How much of a pain is a split stay?

ArwenMarie · Nov 22, 2017

AngiTN said:
It's rather rambling and complex thought process, I'll warn you in advance. But it makes sense to us and we've thought it out
It's easy to explain why we picked CR on the 30th and BWI on the 31st. CR Garden room was the least expensive room we can walk to the MK from and BWI was the only room available by the time we planned the trip that we can walk to Epcot.
The first 2 nights (4 nights really) are at a time where there is no promo at all, we are paying rack rate. Painful but what can you do, you want to go to Disney for New Years, that's what you do. It's one of the few nights of the year without a discount. We were going to wait to go down on the 30th, early morning, for this reason.
But, HS added the Sunset Blvd stuff and it ends on the 31st so in order to fit it in we have to get there on the 29th. We could fly out late on the 28th or early on the 29th and it worked out cheaper to fly out late on the 28th, even adding in the hotel costs. Plus we function better late night than we do early morning AND we'd have a room. If we arrived at 8 AM we probably wouldn't have a room yet, and who know how long till we would. So, late flight it is.
I don't want to pay the price we are paying at CR for that night, or even the night of the 29th. We don't mind the bus travel that day, we'll be at HS and there are NO rooms at any HS resort for the night of the 29th anyway. So we are at POR (though actually changed this to FQ today, found a King room)
As for New Years Day, I had us at YC for the rest of the trip but when they opened the AP promo up I found a good deal for FQ (King) that was $450 less than YC. Since our park days during that part of the trip are at AK it really didn't matter much which resort we were at, we'd have to use the bus anyway. And quite honestly, buses to AK from the Epcot resorts is really the worse of all, they have all shared on our trips (most recent was Oct). No idea if they will in Jan or not but I know what we'll face at FQ, and we love the PO resorts so, we switched. And saved money. Since we have 4 nights at rack rate, 2 nights at pretty pricey resorts at that, saving money was good, and we didn't hurt our transportation in doing it, probably helped it.
The only thing we lost was, our last day is always at Epcot. If we'd been at YC, we could walk back to our resort to catch the Uber to MCO. From POFQ we'll do what we usually do and that's bring our carry on bags to the luggage lockers at the front and just call for our car from there.
So, our crazy trip will be as follows (I'm actually looking forward to it, I'm rather proud of figuring it all out and only planning it a month ago)
fly in, land at 1 AM, Uber to POFQ, sleep in, head to HS, back to FQ, sleep in,
Send bags to CR, Bus to MK or Uber to CR and walk to MK (which depends on waits for bus that AM)/back to CR/back to MK/back to CR (we have a nap break planned once we get room). Sleep in
Send bags to BWI, Monorail to Epcot, walk to BWI/back to Epcot/Back to BWI, (we have a nap break planned once we get room) sleep in
Send back to FQ, Boat or walk to HS, bus to FQ, etc for the rest of the trip

Thanks for the explanation! That makes sense. We've done things like that with offsite as well, where we mix some offsite and some monorail hotel for our MK days to keep the cost down.

GADisneyDad14 · Nov 22, 2017

Meridagal said:
My family is a family of 4, dd 6 & ds2. My dd still believes princesses and I know those days are numbered. I want to book art of animation little mermaid or the Royal room at riverside before she won't believe the magic that the princesses decorated the rooms for little girls. I'm thinking about 3 days at little mermaid then 3 days at riverside in the royal room or animal kingdom lodge standard room. Animal kingdom is for me because it's animal kingdom and amazing! Animal kingdom is about the same price as royal rooms. We would do 6 days at the royal rooms but that is bit over budget. We are savings for our 1st Disney cruise this summer. We will have our own car, but split stays make me nervous. Any advice from you pros?

We did a split this past April - DS was 6 and DD was 2 at the time. We were worried about the logistics with DD2... she's a sometimes napper and was still in a diaper, which makes the idea of being 'homeless' until 3pm (or later) not so appealing. Obviously doable, just more to think about in terms of your day bag, logistics, ramifications of no nap, etc.

We opted to do a water park on our crossover day. We love the theme parks but aren't commandos and have trouble spending a whole day out and about. But with a water park we can spend a good chunk of the morning and early afternoon there and be content, then be heading back to the resort mid/later afternoon when our room is likely ready. This plan ended up working very well for us and our style. DD did nap after lunch in a lounge chair.

As suggested above, packing cubes made things a lot easier.

Our experience gave me confidence to do it again in the future if ever needed.

Good luck OP!

mom22boys · Nov 22, 2017

AngiTN said:
I don't think they are a pain in any way at all.
But, I'm not an unpacker. The only thing I take out of the suitcase is my makeup bag and my toiletry bag. Which are both extremely easy to put right back in the suitcase.
I put all our clothes in packing cubes and just take out what we wear each day and put dirties in the bag left in the room meant for laundry. I put that right back in the suitcase. On moving day, everything goes back in the suitcase and it gets zipped up.
Take bags to bell services, or call, whichever suits us. Send bags off to new resort. Hop on bus to park (you can even make rope drop with ease if you want). We stay there all day, leave park on bus to new resort, head to room, call for bags. And we've moved. It's just that easy. We don't loose 1 minute of time in the park either. Matter of fact, we plan our longest days on moving day since our bags won't make it till 3 or 5 and we figure we'll be homeless most of the day anyway.
We are doing 4 resorts in 7 days for NYE so we don't have to deal with buses for crowded park nights
2 nights at POR
1 night at CR for MK on 30th
1 night at BWI for Epcot on 31st
3 nights at POFQ (I'm even considering dropping this to 2 nights and adding in 1 night at YC instead, so we can finish the trip easily at Epcot)

We currently have POFQ booked on 12/31 and AKL booked 1/1-1/5 (due to the Disney Visa Resort Discount starting on 1/1). I was debating about booking 12/31 at AKL as well so that we don't have to worry about our bags. I was worried that since 1/1 will be such a busy time of year at WDW our bags could get delayed in getting to our new room. However, your plan makes me think I might be worrying for no reason. Have you done split stays over the holidays before? Any trouble with bag delivery? By the way your plan seems masterful for avoiding those crowded buses!

AngiTN · Nov 22, 2017

mom22boys said:
We currently have POFQ booked on 12/31 and AKL booked 1/1-1/5 (due to the Disney Visa Resort Discount starting on 1/1). I was debating about booking 12/31 at AKL as well so that we don't have to worry about our bags. I was worried that since 1/1 will be such a busy time of year at WDW our bags could get delayed in getting to our new room. However, your plan makes me think I might be worrying for no reason. Have you done split stays over the holidays before? Any trouble with bag delivery? By the way your plan seems masterful for avoiding those crowded buses!

I haven't moved over the Holidays before, at least I don't think I have. But I'm not worried. Our bags will make it eventually. I'm sure Disney is prepared, they've done it before and if they need more staffing, they'll have it. I imagine they don't have more moving during the Holiday's than any other times but just me guessing. But, at any rate, we won't need them before bed and we'll be out till after midnight most every night we're moving so shouldn't be a worry.

cmorris303 · Nov 23, 2017

We did one in August. 6 nights at Poly, 3 nights at Boardwalk. We packed clothes for all 4 of us for Poly into the same suitcases and unpacked when we got there. We put our dirty clothes into a laundry bag. We had a separate suitcase with our clothes for BW and just put that suitcase right into the closet at Poly. We had one bag for stuff we'd need at both: toiletries, bathing suits, pjs. On our last night at Poly when we came back to the room to get ready for dinner and nighttime at the parks, I packed the dirty clothes back into the Poly suitcases and packed up our bag for both resorts while my kids were in the shower.
The next morning we called Bell Services to get our bags around 9:00 and told them we were headed to the BW. We went to breakfast at CR and then headed over to Epcot. I got a text that our room was ready before 3. When we got back to BW around 2 our bags were at Bell Services and we had them delivered to our rooms. It was a very smooth process and we would definitely do a split stay again.

PrincessWithABlaster · Nov 23, 2017

AngiTN said:
I don't think they are a pain in any way at all.
But, I'm not an unpacker. The only thing I take out of the suitcase is my makeup bag and my toiletry bag. Which are both extremely easy to put right back in the suitcase.
I put all our clothes in packing cubes and just take out what we wear each day and put dirties in the bag left in the room meant for laundry. I put that right back in the suitcase. On moving day, everything goes back in the suitcase and it gets zipped up.
Take bags to bell services, or call, whichever suits us. Send bags off to new resort. Hop on bus to park (you can even make rope drop with ease if you want). We stay there all day, leave park on bus to new resort, head to room, call for bags. And we've moved. It's just that easy. We don't loose 1 minute of time in the park either. Matter of fact, we plan our longest days on moving day since our bags won't make it till 3 or 5 and we figure we'll be homeless most of the day anyway.
We are doing 4 resorts in 7 days for NYE so we don't have to deal with buses for crowded park nights
2 nights at POR
1 night at CR for MK on 30th
1 night at BWI for Epcot on 31st
3 nights at POFQ (I'm even considering dropping this to 2 nights and adding in 1 night at YC instead, so we can finish the trip easily at Epcot)

With 3 kids we’re a stay in one place kind of family. I’m in awe of your ability to pull this off though. I guess it’s similar to taking a tour since Disney handles the bags but it looks like quite an accomplishment. I hope you have a great trip.

MickeyWaffles · Nov 23, 2017

mom22boys said:
I was worried that since 1/1 will be such a busy time of year at WDW our bags could get delayed in getting to our new room. However, your plan makes me think I might be worrying for no reason. Have you done split stays over the holidays before? Any trouble with bag delivery? By the way your plan seems masterful for avoiding those crowded buses!

I used to often be responsible for transferring bags from the deluxe I worked at to other resorts. I wouldn’t expect there to be more transfers than usual on 1/1. There shouldn’t be any reason for bag delay.

No matter how busy it is, there is a CM designated for luggage transfers during a specific time of day. They just load up the van and go. Working on holidays, I never experienced a huge influx of additional transfers.

pooh2001 · Nov 23, 2017

We are considering it for our 1st night at WDW
late arrival - 10 PM for DME - maybe get to the resort by mid-night !

So we could do a value, just to sleep in and shower the next AM,
plus breakfast.
Then take our luggage to bell service at the value (I assume they have one)
and have them bring it to the BW villa.
Check out of the Value and go to EPCOT.
We can not check in till at least 3 PM, and I am sure our luggage will not arrive to the BW villa till them.

Good luck and Happy Thanksgiving !

mom22boys · Nov 23, 2017

MickeyWaffles said:
I used to often be responsible for transferring bags from the deluxe I worked at to other resorts. I wouldn’t expect there to be more transfers than usual on 1/1. There shouldn’t be any reason for bag delay.

No matter how busy it is, there is a CM designated for luggage transfers during a specific time of day. They just load up the van and go. Working on holidays, I never experienced a huge influx of additional transfers.

Thank you!

AngiTN · Nov 23, 2017

pooh2001 said:
We are considering it for our 1st night at WDW
late arrival - 10 PM for DME - maybe get to the resort by mid-night !

So we could do a value, just to sleep in and shower the next AM,
plus breakfast.
Then take our luggage to bell service at the value (I assume they have one)
and have them bring it to the BW villa.
Check out of the Value and go to EPCOT.
We can not check in till at least 3 PM, and I am sure our luggage will not arrive to the BW villa till them.

Good luck and Happy Thanksgiving !

Just to make sure you know, you can check in before 3:00. You can check in anytime after 6:00 AM. You may or may not get a room that early. At a Villa it's less likely you get it early but even there you can. We got our room at SSR at about noon in Oct.
And yes, the Value resorts do have a Bell Services department (though I think they use a different title for them). They will move the bags and they'll arrive sometime between 3:00 and 5:00. You may have your room number before that, with luck.

pooh2001 · Nov 25, 2017

AngiTN said:
Just to make sure you know, you can check in before 3:00. You can check in anytime after 6:00 AM. You may or may not get a room that early. At a Villa it's less likely you get it early but even there you can. We got our room at SSR at about noon in Oct.
And yes, the Value resorts do have a Bell Services department (though I think they use a different title for them). They will move the bags and they'll arrive sometime between 3:00 and 5:00. You may have your room number before that, with luck.

Thank you - so from the Value we will go to EPCOT - then to the BW and check into to see if the studio villa is ready. If not we will go to the pizza window and get some lunch, then back to EPCOT for the afternoon.

Great suggestion to check in early. Can we get a text when the room is ready ?
Or do we call the front desk and ask around 4 PM?

AngiTN · Nov 25, 2017

pooh2001 said:
Thank you - so from the Value we will go to EPCOT - then to the BW and check into to see if the studio villa is ready. If not we will go to the pizza window and get some lunch, then back to EPCOT for the afternoon.

Great suggestion to check in early. Can we get a text when the room is ready ?
Or do we call the front desk and ask around 4 PM?

You can get a text. Complete online check in
You never know who gets a text and who doesn't but you you have to do online check-in to have a chance for the text

loves to dive · Nov 25, 2017

We do split stays 80% of the trips we take to Disney. We drive down. Sometimes I pack two bags, sometimes I use packing cubes for the first part of the stay. We don't loose any park time at all. I am an unpacker except for a one night stay, my son just uses one bag for the entire time and he doesn't unpack. I use a hanging toiletry bag so it's easy to hang it on the back of the bathroom door and work out of it, it never gets unpacked so nothing is on the counters in the bathroom. First part of stay, dirty clothes either go back in the packing cubes or in the laundry bags Disney provides and we just put them in the car and not in the bags for resort #2. On resort switch day we just drive to resort #2, and if it's a moderate and our room isn't ready, we leave the bags in the car and hop on a bus to whatever park we are going to that day. If it's a deluxe resort or Swan/Dolphin we check in and leave the bags with bell services. Rarely is our room ready at resort #2 since we get up early and are usually at the resort around 7 or 8. I always do on line check in and if I haven't gotten the room ready text, which has only happened once at Dolphin, I go ahead and go to front desk and check in just to let them know we are there before we head to the park. Sometimes we go back to the room when we get the room ready text, sometimes we just wait until later, just depends on what we are doing.

FootracerJ · Nov 25, 2017

I recommend split stays, but I would say 3 days at one resort is the minimum.

On our last trip, we were at Yacht Club for 7 days and Animal Kingdom Lodge for 3 days. If I had to do it over again, I would split them evenly (5 and 5) because it felt like we were "just visiting" Animal Kingdom Lodge.

For our moving day, we chose to ride around (monorail, bus, and boat) and visit other Deluxe Resorts instead of going to a park. Granted, it was Christmas time, so seeing things like the gingerbread house in the Grand Floridian was a fantastic experience.

nursejackie · Nov 25, 2017

As you can see by my Disboards signature, we done split stays many times. We come from the UK once a year for 16-17 nights so like to stay at more than one place for the experience. I will admit 3 is a bit much (next month I'm doing exactly that!) but two is great. I try to pack strategically before we leave home so I don't have to completely unpack at the first resort. We hire a car so are able to keep swimming stuff in the car to pass the afternoon while we are 'homeless' and bagless. It's always been pretty seamless for us, so fingers crossed this year it'll be a breeze again.

Megara5115 · Nov 25, 2017

I love split stays and I find them pretty easy, although we rent a car and then just pack and transport our own stuff. We go to the parks like usual and then head over to our resort late afternoon. I think without a car it would be more stressful for me but it seems like many people enjoy it still.

gracelrm · Nov 25, 2017

We are planning a split stay for my retirement trip. We are planning 3 nights in each of the Monorail resorts - this is kind of my dream. But, I worry we'll regret it. It will just be me and DH and so not having any kids should make it easier. We are not full-day-in-the-parks kind of people anymore so I worry that on the days we move, we'll not really enjoy it if we can't get into our room. We do drive to Disney, so we an move our luggage without any problem. I wondered if it would be best to hang out at the resort we are leaving until check-out time, then maybe go to lunch and come back and check out the new resort and pool and spend some time relaxing at the pool. Has anyone ever done this and think it's a good idea?

mickeymom22 · Nov 25, 2017

We love split stays! We do them all the time! Disney makes them super easy. I always pack separate suitcases for each resort. We don't open the second one until we are at the next resort.

We have let Disney move our luggage when we didn't have a car. We just packed up and left for rope drop to a park and we headed back to our new resort when they texted us our room was ready.

We have also packed up our own car early in the morning and drove our car to the new resort. Each time we brought our luggage in so they could store it for us, but each time our room was ready. So we just put our luggage in our new room and headed to a park!

We love trying all the resorts!

We did a split stay between POR royal room and AoA Little Mermaid room. It was seamless! Both resorts are great! My girls were 15 and 9 when we stayed in the royal room, and they loved it! I loved it! You are never too old to enjoy being treated like Disney royalty!

AngiTN · Nov 25, 2017

gracelrm said:
We are planning a split stay for my retirement trip. We are planning 3 nights in each of the Monorail resorts - this is kind of my dream. But, I worry we'll regret it. It will just be me and DH and so not having any kids should make it easier. We are not full-day-in-the-parks kind of people anymore so I worry that on the days we move, we'll not really enjoy it if we can't get into our room. We do drive to Disney, so we an move our luggage without any problem. I wondered if it would be best to hang out at the resort we are leaving until check-out time, then maybe go to lunch and come back and check out the new resort and pool and spend some time relaxing at the pool. Has anyone ever done this and think it's a good idea?

In your case I would wait till 11:00 and then head to the next resort
Ask for your room ready early. Never know, maybe you'll get lucky
I'd move my own luggage and when you move to the next resort plan to grab lunch and then relax by the pool till your room is ready

kimmyg26 · Nov 25, 2017

I just posted on another thread about this. In October, we did a split stay at 3 resorts. 4 nights, 3 nights, 3 nights. It was a non issue for us..easy as can be. Call bell services, tell them which resort you are transferring to, hit a park and return "home" to your new resort.

I can't deny we used to be the couple that said no way to transferring. Now, it's a routine part of our vacations. We return to the resorts we love and try new ones. It's a win-win for both of us.

How much of a pain is a split stay?

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