Looking for advice - Cruise and WDW Itinerary

[Dis Dragon]

Hello all,

So we rented DVC a while back for November, we're tied into this trip that was broken into three parts. We start for a few days at BRV and then depart on a 3 day cruise and then comeback to a stay at Poly Villas. My confident % in the cruise actually happening is about to hit single digits even though it's all the way out in November and there's concern about what type of procedures will be in place on the ship at that point that could change the experience. It will be the first cruise my family has ever been on so of course we want to experience it uninhibited. Since we started thinking it wouldn't happen we booked a bridge stay at POR for the 3 nights but our already purchased park tickets are short by a couple days.

I came up with the idea to possibly use those 3 nights to experience Universal staying at Royal Pacific - We've never been there before so have no idea what to expect. This ends up cheaper than the cruise but more than POR for sure... I'm afraid I'm trying to push in too much in those 3 nights and it'll just make the trip hectic, but at the same time it would afford park hopping on 2 of the existing days. We park hop a lot and that restriction is really going to hamper what we do at WDW.

Can anyone share some experiences with jumping resorts and how it worked out? What they would avoid? Is this a bad idea? etc...

 

[soniam]

We do it almost every trip; however, we only stay at 2 hotels: 1 at UO and 1 at WDW. UO is always at either at the beginning or end of the trip. That should be plenty of time to do UO. Plus, you will get Express Pass, which will give you even more time. The wait times with Express have been great in the past, and it's available on almost every ride, except Hagrids. Plus you get early entry as a hotel guest, 1 hour before normal opening. You might be tight if you were trying to fit in Volcano Bay though. I would totally do it. We usually spend a morning in a park and then head to the other resort. You could spend that night at either Disney Springs or Citywalk, so that you don't have to buy park tickets for 2 parks in one day. How do you plan to get between Disney-UO. It's so easy to park hop at UO, and really a must in order to ride the Hogwart's Express. We will often hit one park in the morning, go to Citywalk for lunch, walk to the other park, and then take Hogwart's Express back to the first park, assuming we are spending a full day in the park. It's a short walk or boat ride between the hotel and the parks.

 

[DisneyGal24]

So you are possibly looking at three resorts (BRV, Universal RPR, and Poly), correct? Are you flying or driving? I ask because we drive and we just store our luggage in our vehicle when we change resorts. We actually did a three resort split over 5 days at Christmas with a stay at RPR (and three days at Universal). It is hectic but I would do it again. My kids are older (14 and 11) so they were fine with it. We drive in from TN on Christmas Day and checked in at OKW. We immediately headed to Disney Springs for shopping and dinner. Early the next morning we left OKW to check in at RPR. We did this because it was cheaper to stay one night at RPR than to pay for Unlimited Expresses for my family of four for 2 days. We checked in, got our tickets and express passes and headed to Universal for Harry Potter early opening. Spent all day at Universal and IOA. We were up early the next morning to load our luggage in the vehicle again and get to Harry Potter early opening at IOA. At the end of the day, we drove over AKL to check in. We stayed three nights at AKL with one more visit to Universal because we got an extra day free with the purchase of two park days. Just make sure you’re organized when you pack and you’ll be fine.

 

[Dis Dragon]

Yes, it would be a triple split, which we've done before but only on Disney property and they make is it so easy. We fly in so won't have a rental unfortunately, we'd get a lyft and just transfer everything - or maybe possibly leave some luggage at Poly like we were for the cruise.

Volcano bay is the chief draw for us since we don't expect Disney to open a water park this year, we weren't planning on doing UO for a couple more years, but the kids go crazy for waterparks. I'm hearing that there's not enough time to enjoy it.