Well, since it has been my “lifelong dream” to stay at the Contemporary, and Bay Lake is as close to that as we’ll get, dropping Bay Lake entirely wouldn’t be an option. But experiencing Bay Lake for 3 nights will be enough.
But, to answer your question…if we DID drop Bay Lake entirely, we could do 10 days at Boardwalk instead.
This is exciting! Now I have another trip I can follow along with from beginning to end. When I go back in 2021, I will have learned so much!
Well, I’m sure I’m not nearly as exciting to follow. It is a long haul away for me still. December 2020.
I was actually wondering about the Skyliner. Once it is done, it has the potential to cause pricing to rise. But then I noticed that the Boardwalk Villas are not connected to the Skyliner, so I think there is a good chance it will remain on the more budget end of the 1-bedroom villas.
Right. I was wondering where Riviera would fall in relative to the others. Personally, I’d rather walk to 2 parks, but the skyliner will presumably be more efficient than a bus. And the other resorts on the line should see a bump relative to those that are not as well.
I like this split stay idea a lot! I like the idea of Boardwalk as your second resort and like even more that the price difference allows you to stay longer!
My wife and I watched a YouTube video about Boardwalk. It is a lot cooler than I originally thought. The one negative we noted was the lack of a decent counter service place to eat. Since we’ll have a kitchen, we can make it work though.
We also are thinking about maybe doing Boardwalk first, then moving to Bay Lake for the last three days. We’ll see. But there are two reasons. One is that if we did Bay Lake first, the stay falls on a Friday and Saturday night, which are the more expensive nights. But second, we end our trip in the nicer resort, which means we could spend our final night on our balcony watching the MK fireworks.
I am getting really excited about this modified plan. It just makes the whole trip kind of come together in ways we felt were otherwise going to be compromises.
BTW, anyone know if you can see Illuminations from the Boardwalk resort? Not necessarily from the rooms, but on property? Looks close enough to be possible, but wasn’t sure if there were too many obstructions.
Excited to follow along. This will be my dream
Future trip, after the one I have coming up. Contemporary and Boardwalk. Perfect mix!
We stayed in a YC Boardwalk view room last time and could see Illumnations from our balcony. I love the YC/Boardwalk area a lot!
I love split stays! Moving to the nicer hotel on the backend of your trip is definitely the way to go. My crew enjoys the boardwalk area much better than the Magic Kingdom area. There is so much to do and see on the boardwalk and you can pop into Epcot’s World Showcase whenever you want (if you have park hopper tickets!). Sounds like an excellent trip!
You can’t see the Globe and projections. You will see some of the fireworks.
There again, when is this trip? Illuminations is being replaced, initially with an interim show and then with a new one for the 50th. The fact they are using an interim show suggests there are major issues/maintenance costs surrounding the current one.
Who knows what the final replacement will be? But I guess thee will still be some element other than just a fireworks show, so the same answer applies.
Split stays are pretty great. We’ve split BLT/BCV, BWV/BCV, and BWV/AoA (blizzard emergency caused extended stay).
I’m in favor of splits if you’re able to stay 8 nights, as you’re planning to do. It can feel like 2 vacations instead of one and somehow make the whole thing seem longer.
Saving a little (or a lot?) of $$ by staying at BWV first and then capping off the trip at your dream location would be a nice added bonus. Don’t underestimate how much you will love the Boardwalk though… With money not being an issue, we would stay there or Beach Club everytime.
I like the split stay. Bell services will move all of your stuff seamlessly (we had packed a cooler with our cold stuff and ice - it weighed a ton) the moved it all. Only real hassle is unpacking/packing/unpacking/packing. But for DW and me, unpacking/packing was done in less than 30 minutes on each end so, not much of a hassle.
I am all in favor of extra days at vacations to balance against accommodations. to go from 5 nights to 8 just changes so much about how you plan that I think its well worth it. So, I cast my vote… in FAVOR of a split stay.
You know. One thing that would make this even better is if we could stay in the Contemporary Resort Tower instead of Bay Lake. Pricing seems prohibitive.
But I was wondering. Anyone have any experience as to how much of a discount MVT might have available in the Contemporary? I would email them and ask as just a general question, but they don’t provide an email address for contacting.
Basically, if I’m looking at 3 nights at Bay Lake/Contemporary, then if the cost of the Contemporary could be brought down enough, it might make it possible. Also not sure if they would be able to schedule something that far ahead (11 months).
We’ve never done a split stay at WDW, but we did just return from a split Universal/WDW vacation. 3 nights at Hard Rock and 7 nights at Pop Century. Of course we had to transport our own luggage but bell services at both resorts were great about taking the bags to and from the car. I was worried about packing and unpacking but it wasn’t a problem because we discovered the wonders of packing cubes! They made traveling so much easier for the four of us. Everyone knew exactly where all of their stuff was. And it was easy to put back in the suitcases for transfer.
I doubt we’ll use bell services. We will have our car, so packing it ourselves is easy enough. I have heard of cases where your room is ready, but luggage is delivered after like 9 pm. I’d rather just avoid that possibility.
We just used bell services to transport stuff to and from our car! We had about ten different bags between suitcases, food, electronics, etc. Didn’t want to make multiple trips to load or unload! It made everything so much easier.
We booked our upcoming November trip with MVT in December the day after they were released (which would have been about 4 days short of being 11 months). We had been thinking of choosing the Contemporary but it was not one of the resort choices for our potential trip dates. I believe they have previously offered the Contemporary, though, so it could be a choice when you are taking your trip.
Okay. Thanks. So, that means I can at least check with them. I don’t want to miss out on a Bay Lake Tower room (which they recommend trying to reserve 10-11 months out), but I also don’t want to lock myself out of the possibility of staying in the Contemporary Tower if there is one! 
I contacted an agent shortly before the rates were likely to come out (if you look on social media for the previous year to your trip you can get a guess of when that might be) and she sent me the rates for our potential trip dates the day they were released. Totally understand not wanting to miss out - staying at BLT or Contemporary is on my bucket list.