Split Stay Reservations ?

[plymouthmom]

Okay Gang, Here I am again! Here is my question today. DH, four kidlets and myself scheduling our trip for next spring. Dates are 3/29-4/4. Not considered Spring Break by Disney standards ( points are not premium) but spring break for us in Minnesota.

I have reserved at my home resort OKW for the time. Renting points for first night, 2 nights at HH room, then just making the rest of the reservations general OKW for now. Did that for two reasons, thinking of switching resorts mid trip just to get a taste of different places and also to add DDP to the last part of our trip.

What I am wondering is......Will it be easier to start somewhere else for that Sun, Mon and Tues and end up at OKW for the W, T and Fri dates? We are doing Aquatica and Sea World those first two full days and only plan on doing a 3 day park hopper. So.....being close to Epcot or MGM the first couple of days not so helpful and kids definately want to end our stay at the Disney Parks.

Thoughts?

 

[bluenosemickey]

We did a split just this year mid-march. Have 3 kids 5,7,10,DH and me. We started at OKW and ended at BWV. I didn't do DP, we had groceries delivered.

A few considerations I learned:

1. I had too much food when the time came for transfer, should have thought of that and schedulled my restaurant dining for the end of the trip and shopped lighter. I would do 2 separate orders possibly next time. Just to make the move easier. Or DP for first half and groceries for second.
2. Liked staying at BWV, also liked OKW for completely different reasons, felt like two vacations- kind of fun, but definately a little hectic.
3. It would have been easier to move into a resort like OKW (drive up parking) for the second half of the trip (we had our van). It was a long treck at BWV to pack up for the trip home, didn't want to do that at the front entrance
4. If you do DP at the end, you have a little less time to use up all your credits. Remember, you get until midnight on the check-out day to use them. If you were doing DP at the beginning of the trip, you would essentially have 4 days in which to spread out the time to use all the credits up for 3 days of DP.
5. When we packed up at OKW we put some things on the bottom of the suitcases that were not coming out at BWV, this way, we had a bit of a headstart on the final packing. If you can do this, the time spent re-packing is not a wasted effort, just done a little early.

ATBS, we are planning a trip home in Dec and will do a split hopefully at SSR and AKV if all works out. For the days we are going to do Seaworld, we are considering staying at POR the weekend and do the DP and save on the weekend points, or maybe even stay close to Seaworld. I will do 2 grocery orders, one for each of the villa locations. And I will pack lighter and more strategically keeping the move in mind. Leaving some stuff still packed until the final destination arrival.

We may not always do a split stay once we have been to all of the resorts, but for now, we are too eager to see them all and will put up with any hassles in moving!

 

[CarolMN]

We generally stay off site for the nights we are not planning to visit a Disney park. We try to time the off site portion for the more expensive Friday and Saturday nights.

I hate to move around during a vacation (unless it's on a cruise ship, LOL) and so visiting off site attractions is the only time we move. Hate being without a room during the middle of a DVC vacation.

 

[plymouthmom]

Wonderful info! Especially knowing you have lots of kids too!

My thoughts are doing the in villa cooking thing first part of the trip and then just doing breakfasts in room the last part. So, should make the grocery thing easier.

What is the difference in price if you buy your food offsite? We shopped at SuperTarget last trip, so nice as it has the same layout as my store here!

Not too worried about using up dining credits, three boys, one of whom is a teenager who eats hourly!

Plenty of time to plan all this but like to have an idea of what other people have dealt with.

Also planning on packing pretty light with the in room laundry options, that helps tremendously. My boys didn't bring a ton last time either, it was my darling daugther who had many many outfits she HAD to bring. Not next time though....

 

[disneynutz]

The DDP may change again for next year. I wouldn't plan your entire vacation around it.

 

[dizney4us]

We may need to do a split stay next february, how does it work? Does Disney move your luggage? We will not have a car, and plan to spend 4 nights at SSR and then 5 at BWV. We've never done a split stay before, could someone explain how it would work? thanks!!

 

[plymouthmom]

I was just thinking that, about possible changes to DDP. Think what we may do is just split our stay at OKW, would like to see what other buildings are like anyway. That way we are not hoping all around the "world". Then when DDP stuff comes out later this year, we can make a decision if we want to add it or not. With a family of 6, it hasn't changed really for us this year, other than lack of appetizer, which is fine, we couldn't eat appetizer and dessert anyway.

 

[msabol01]

We just did a split stay and while the intent was to see twice the number of properties (VWL and SSR) my wife didn't like having to re-pack and un-pack. We had a car so we did the move ourselves and our room at SSR was available at 7am.

The bell desk will move the stuff for you, but you will be on their time schedule. Not a big deal if you have older kids and plan to spend the move day at the park. We have a 2 year old who needed a nap and so it was important for us to have our stuff and room as soon as possible. The nice thing about SSR the room was available when I checked in.

I doubt I will do another split stay. Not because it didn't work out, but only because we'd rather completely relax and feel like we are at our home away from home rather than livng out of the suitcase and moving.