Split stay pros and cons?

[Paula Sedley-Burke]

Another fan of spilt stays we try and do that every time now. Love packing cubes too. We have a colour for both resort. We like to send our bags the night before and pack a day bag to speed up the process of our bags at the other resort.

 

[mi*vida*loca]

I always thought split stays must be so difficult and annoying because I despise packing and unpacking. We did a split stay this past trip and will probably do one every trip now. It was so simple. We dropped our bags off at Poly Bell Services around 7 am, made it to DHS by 730 and were in line for AM EMH by 745. We went back to BC around 2 and our bags weren't there yet. They got there around 4. That part was a bit annoying but we just relaxed until they arrived. Next time I may do an Uber just so we have access to our bags immediately. Other than that I loved it. We never felt homeless. We just hit the park!

 

[LowesChevy]

We normally do split stays since because our DVC points only take us so far and we must save points for next year! Being near the MK is great, but we are forever going to Epcot at night for dinner and strolling.

Pros: Closer locations to some parks-i.e. MK resorts-great for MK access, same with Epcot resorts-close to Epcot & DHS. Less bus rides the better for us.
Get to experience more than 1 resort and pool areas
If you end up not liking your pick-it will change

Note: We rent a car, which is more convenient to move resorts. Items don't need to be fully packed and laundry in baskets. Not everyone has this option

Cons: Packing up and moving takes time, but if you plan it right and take advantage of FP+, you don't have to worry about missing out on rope drop or high demand rides (Pro)
Often at BLT the rooms aren't exactly ready at 4 PM! This has happened to us a few times unfortunately and if you have little ones that need naps (or adults who needs naps: see my mother) or wash up before dinner it is a drag
If you love your resort and have to change it's a bummer!
The beer gets warm
You need to learn the layout of another resort

They don't work for everybody, but we enjoy the variety.

 

[dansdad]

It was a joke.

Phew!

 

[marchingstar]

We don't have kids, so I can't speak to how easy/difficult split stays are with smalls in tow, but we've loved split stays in the past. I also only skimmed previous comments, so I'm sorry if I'm repeating what's been said already, but a couple things came to mind reading your original post.

First: Moving from one resort to another is really no big deal. Especially for a longer trip, I would definitely recommend a change of scenery partway through your vacation. If you know in advance that you're going to move resorts, pack accordingly: leave half your gear in the suitcases and then the repacking is pretty minimal. Plus, in my experience there's really no need to pack perfectly just to move hotels--as long as everything makes it into a bag, you're going to unpack right away anyways.

Next: the one word of caution I would suggest--both resorts you've mentioned are great because of their proximity to parts of the World. I would organize my days based on where I was staying to minimize transportation (the real value of the hotels you mention are walking/monorailing to MK from CR and walking/boating to EPCOT and HS from Yacht/Beach Club). I would make sure to organize my days so I was spending most of my time at the closest parks--and further, I would stay in the EPCOT area first, then MK area. I think that makes most sense with kids too, so you start with the other parks and end with a focus on MK, but that's just my preference.

Finally: it seems to me that people get pretty hung up on the process of moving from one resort to the other on the boards. To my mind, if you're willing to stay 10 nights in deluxe resorts, what's another 20 bucks in cab fare? We've just taken our luggage in a cab from the first resort to the second and stored our luggage there until the rooms were ready. Easy peasy. To my mind you have the flexibility of taking your move day as a down day or not--your luggage and room will be waiting when you get back from a day at the parks if that's what you want to do.

Hope this adds something to your thought process!

 

[Missymoe4]

Like the thought about Uber..........which we've used multiple times at WDW. The first night of our next visit is at POR (Royal room). The next morning we're off to AKV. We've done online check in for 10am (I know........a dream ) I like the idea of my wife and I bring our luggage.......given our early request I'm not expecting are room will be ready so will just leave our luggage with the hotels guest services (we've done this before and it worked quite nicely.) My hope is check-in won't be that busy that early in the morning......although we could bump into check out! Therese always something

Doug

I believe our uber ride was $7. You really can't go wrong.

 

[Hi Pluto]

When we did our split stay we dropped off our luggage to be transferred at bell services, then went to a park for a few hours, then took the bus back to the new resort and checked in. Our luggage showed up a short time later (you have to call and be in the room for it to be delivered).

Glad we did it, but I wouldn't do it again if we weren't doing a long trip like your ten days. We did 4 and 2, which seemed a little rushed.

One of the nice things is it helped with our dining plan. We only booked the DDP for the 4 night stay, and since the credits last until midnight of checkout we could stretch them a little further and then paid OOP. It also saved us money to book deluxe/moderate.

Cons:
-Check in took a while at the second resort
-When we took the bus from the park to POR, we had no idea which stop to get off at. We ended up lost and had to ask CMs for directions (we were on the far, far side away from the lobby).
-It did take about a half day to devote to the move.

~Cari~