What do you do on your move day on a split stay (with children)?

[suzycute]

We are staying at SSR for 7 nights then moving to BWV for 3 nights in October and are travelling with our 4 year old grand daughter (and her parents!). Have you any suggestions about what we could do with our 4 year old for the few hours that we are "homeless"? Many thanks

 

[Geomom]

We always go to the parks. In your case, I'd go to Epcot and then you can walk back to the boardwalk when your room is ready. We have a split stay coming up, BLT to BWV. Having a late breakfast at Chef Mickey's then driving (1st time renting a car in 13 yrs) over to BWV and doing Epcot for the day.

In October, they have a Remy themed scavenger hunt around the countries for food and wine--buy the map for $10 and get a prize after doing the hunt. As a warning, the Remy one is actually one of the harder scavenger hunts...Remy hides well...but you can actually get the prize without finishing the hunt--theyll just stamp the map to indicate that you got the prize already.

 

[Carol_]

Bags to bell services except for one with change of clothes. Head to the pool dressed for the pool. Lunch at the pool. Change into nonpool clothes, bring bag of swim clothes to bell services and have everything transferred to your next resort. Go wherever your heart desires.

 

[Robbie Cottam]

Same here….pool day at the hotel with the better pool

 

[SLThomas318]

We "sleep-in" (2 small kids so usually isn't very late, but it's nice not having to set an alarm) and then I get our stuff packed up and we head out closer to check-out time at 11. We then do a fun meal.... a late character breakfast or lunch... my boys also like T-Rex at Disney Springs. This summer we are moving on a Saturday so we have Raglan Road booked for brunch since they start the dancing at noon on weekends. By the time we've eaten and shopped around our room is usually ready. I do keep our suits with us so that we can always head to the pool too.

 

[Lori Duck]

Or...physically check out of your villa at the desk. This (I've tried and was told) will kick in your check in at new resort! Assign someone to Lyft/Uber or drive the luggage over to the new resort and leave with bellstaff. (From experience, leaving your luggage to be transported by staff at your first resort can literally take ALL day!!)
This way, regardless of how the family spends the move day, your luggage is at your second resort, you can walk/boat there from two parks, and the Res.System knows you have checked out of one place and onto another on the early side of the day.

 

[suzycute]

Many thanks to ll of you for taking the time to reply - there are some great suggestions!

 

[Stargazer65]

We split stayed BRV/BLT last month (we drove). Here’s what we did on our in-between day after leaving BRV:

• Visited a phlebotomist at Quest Diagnostics in Celebration, got blood drawn for my physical next month
• Went to Starbucks for coffee, and ate the leftover food from our BRV refrigerator for breakfast
• Went to Wal-Mart to buy some clothes for daughter, and got more food (and some wine)
• Drove to BLT, to let them know we were there
• Went to the Contemporary, had lunch at Steakhouse 71, rode the monorail
• Stopped at Grand Floridian, toured the VGF2 model room
• Got texted our room was ready, headed back to BLT, and moved in

 

[jo-jo]

When we did this with grandkids. Kids "packed", then one adult went to pool/or community room with them , while the rest finished the packing. Left about 11 for park. As Geomom said head to Epcot since new resort is BWV, that's a great idea. Can go right to room when ready without dealing with transportation.

 

[DeeBee3]

In our case, kids 3 and 7 at the time, we got most of our stuff ready the night before and after checking out in the morning we made it a park day. As someone said above, make it a park that is closer to your new resort. In your case, HS or Epcot. It was not an issue for us or the kids. If the room isn't ready at the earlier time, you have the park to entertain OR the new resort yourself is yours to enjoy. Honestly, you can use the pool at the old resort the rest of checkout day.

It just depends on your family. If the 4-year-old naps religiously every day no matter the setting, then you might have issues. Other than that, you should have no issues! Enjoy!

 

[LadybugsMum]

My kids are 8 and we're going to MK the day of our move. I'll have our bags packed the night before and have Bell Services get us loaded in the car. We'll go to BLT and drop off our stuff and the car and then walk over to MK to have fun until I get the room ready text.

 

[Stargazer65]

My kids are 8 and we're going to MK the day of our move. I'll have our bags packed the night before and have Bell Services get us loaded in the car. We'll go to BLT and drop off our stuff and the car and then walk over to MK to have fun until I get the room ready text.

What resort are you moving from before BLT?

 

[LadybugsMum]

What resort are you moving from before BLT?

We're coming from BWV.

 

[DizneyLizzy]

We have tried many different things. I think the most important of all is to have someone with a car drive the luggage to resort #2 and leave them with Bell Services. If no one has a car, have one person take the bags and a ride-share over with them to the new resort. I have had bags delivered as early as noon for a split stay but as late as 5 PM. I would rather just have my stuff (and my kids' stuff) there waiting for me when my room was ready.

We're doing a Poly/BWV split this July with 9 people and we're going to try doing a park on our moving day (first time trying this!) We're doing a resort day the day before our move, so we can relax and pack up the evening before. That way we'll be all packed and ready to go early on moving day. We'll all drive or to Uber/Lyft over to the BWV early that morning, drop our luggage with Bell Services and walk out of the lobby and into EPCOT that day. I like the idea of being nearby in EPCOT when we get our room-ready text.

We never make room requests at our second resort and list 7 AM as our "arrival time" in MDE for the best chance at having our room ready early at resort #2. I think this time we might also try stopping by the lobby of the Poly on our way out so they know we've officially checked out.

 

[kilik64]

We did a pool day. Did BLT to BCV split. So slept in a little, ate a nice breakfast at contempo cafe, packed up and left BLT, drove over to BCV. Had our pool stuff ready to go but had put in that we would be at BCV at 11am, had room before I left the front desk. So just went to room and then to the pool for the rest of the day.

Got lucky on the early room maybe, but had it not been ready, we were good to just go swim, grab food from the pool bar and just hang out until room was ready. Did it with 1 2 and 7 year old kids. 1 year old napped at the pool even though we had a room, so would have been the same either way for that lol.

Oh we drove. Id never do one flying with little kids and not having a car to move all their crap easily. Bell services yea but rather have access to stuff if we needed it.

 

[sndral]

It’s been awhile since we did a split stay, but I always just dropped the bags at Bell Services at the resort I was leaving, went to a park, & then went to the new resort & collected the luggage from Bell Services at the new resort - I don’t recall ever having to wait for luggage at resort 2 it was always there when I asked for it - but others have reported having to wait.

 

[Stormalong Smiths]

Bags to bell services except for one with change of clothes. Head to the pool dressed for the pool. Lunch at the pool. Change into nonpool clothes, bring bag of swim clothes to bell services and have everything transferred to your next resort. Go wherever your heart desires.

This, but change "lunch" to "late breakfast/brunch" and then plan an ADR for Beaches & Cream in the 3:30-4:00 timeframe! That leaves the remainder of the evening to relax, unpack, and enjoy the Boardwalk.

 

[Sandisw]

We do the parks a little later the night before a split stay. We then sleep in, hang at the resort, and schedule a sit down lunch around 11:30 am close to the resort we are leaving. We usually head to DS to walk around and shop...with a little one, this might not be the best choice.

By the time we head to our new resort, its close to room ready time and most often, it is. If not, we will enjoy the pool, or head into a park.

 

[hhisc16]

We are staying at SSR for 7 nights then moving to BWV for 3 nights in October and are travelling with our 4 year old grand daughter (and her parents!). Have you any suggestions about what we could do with our 4 year old for the few hours that we are "homeless"? Many thanks

Will you have your own vehicle?

We did a 2 split stay in Dec with a 1 year old.

We drove from AKV to BRV with our luggage on split stay 1. We parked with our luggage, then went and did a view of other resorts through boat/monorail/skyliner/bus with lunch at another resort.

On split stay 2 from BRV to PVB, we went to MK until the room was ready. Luggage transfer from BRV to PVB took all day.

 

[Wendysofftoneverland]

We went from SSR to offsite, but had a car. We checked out, took the kids to play on SSR playground, then went to Disney Springs.