Tips for making switching resorts mid-trip easier

[LilLisaLou]

My younger daughters and I will be staying at Boardwalk Villas for a few days and then when the rest of our party joins us, we'll be moving to Animal Kingdom Lodge.

Are there any tips for making the move easier? I was thinking that if I didn't get groceries for the first part of the trip, since we'll be in a studio and wouldn't want have a big fridge, I'd wait until we moved to get groceries and then also there'd be less stuff to pack up and move.

I'm planning on not having a car while we are there but have been reading about how other people really like having their cars. My two youngest are in car seats so I'd have to rent or bring them over which seems kind of a pain.

How hard is it to move between the resorts? Can bell services just handle everything?

 

[N&B'smom]

I was told Bell Services can move your luggage for you and then you can just take a bus to one of the parks, then to the hotel. OR you can get a taxi!

 

[renchick]

I've done it several times, with no problems. Bell services will even keep any refrigerated items in a refrigerator, so no food safety issues when you arrive at your new location.

 

[DMKEDM]

Split stays are in fact very easy--we've done several. Here are the things we've learned:

1. Have cash for tips--for the bell services people who take your luggage from your first room, and for the bell services people who bring your luggage to your second room...tips are, of course, voluntary--but the Bell Services folks do seem to expect them...I operate on the "$1/bag rule"--unless I have lots of bags in which case I'll round up ... (i.e., if they pick up/deliver two suitcases, a backpack, and two bags of "stuff" (groceries or souvenirs, for example), I'll give them $10 rather than $6...

2. Realize you'll have to be in your room to have your luggage/bags delivered at the second resort...it can take 30 minutes or so from when you call for your luggage to its delivery, depending on how busy Bell Services is at the new resort.

3. Generally, Disney resorts do inter-resort deliveries between 1 and 3 each afternoon, so don't expect your "stuff" at the new resort til mid-afternoon or a bit later...

4. We find it helpful to separate our stuff into suitcases packed according to where we'll be...i.e., if we're in one resort for 3 days and another for 4, we'll put 3 days' worth of outfits in one suitcase, and one day's worth in another...makes packing/unpacking on move day more streamlined...

5. Lastly, we try to plan our activities around the resorts we're staying at--for example, if we're going to spend a few days at SSR before moving to BCV, we'll schedule our Downtown Disney meals for our SSR days, and our Epcot meals for our BCV days...

We never ever have a car at WDW...I'm happy to let Disney take me where I want to go...yes, it can take longer to rely on Disney transportation, but we "build that in" to our planning...and truth be told, I'm not sure it really is that much more of a time-taker, most of the time...it can be, particularly if you're going from one resort to another...but if you're parked at one of the parks, by the time you get back to your car and out of the parking lot and then to your destination, it could easily take just as long as taking a Disney bus or monorail ride...

But you're right about some folks preferring to have their cars--some folks just don't like waiting for a bus--and even when buses are running on schedule there's about 20 minutes between bus runs...if you happen to arrive at a bus stop right after one has left, you could have a 20-minute wait. And that doesn't count the times when the buses are not running "on schedule." Longer waits are certainly possible (as are substantially shorter ones). So it all depends on your tolerance for waiting...mine is much higher than my tolerance for moving/parking a car...so I never drive at WDW...

Good luck and have a great time!

 

[twinklebug]

Disney's typically very good about moving the luggage over - out of many many split visits and using them to help, I've only had issues twice:

* Once the service snapped a wheel off of my luggage - there was no proof it was them, although it was rolling fine before the move The front desk graciously offered to send my luggage off to be fixed and then charged me $50 for the cheap wheel that was put on. (if that ever happens again I'll just order a whole new one for about the same price.)

* The other time we moved from BWV over to Kidani and Kidani lost our luggage for hours... it was there, they just didn't have enough people to bother to look for it until I visited them in person - and voila! they found it!

 

[KSL]

We did a split-stay last August between AKL and BLT and it was very easy. We didn't have a car either; just brought our things to Bell Services when we checked out and went about our day. We thought about taking a cab, but with six people and ALL of our stuff (5 of us were girls!), we weren't sure we would fit! So we decided to just take Disney transport around. We also did the same thing you're contemplating wrt food: no groceries for the first half of our trip (the shorter part, and actually we did the DDP), and had groceries delivered for our week at BLT. Everything went very smoothly. We do tip on both ends because they are all handling our baggage and it seems the right thing to do.

 

[sweetdana]

Agree with PP.. moving is easy, if you have a box for refrigerated items, they will keep them cold. So if shopping early makes more sense.. just bring a box, or something to keep them in.

You call they pick everything up, then head to the park for the day. It is to your resort I think by 3 or 4, but ours has always been there when we leave the park for the day prolly 1-2. We have changed just about every resort, as we do 3-4 days in a studio followed by 3-4 days in a 1 bedroom on any trip over 5 days.

Also 1 super neat thing about doing this is, you can book dining plan for only part of the trip. Either the 1st 1/2 or the 2nd. So for us we do a few days of DDP and get the buffets, dinner shows, and mugs out of the way with 1 resort stay, and the 1st day of the second resort. Fill up on snacks, and muffins n stuff for the next day and save a bit by not dining the whole time.

 

[khmiller]

doesn't the dining plan expire the day you checkout?

 

[Mtnman44]

Steps away from BWV is the Dolphin hotel with an Alamo desk right in the lobby. You may find that renting a car for the day is cheaper than tipping bell staff on both ends, and more convienient, and you can run to the grocery store, etc....

 

[lions1995]

doesn't the dining plan expire the day you checkout?

If you are on the dining plan or both stays, your first stay dining credits expire at midnight the day of transfer (check out) and new credits for the second stay are given on the same day (check in). So you want to make sure all your credits are used fro the first stay on the day of transfer. This may require some planning if you are doing anything that requires two TSs.

Also remember that you need to check into the second resort before you get your new dining credits.

 

[VLee]

Steps away from BWV is the Dolphin hotel with an Alamo desk right in the lobby. You may find that renting a car for the day is cheaper than tipping bell staff on both ends, and more convienient, and you can run to the grocery store, etc....

Any idea what the usual cost per day is? We will be moving fro BWV over to VWL and was thinking of getting a car, especially since we will have to get to Epcot super early for the YES classes (from VWL.)

Do you call the Alamo directly at the hotel?

 

[Mtnman44]

I can't say for sure. I've normally rented from them in January. I try to use coupon codes as well. Never done it for a single day but my weekly rentals have gotten down into the $30s per day range.

I use the alamo website and the best group codes and coupon codes I can find.

Note: on my most recent trip we did find that renting directly from the airport for the whole trip (12 days) was cheaper than just a week from the Dolphin location.

Any idea what the usual cost per day is? We will be moving fro BWV over to VWL and was thinking of getting a car, especially since we will have to get to Epcot super early for the YES classes (from VWL.)

Do you call the Alamo directly at the hotel?

 

[coup2516]

We did a lot of resort hopping during our last trip to disney. Something like 4 moves in a week. While I definitely wouldn't recommend doing that, it did go fairly smoothly. We had our own car and absolutely loved that. I don't think we'd ever go without a car. We're a young couple with no kids though, and we like to be able to visit multiple parks in a day and not have to rely on Disney transportation.

 

[Simba's Mom]

My only tip is for people moving from resort to resort without a car. I met someone at the bus stop who'd been told that she needed to take the DTD bus, then get the bus to her new resort. I've always found it to be much faster to just take the first bus that arrives, then at the destination, switch to the bus stop for the new resort. Of course, there are restrictions. When I moved to BCV or BWV, I avoided the Epcot bus.

 

[LilLisaLou]

If you are on the dining plan or both stays, your first stay dining credits expire at midnight the day of transfer (check out) and new credits for the second stay are given on the same day (check in). So you want to make sure all your credits are used fro the first stay on the day of transfer. This may require some planning if you are doing anything that requires two TSs.

Also remember that you need to check into the second resort before you get your new dining credits.

I was thinking of doing the dining plan just for the first part of the trip when it's just me and my two little girls and we're in a studio. When my husband, teenager, and our friends come I was thinking we'd be doing more cooking once we're in a two-bedroom villa. Of course, I have a terrible Diet Coke habit and of course, I've heard that I might even be able to get Pibb in cans (can't get it in SoCal) so I'm thinking that as long as I kept my perishables to a minimum, I could have my groceries delivered early.

I need to read up on the expected tips and start putting little envelopes together.

 

[dzorn]

I find the cloth reuseable grocery bags better for packing up grocery for the move better than the plastic.

Denise in MI

 

[Jackson's Mom]

This is so very helpful. Thank you for putting it together. Great tips here!

 

[Splashboat]

The phone number for Alamo at the Dolphin is (407) 934-4930. If you have a Discover card that has rewards points you can probably still get a $40 gift certificate using only $20 worth of points. We did this and the car cost us $12 and change plus refilling the gas before we returned it the next day. We moved our own luggage and picked up our own groceries. You return the car within 24 hours and you can take a bus (or boat) to any of the parks when you return it the next day. Worked great for us. (I see the thread started a year ago - I wonder what the OP did )