Keeping my room, but staying off property?

Kind of an odd question - I’ve decided to stay at Universal for a couple nights during my trip this fall, and for various reasons, it’s worked out best to go in the middle of my trip rather than at the beginning or end. I really don’t want to deal with checking out and back in at Disney and moving ALL my luggage, especially as I’m planning to move to Universal after a day at Animal Kingdom, and I can handle the cost of keeping my room on Disney property while I’m over at the competition. Thus, my current plan is to take one of my suitcases to Universal, with a couple changes of clothes, toiletries, my valuables and room for souvenirs, and leave the rest of my things at my Disney resort hotel. My vacation packages at both resorts will be fully prepaid at that point so hopefully I won’t even be giving the appearance of skipping out on any bills.

So my question is this: are there any problems with that plan? Am I going to get frantic and/or stern phone calls for leaving my room empty for a couple days? Should I just put up the Do Not Disturb sign so no one even looks in? I can’t imagine Disney would be too broken up about getting the rack rate for a room I’m not sleeping in for a couple nights, but I was a teacher’s pet and goody-two-shoes as a kid and I still get a bit anxious about The Rules. If anyone’s done this before or has any idea whether I should be worried about any part of this plan, I’d appreciate the insight.

I do that. The only issue will be (and I haven’t dealt with this myself yet) that they now have daily room checks for security and so no Do Not Disturb signs anymore. I’m not anticipating that this will cause a problem, though they’ll obviously be able to see that my bed hasn’t been slept in.

I’m considering leaving a note with my tip for mousekeeping on the morning we go just saying that we won’t be back till whenever so won’t need mousekeeping again till then. I know they’ll still come in but it should prevent any panic. Or maybe just let front desk know, I don’t know. It was easier with the Do Not Disturb sign.

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I would just let the front desk know that you are going to be away for a night. They won’t mind.

One note on the “Do Not Disturb” sign: many hotels have changed their policies on DND signs for more than 24 hours, due to the Vegas shooting last year (where the gunman’s weapons would have been discovered by housekeeping). I’m not sure Disney is doing this, but if they do what many hotels have done, they’ll enforce a housekeeping visit.

Personally, however, I’d put up the DND and not worry about it.

Oh man, I didn’t even think about the do not disturb policy changes. Thank you for your input, everyone; I think I’ll just let the front desk know that I’m visiting off-property for a couple days during my stay and leave a note for housekeeping as well. No need to tell them I’m sneaking off to their direct competitor but I may as well give them a heads up. :wink:

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There is no DND anymore, there’s only a room occupied so they know to knock before they come in. You don’t have to have housekeeping - they pay you not to have it - but someone does enter the room every day.

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