay, not really by choice (plans changed and so we had to get what we could). We were originally booked for 14 nights at BCV, but since BCV wasn't available for ALL the new nights, we ended up with 5 nights at AKV kidani and 9 nights at BCV.

I am not a fan of split stays. I will avoid it as much as possible. However, we prefer to stay at BCV in the August trip and so, the only way we could do that was to split stay.

I found that we lost a day packing and unpacking (or should I say I lost a day since the rest of my family spent the time at the pool). But the transition was easy. We had the luggage transferred to BCV from AKV without incident and when our room was ready, we called down and bell services brought it up (just had to spend more money on tips). We were taking it easy this vacation so it wasn't too bad to do this, we just decided to use that day as resort day.

But, I would still try to avoid split stays. I like unpacking and saying for the whole vacation. We usually only stay for 14 nights and it still never enough.

Just a tip, it saved me some time. I put all the items we needed for the first stay in two suitcases and so we didn't need to open the others. I'm sure all the expert split stayers do this all the time. But I actually just thought of it for this vacation. We only did one other split stay before, so I'm not much of an expert.

 

[Teachckg]

I love split stays! Part way through the trip you get real excited to go to a new place! Last time for our two week trip we did BWV, AKV, and VERO. This January we are doing BLT and BWV!!!

 

[AirGoofy]

Not a fan of split stays - don't want any more extra work on vacation. With 160 points, depending on time of year, you should be able to get two 4 or 5 day vacations a year. We had it figured out at 120 until Disney went and changed the point charts.

 

[simba20]

Not a fan of split stays - don't want any more extra work on vacation. With 160 points, depending on time of year, you should be able to get two 4 or 5 day vacations a year. We had it figured out at 120 until Disney went and changed the point charts.

Unfortuneately for us, my husband's work schedule only allows us to go during "peak" times of the year....a.k.a. when the points are high.

I would love to add-on a few more points, but I am currently a SAHM/grad student while my husband is the one with the paycheck. When I start working again, then an add-on is possible.