What should I do?

[Princess_Belle]

I don't know what to do? I am planning on going to the world this Aug/Sept. I am having some trouble deciding on where to stay.

Here's my problem. I really want to stay at the Poly. Its a little out of our price range. So I was thinking of doing a split stay. We have AP's though, My problem is the possibility of free dining. If I do a split stay I would have to buy 2 sets of 1 day base tickets. Which would be a waste of money.

So if I get free dining I will be paying a lot more than I expected. And i would be basically stuck staying at the Poly (or somewhere i dont want to stay) for the entire trip.

My question is...
Would it be a better deal to go ahead and book the poly as a package w/1 day tickets?

or

Should I book a room only split stay and hope for a AP discount?
What would you do?

 

[Dabelsteen]

Not clear why you are worried about passes to the park if you are AP holders... What would be the benefit of paying for entrance to the park twice?

 

[AmyAllan&Eve]

I really like the free dining, too. But it isn't the same value without the gratuity included.

I would split my stay. You could always take advantage of the free dining for just half your stay (thus, only buying park admission for one day).

Or you could purchase the no expiration option on your park admission and use it for some future date. Isn't the no expiration option a lot cheaper when you are only purchasing for one day?

It's a tough call. At which resort would you split your stay?

 

[Princess_Belle]

Not clear why you are worried about passes to the park if you are AP holders... What would be the benefit of paying for entrance to the park twice?

There is no benefit. I just want to take advantage of the possible free dining. And I'm finding it hard to figure out. If i did a split stay during free dining the only way I could get the dining for all my night was to buy an extra set of 1 day base passes. Which I don't want to do. I don't mind buying one set of 1 day passes to take advantage of free dining.

I was thinking of doing the first part of my stay (4 nights) at POR. Then 3-4 nights at the poly.

 

[gigi1313]

we had a similar predicament a few years ago... what we opted to do was split the stay, get one day base tix for the first 3/4 of the vacation and go in for the free dining... for the second part of our stay (at the deluxe resort) we did not go w/the package and just went oop for meals (which was fine 'cause by then we were tired of eating so much and we scheduled all our expensive TS meals for the first 3/4 of the trip when the food was free), and got a room-only discount rate... it worked well for us

 

[LSchrow]

as much as i love the DDP , i think you might want to consider trying for an AP resort rate, & getting the DDE card.
i don't think that you'll see that big a savings b/c of the free DDP conditions: paying rack rate on a deluxe & needing to get passes (you could just get 1 day base tix & apply them to your APs next year ~ but the initial outlay is still there).
hth