Split stay CSR/POR?

[wacowgirl]

First of all, I'm sorry for all the questions I'm asking lately. I'm close to booking my trip and I want to get it right.

As you know, DS21 and I will be there over Thanksgiving 2016 for 9 days, 8 nights. We can't decide between CSR and POR, so we're considering a split stay at both resorts. How do split stays work? How would I do that with the package? We want Disney dining the entire time we are there. Would we have to have park tickets with both packages?

We're thinking at CSR, 4 nights in a business class room and then POR for 4 nights in a garden view or standard room. Which should be first?

Thank you for all of your help everyone!!!

 

[MissDisneyDora]

Yes. You would have to make 2 separate reservations here's what this means in terms of the dining plan:

From Touring Plans:
Use of the Disney Dining Plan is perhaps the most complicated part of a split stay.

Remember that the DDP can only be purchased as part of a package that includes a hotel stay, park tickets, and the Dining Plan. If you have a split stay, your packages will be completely separate. There is no “roll over” of Dining Plan credits from the first part of your trip to the second. You’ll have to keep close tabs on your credits to make sure that your meal selection doesn’t have you over- or under-spending credits during what Disney considers to be two totally separate vacations.

So essentially you need two separate reservations each must have hotel, tickets and dining.


I have done a split stay before- 1/2 the trip at POR and the other 1/2 at AOA. We only had park tickets and dining for the first half and not the second.
If I'm being really honest I can see the benefit if your budget only allowed you to stay at a deluxe for a few nights and then a value for the rest of your stay, or if you only wanted to do the DDP for part of your stay. But to have to make 2 different reservations to stay at the moderates? - Personally, I would probably just pick either one of the resorts and stay there to save the hassle.

x
Dora

 

[GreatLakes]

I never understood the appeal of split stays personally. I could see limited scenarios where it would be worth the hassle, like spending a night or two in the Boardwalk area for an Epcot event but moving to a less expensive room for the remainder of the trip, but not just to see two different similar resorts.

I would choose one resort to stay at and then build in a non-park day to resort hop and check out the other resorts.

If you do want to do the split stay and go with the dining plan you'll have to do two reservations. If one of the two resorts isn't offering a discount or promotion you'll have to pay regular price for that resort.

 

[Brenda Kim]

I say put both in a hat and pick one, split stays are no fun when on the dining plan.

 

[wdwfanva]

Like GreatLakes said, split stays are not what they're cracked up to be . DW and I did it once, never again. To me, you waste too much time and I'd rather check out another resort to see if it has appeal instead of a split stay. Whatever you decide, have a great trip !!!!

 

[JennyDrake]

Ditto the non split stay.

_I_ would go with POR. Best food court on WDW property, boat ride to DTD, carriage rides, etc.

 

[J'Adore Disney]

Ditto the non split stay.

_I_ would go with POR. Best food court on WDW property, boat ride to DTD, carriage rides, etc.

Split stays are no fun! I second what JennyDrake wrote. Stay are PORiverside, 20-minute boat ride to Downtown Disney, food courts offers a lot of choices for breakfast (I haven't done lunch or dinner there but read the menus and they sound pretty good). The rooms are refurbished. During my stay, August '15, bus transportation to the parks was never over a 10-minute wait; and a short walk to French Quarter offers even more meal options.

 

[TeamSy]

We love split stays! They are super easy and a great way to experience multiple hotels. On the day of check out, we typically wake up like we normally would, the only difference being we bring our luggage down to bell services on our way to the park. Let them know which resort you're transferring to. We always do one park per day, and stay there the entire day, so at the end of the day, we just take a bus/monorail/walk back to the next hotel, check in, and that's that. Easy. With that said, we only typically do split stays because we like to be close to the parks (so we'll split between a MK resort and an Epcot resort). I'm not sure that it would be worth it doing so otherwise, as your only transportation with mods are buses. We split stayed this past trip with YC and AKL, and we agreed that from here on our we're going to stick with Epcot and MK resorts, otherwise it just doesn't make sense (for us). We went from a resort with easy walking/boat transfers to a resort that left bus as our only option.

For mods, we've only done CSR and CBR. Honestly, we liked them both, but once we experienced resorts that allowed for us to walk/monorail to parks it was never the same again. CSR and CBR resort reminded us a lot of the other, minus the theming. Even when we visited POR it was a very similar vibe and feel, minus the theming. To a certain extent the are both laid out very similarly, they have the food court, the main pool, the quiet pools, etc. I *think* since CSR is a convention resort, it offers a little bit more amenities. Before we tried deluxe, we always said POR was next on our list, and when you don't do deluxe, it gets great reviews. The boat to DTD is a really great feature and makes it a little more unique than the rest of the mods. I would probably just choose one and stick with it.

 

[nherbert]

I love split says (see my signature) but we stay a lot longer than 8 nights as coming all the way from Australia. CSR is hard to book as its a convention hotel and our next trip will be our first visit. We love POR, nice rooms, great food, boat to DTD. The best thing about CSR is meant to be the pool and playground and a DS21 might be a bit old for that. It might have other good things but don't know yet.

If it's only 8 nights maybe just one resort would be best, but to be honest if it was us we would split because we like to explore and experience different things.

If you decide to split I would recommend POR first with dining plan (you have until midnight on check out day to use your credits) and then if you go business class at CSR I think (but not 100% certain) business class includes free snacks. The only thing that might change that is what time do you arrive on day 1 because if that is not a full day it might hamper your ability to use all your dining credits before you move.

Note if you do split you do not have to buy two sets of tickets, you can buy one set of tickets with first reservation for 9 days (cheaper than 2 sets of 4 day tickets). The second reservation would be room only. You might get lucky and a special come out that you can use to reduce cost but over thanksgiving I would not be that hopeful.

 

[wacowgirl]

Thank you everyone for your input. I think that I will just stick with one resort and resort hop to check things out. I might just have to do the hat draw.. lol