Why do a split stay?

[trucker den]

Why do some people do a split stay? Is there a advantage to it? other than price between resorts? Is there a advantage with touring the parks? It just seems that it would be a hassle moving to a different room halfway through you stay.

 

[cmarsh31]

We're doing it because we're literally splitting our vacation - the first half, at BCV, is with my extended-ILs (FIL, MIL, SIL, her DH, and their two boys), second half, at OKW, is with our very good friends (two of them, their girls, and their mothers). For us, the other traveling parties dictated budget and resorts. Bonus - we've ALWAYS wanted to stay at BC. Epcot is our favorite park.

Also - it's a long trip so 4 nights at each resort, plenty of time to settle in, and we're not people who fully unpack anyway.

The only part that bugs me is that I was able to make my ADRs for the first half at 6am today but am now left with just hoping that a kind CM on the phone will be able to grant me some pixie dust to make the 2nd half at 7pm... but I'm not sure it's going to work.

 

[happymommy]

I've only done it when I absolutely had to. Like, last trip, we rented off redweek an owner at Animal Kingdom Villas (Kidani) for a week, Saturday to Saturday.

My daughter's school spring break started that Thursday, so she, my son and I went down Thursday and stayed two nights at Pop Century, then moved over to Kidani (we took an Uber XL with our luggage).

We didn't unpack at Pop, and ended up waiting quite a while for our room to be ready at Kidani (I was anxious to get unpacked & settled in, and to put away our Garden Grocer order of food that had been delivered to the bell services).

It wasn't ideal that trip, and I've done it one other time when it was a similar situation (did a Sunday to Sunday rental at the BWV so stayed at the Swan Saturday night, then walked over with our luggage the next morning, then our villa was actually ready super early which was nice).

I do not do these by choice, as personally I like to unpack and settle in. I don't like how you lose time moving day. I'd rather choose a resort to stay in the whole time, for at least a week if possible.

Some folks do this as a deal may only be available for certain days, or they want to experience different resorts during a trip. We typically only spend a day or two by the pool during a trip, so one resort is fine with me!

 

[DisBuckMan]

1. Because they want to.
2. Because they want to stay in a deluxe or moderate, but can't afford it for the whole trip.
3. To be closer to the parks they're touring for that part of the trip.
4. To have a different experience.
5. Because their first resort choice isn't available for the whole trip.
6. Any other number of reasons.

We do split stays every trip, because we want to.

 

[mystery222184]

#4 from DisBuckMan pretty much describes our feelings.

Staying at the Polynesian for half the trip and the Beach Club the other half (as we are doing in December) provides very different advantages/experiences. We enjoy being on the monorail loop but it's also nice to walk to Epcot, have stormalong bay, and enjoy the boardwalk. In a way, it almost feels like two different vacations.

We've also split RPC at the Grand Floridian w/ Wilderness Lodge to cut into the price of doing the GF the whole trip.

Disney also makes it very easy. Yes you have to pack your stuff but you can leave for the parks and head to your new resort while bell services takes care of all the luggage transportation.

 

[trucker den]

ok. I wasn't sure if there was some kind of advantage to it. Maybe 2 sets of magic bands and fastpasses. I figured that some of it was a budget issue. It is also nice that Disney will take care of moving your luggage. I guess that makes it easier.

 

[buzzrelly]

We've done this a few times but really, only because we HAD to…like we couldn't get our hotel for the first night. We did in this past April but we did a 4 day cruise between the split stay. I would never do it just "because." While it's not very hard to do, there's definitely an inconvenience factor involved. Not to mention the fact that you have 2 dates for FP+ reservations and 2 dates for ADRs, which can be detrimental in obtaining the most sought after ones.

 

[DisBuckMan]

ok. I wasn't sure if there was some kind of advantage to it. Maybe 2 sets of magic bands and fastpasses. I figured that some of it was a budget issue. It is also nice that Disney will take care of moving your luggage. I guess that makes it easier.

We drive, as we're less than 7 hours away. We pack two different sets of bags. One for the first stay, one for the second, and one that includes stuff for both....shaving kit for me, makeup for the wife, etc...

On moving day we leave one resort, drive to whichever park we're visiting for that day (usually the only time we drive at WDW), then drive to our "new" resort that evening/night. Grab the 2nd bag, and go to our room which we've already received a room number via text for.

Not really a whole lot to it.

 

[DisBuckMan]

ok. I wasn't sure if there was some kind of advantage to it. Maybe 2 sets of magic bands and fastpasses.

Yeah...some folks here could probably solve world hunger if they spent as much time on a solution to it as they do trying to beat the system at Disney World.

 

[jo-jo]

We do it all the time mostly to save time spent on transportation. Stay at BLT, walk to MK or take a bus to AK (can't avoid that bus). Move to BCV or BWV, walk to Epcot and walk or take boat if one is handy for DHS.

 

[ellie05]

We have done it because sometimes there is no availability for our full stay. To us it is not really a hassle anymore. I typically don't unpack in hotels anyway, but now I just use packing cubes and sort them out by day outfits. Just grab the cube for the day the rest are left in the luggage. The day we change resorts we have bell service move our bags. We drive to the park at RD when we are done we drive to new resort no big deal.

 

[AngiTN]

We do it because I have the hardest times picking where I want to stay. Since I can't decide for many trips, I pick more than 1. Often times 3!
Moving is very easy at Disney. We haven't lost a single minute moving rooms.
We have a 4 night stay next week and it's at 2 resorts.
It's rare for me to have a trip where we don't move rooms

 

[Raeven]

We're doing it in December because we want to stay at a deluxe but it would be too expensive the whole trip and that hotel is closer to the parks we'll be going to that day and we're doing it this trip because we added on two days and there wasn't availability at the first hotel for the same rate.

 

[mi*vida*loca]

I always thought it was a crazy idea because I despise packing and unpacking.

Last year we had a 10 night trip coming up and I couldn't decide between the Poly and BC so I did 5 nights at each. It was the best of both worlds. I split our park time to be convenient with the resort we were at. The packing wasn't so bad. Bell services took care of everything.

I will probably do split stays on all future trips.

 

[tanyali26]

Does bell sevices deliver your bags directly to your room or the lobby of your next hotel?

 

[mi*vida*loca]

Does bell sevices deliver your bags directly to your room or the lobby of your next hotel?

The lobby of the next hotel and then they deliver it to your room.

 

[AngiTN]

Does bell sevices deliver your bags directly to your room or the lobby of your next hotel?

To your room. But it's not like ME. ME luggage service is separate from Bell Services (for lack of better explanation) and they will deliver bags without you being in the room
Luggage transfer between resorts is not and you will need to be in your room for them to deliver the bags. It takes till later afternoon to get the bags, so it's something to keep in mind.
We just give them a call when we get back from the parks. Never a problem and since we are in the parks we don't need the bags anyway. Never takes more than 5 min for them to bring the bags up

 

[rwdavis2]

Did it 4 years ago between Wilderness and Animal Kingdom Lodges. We wanted to do the Sunrise Safari which was available only for club level guests at AKL. Otherwise we would have stayed at WL. It ended up we liked AKL much better even if we had not had club level access.

Otherwise I think it is a hassle. We checked out of WL, put the luggage in the trunk, went to a park, and then checked into AKL. Pretty seamless but still would not bother with it again

 

[Regan117]

We just do it for a change of scenery and to be closer to the parks we plan to visit on those days, even for shorter trips. In February, we are doing 2 nights at BWI for our Epcot/HS days; and 2 nights at GF for resort time and MK. Occasionally we split because the room we want isn't available for the full 8 nights, but it's mostly just to be somewhere different.

 

[scrapquitler]

Why do some people do a split stay? Is there a advantage to it? other than price between resorts? Is there a advantage with touring the parks? It just seems that it would be a hassle moving to a different room halfway through you stay.

We did it because we wanted to experience Animal Kingdom Lodge and sit on the balcony of our room to watch the animals. We did it as a split stay because we didn't want to pay the room rate for AKL for 7 days. We thought the price to do so was too much, and we spent 5 nights at Pop and 2 nights at AKL. We had a great time! Moving was not a big deal, but we only did a half day in the parks on the day we switched rooms.

I'm not sure that we would do it again, but it was a fun thing to do to experience AKL as a surprise for our sons 13th birthday.