Talk to me about split stays

[Scooter2376]

For those of you who like to do split stays at multiple resorts, why do you like it? Do you want to spend a minimum number of nights at a resort before you think it's worth it to switch?

I currently have a 6 night trip booked at the Poly in March for my husband, my six-year-old son, and me. My husband was poking around online, liked Fort Wilderness, and asked about a split stay. My initial reaction was that I didn't want to pack and unpack in the middle of a 6 night stay, but FW is significantly less expensive than Poly, and a change up might be fun. Help me decide!

 

[loves to dive]

I've done them for as few as 4 nights and as many as 6 nights. I tend to do night one or night one and two at a value/moderate then move over to an Epcot deluxe or Swan/Dolphin. I started doing them because it was silly for me to pay for a deluxe for the first night when we got there around 3 and went straight to a park and were just sleeping in that room. When we stay for two nights it's usually a moderate and day 2 we spend some time at the pool/bar we spend a lot of time as the resort in the deluxe. As far as packing, it's not an issue for me since I drive down. My son likes to just pack everything in one bag but he's not an unpacker. I tend to take two bags, one for each stay but I unpack, even if it's just for one night. Lately I've been using packing cubes for that first stay, everything for that stay is in one cube and I just have to grab the cube out of my luggage and throw the dirty clothes back in it and put it in the back of the car, thus freeing up more suitcase space. I have a hanging toiletry bag that never gets unpacked, we use stuff out of it and put it back in as soon as we are finished and I pack it on top in the suitcase, just open the suitcase, grab that and my packing cube and next day put the toiletry bag back in the suitcase. Sometimes I just pack a small tote type bag for that first night. Disney will move and store you luggage for you so it's not big deal if you do fly. I do on line check in and on more morning, just call down to the front desk at resort #1 and check out, drive over to resort #2 and check in. You don't have to do that if you do on line check in but I like to let them know I'm there in case a room comes ready fast. I just store my luggage and head out to a park, when I get the room ready text I decide then if I want to go back to the room and get my luggage or just wait until I'm done.

 

[Ensusieasm]

For those of you who like to do split stays at multiple resorts, why do you like it? Do you want to spend a minimum number of nights at a resort before you think it's worth it to switch?

I currently have a 6 night trip booked at the Poly in March for my husband, my six-year-old son, and me. My husband was poking around online, liked Fort Wilderness, and asked about a split stay. My initial reaction was that I didn't want to pack and unpack in the middle of a 6 night stay, but FW is significantly less expensive than Poly, and a change up might be fun. Help me decide!

I have done several split stays. I even did 5 different Disney Resorts within 12 nights a couple years ago, and I have a triple split stay coming up in three months. I really like it. It gives me a new change of scenery and location near different parks. It's easy. I don't rent a car and rely on Disney transportation. Bell services transfers my luggage making for a smooth and easy transition. What fun it was the year I began my vacation with a night at Art of Animation with all the fun Disney Movie icons, then a night at AKL with a view of giraffes and zebras from my balcony, on to the amazing luxury villas at The Grand Floridian with such quick access to Magic Kingdom by monorail and water taxi, next a Saratoga Springs villa overlooking Disney Springs with a quick walk to all the shopping, restaurants, and entertainment, and finally ending with a balcony overlooking the Atlantic Ocean at Disney's Vero Beach Resort. ( I did need to provide my own transportation and luggage transfer for this final resort ). It was the most wonderful break from a Maine winter ever! So, I would have to say, it sounds like lots of fun to add some nights at Wilderness to your Polly vacation. Enjoy!

 

[ColoradoMom12]

We do split stays primarily to make Disney vacations more affordable. We enjoy staying at the deluxe resorts, but for a longer vacation it is just too expensive for my family. I also don't think we would use all of the amenities enough over an 8 night stay to justify staying there. Since we enjoy staying longer (more than 3-4 days in any case), we usually split the long trips. 4-5 nights at Pop Century followed by 3-4 at a deluxe resort. We actually love Pop Century, and it offers exactly what we need at the beginning of our vacation when we are so excited to be at Disney that we don't want to spend much time at our resort. It works out well because later on when we start to feel like slowing down, we move to a deluxe resort. We love the split stays. The experiences are so different at each resort that it often feels like two vacations in one!

The packing and unpacking was a little chaotic our first few split stays. I now have a system, though! Instead of one suitcase per person, I pack by the different legs of our trip. So at Pop Century, we open two suitcases. We live out of one and entirely unpack the other. We use the empty one to put things in (shopping, laundry, etc) that we won't need
again. We keep two more suitcases packed, locked, and in a corner ready to be opened at our second resort. It saves space in the room, and it's much less chaotic when we are trying to pack everything up to move to our second resort. Usually by the time we're ready to leave our first resort, one suitcase is full of laundry and shopping, and the other is ready for our essential items in the morning.

The only thing I don't have a good system for is groceries. Bell Services is great at keeping things refrigerated for us, but I always feel like we have too many bags with groceries. Even if it's just 3, it makes it seem like we have more luggage than we really do!

 

[Coconut8473]

When we've done split stays, it's usually for location and convenience. My kids are 7 and 3 now, and for the past 7 years we've had a stroller to deal with, so avoiding buses is key for us. Walking, monorail or boat ride is so much easier with a stroller. We'll do an MK area resort and do a couple of days at MK, then switch to an Epcot resort and do our Epcot and DHS days. (We'll squeeze in an AK day whenever!) We also usually go in late summer when it is HOT, so we like to be able to go back and use the pool midday... relying on a bus can be time consuming and exhausting for those back-and-forth trips.

Since both of your hotels are technically MK area, it will probably be more just about changing theme (and being a little closer to the action at Poly), but I could still see it being worth it to get two completely different experiences out of one trip! Maybe plan to do your DHS and AK days while at FW since it's further away, and then do MK and Epcot while at Poly.

Agree with the poster above with packing cubes - they're the best!

 

[buzznina]

We have did a couple of times, but we drive, and because of that we take a LOT more stuff then we would if we flew. We like to unpack and settle into our room and packing it all up was a real pain. We would do it again if we stayed more then 10 days. Like you mentioned, it can save you $$ when splitting with a cheaper resort.

 

[richkaryn]

We did a split stay last fall because I had originally booked a week at the Poly, and we also had gone to Alaska via DCL earlier in the year, and some "life" happened and DH was going to make me cancel the whole trip 2 months before we went because the Poly was so expensive. It was my bday and I was determined to keep the trip (and I'd always wanted to stay at the Poly. ) I started digging and found a discounted room at AKL through Orbitz for the last 3 nights of that week, and they had an additional 15% promo code going on. I was able to knock over $1200 off our room expense by dropping the last 3 nights at the Poly and doing the split stay. DS had been dying to try AKL anyway (though I was sure I'd hate it) so it was a win-win for him. We drove from TN, so we had a car and just transported our stuff ourself. I ended up loving AKL (possibly more than Poly??) and really enjoyed being able to try out multiple resorts in one trip (these were our first 2 deluxe stays and now we are addicted!) We also found ourselves spending more time at the resorts and not commado-style touring the parks that trip because 1. we paid a lot of money to stay deluxe so it had to be more than just a bed to crash in. 2. This was also our first trip in the fall, and the parks weren't open near as late as they have been on our trips in spring and summer. 3. We've been so many times now that it was easier to spend the morning in one park at our pace, return to resort to swim and enjoy the resort for a few hours, and then hop to another park that evening. We try to do at least one new to us/different thing each trip, and by doing a split stay it made it easy to explore things we hadn't before (though technically you could count both the split stay and staying deluxe as the new/different that trip too).
I managed to squeeze in 1 night at the Boardwalk on our way back from the beach this summer using a "free night" credit of $200 from hotels dot com just to feed my Disney/deluxe resort addiction. Have already put in my request early for DVC rental for Boardwalk next October to get to spend some more time there and for easy access to F&W, and had debated a split stay again since we enjoyed it the last time, but since renting points I figured just go for one and put 2 back-up preferences so we're happy either way.

 

[AngiTN]

We do them on most trips any more
Disney makes it so easy.
But, I'm not an unpacker. I live out of the suitcase for our entire trip, unless you count putting my makeup bag on the bathroom counter. Other than that, everything I have stays in my suitcase. So on moving day all I do is put makeup bag back in suitcase, zip it up, call Bell Services, give them info on move and head to the park. We leave the park and head to the new resort. Our bags are always at the next resort by the time we make it over there.
When we go for NYE we are staying in 4 resorts over a 6 day trip, just so we can avoid transportation hassles and NYE crowds.

 

[DisneyWishes14]

We've done splits but our rule of thumb is to never stay less than 3 nights in any resort. I feel like you need at least 3 nights to experience the resort. We prefer MK/EP splits, but Ft. W is a lot of fun! I would give it a try!

 

[DaisyDuck001]

Each stay has a different theme so it is like two or more vacations in one! The less you unpack, the easier it is to get ready to move to the next place.

 

[diana13]

I have done, and loved it, but was really long time ago. This time when I am considering a switch, it is on a day I will be leaving for park for a 7 am open. So, do you leave the luggage in your room, go to park and just let them know? They come themselves to room and get luggage, or do you need to bring to storage? I am checking constantly for availability at different resorts I want, but right now it would be going from Music to CS. I am coming for a busy December long weekend.

 

[AngiTN]

I have done, and loved it, but was really long time ago. This time when I am considering a switch, it is on a day I will be leaving for park for a 7 am open. So, do you leave the luggage in your room, go to park and just let them know? They come themselves to room and get luggage, or do you need to bring to storage? I am checking constantly for availability at different resorts I want, but right now it would be going from Music to CS. I am coming for a busy December long weekend.

Neither. You call them, tell them where you are heading, how many bags. You wait for them to come to get the bags and they'll give you a receipt for the bags

 

[ambellina]

Neither. You call them, tell them where you are heading, how many bags. You wait for them to come to get the bags and they'll give you a receipt for the bags

How early in the morning can you call for bell services to come take the bags?

 

[dansdad]

How early in the morning can you call for bell services to come take the bags?

They're available 24 x 7.

 

[Shellyb84]

We've done two, one I liked the other not so much. The first one we did 2 nights at Poly then 3 at CBR. We were traveling with my parents and Mom had always dreamed of staying at the Poly but the only availability was at the start of our trip. We did not like the "downgrade" feel when moving to CBR. Maybe it wouldn't have been so bad moving to a different mod but we just really disliked CBR so that made it worse.

In June we did 1 Pop/4 AKL/8 BC. I really liked it because we got to try a new resort (AKL) without committing the entire trip somewhere new, and it felt like 2 vacations in one. Also cut down on the cost as AKL was a good bit less than BC. We plan on doing a similar split next June but I haven't decided on the first resort which will be 4-6 nights then 7-8 nights BC. BC is our favorite so we like ending with that. We've done several trips with one night Pop, then moving to a different resort, but I don't really count those - we just do that when we have a really late arrival for a place to sleep for a few hours.

I don't really unpack much, just hang up a few things and toiletries, so moving wasn't that big of a deal. We drive so we moved our own luggage.

I think you need at least 3 nights to get a feel for the resort so a 3/3 split would be fine. The Fort is so much fun for kids I'm sure your DS would love it. If it were me I would do the 3 nights at FW first.

 

[Yarbogash]

Lot of helpful ideas here. Ty all! We have a split stay coming up in December; Pop/Dolphin/OKW. I think I need to google ‘packing cubes.’

And imho you would (probably) not want to visit the same park every day of your trip and the resorts are essentially mini theme parks themselves. So why limit yourself to just 1 mini theme park per trip?

 

[ambellina]

I'm very excited about my upcoming split stay even though it's a little over eleven months away! My husband and I will be there in October of next year, staying three nights at CL AKL and then a week at CR. Neither of us have been to WDW in decades, and I'm so looking forward to this. Part of the reason we are staying at CR is because there is a tech conference being held there that my husband is attending so we were able to get a nice group rate discount for it. The CL AKL room didn't have the greatest rate for us, but I really want to experience everything the resort has to offer. I'm still considering adding one more night at the tail end, but then again ten days might be enough for both of us.

 

[tracylovesdisney]

How early in the morning can you call for bell services to come take the bags?

We have always just taken our luggage down to Bell Services that way there is no need to wait.

 

[Disneypapa]

Since all you have gotten is positive responses, I think I will rock the boat. I have not and do not ever plan to do a split stay. Just to much trouble to unpack and then repack for me. Yes, Disney attempts to make it less of a problem by moving your luggage and all, but you still have to do the packing. Also, if you have a car, you have to deal with that as well (like returning to the resort you checked out of and moving it to the new resort).

Part of my reply is influenced by being a DVC owner, and basically having prepaid for our accommodations. The more expensive resorts ($ or points) I just avoid and enjoy all the moderates I have access to.

 

[Metz172]

We did a split stay our last visit with 7 nights at CBR and then 2 nights AKL club level because there was a great discount that came out for our dates. I completely surprised my family with the announcement that we were moving to AKL the night before while we were having dinner at BOG. How I kept the secret for 6 months from them I don't know. It was worth it and I got their reactions on video. Priceless. We could not have afforded to stay the whole trip at AKL so the split stay was a wonderful option. We liked it so much that we are doing it again this next trip. Hoping for a good discount so I can add another night to the AKL portion of the trip.

We did have to pack up quite a bit to move but that was ok. I rented a car and driver to pick us up as part of the surprise but this time I think we will probably just use Uber or Lyft. I think that will be easier than Disney transportation. We will use the first part of the trip to commando tour the parks so we will be spending the majority of our time at the resort like we did last time. It really does feel like a vacation from your vacation. I highly recommend it!