Ok, let me have it. The good, bad, and ugly of split stays. We just got back from our first split stay (BLT and BWV) and it was a bit of a disaster, but I’m thinking that was due to unusual circumstances. We’re headed back in February and I have Poly booked for 5 nights, I would like to add beach club for another 2, but I’m really nervous to try the whole split stay again. Especially because we LOVE the Poly and we have never been to beach club. I think we’ll love it but I don’t want to be disappointed either.
What do you think?
We have only had positive experiences with split stays. Our first time was 4 nights at Contemporary followed by 2 nights at Port Orleans Riverside. Our second time was 3 nights at Port Orleans Riverside and then 3 nights at Beach Club. I strongly recommend doing the moderate resort first and then upgrading to the deluxe resort. If you are staying in the same resort category, I would do a best guess as to which resort you will enjoy more and book that one on the back end.
Luggage delivery from resort to resort went great…no problems at all. I think my only hesitation with a split stay would be due to the number of days I’m staying on property and whether it was worth it to move my stuff for one or two nights.
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We did not care for our split stay back in December. My kids (and DH) needed a nap on transfer day and the second room wasn’t ready yet. Not having a nap space was a deal breaker for future split stays for us.
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I always do a split stay when I am staying more than 4 nights. I love split stays! I love to plan specific parks/plans based on where I am staying. Also, if I want to plan a dining plan for the first part I can take full advantage of the plan!
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We split a 6 night stay between Boardwalk and Kidani. We loved being able to experience two different resorts and focusing on the nearby parks for each one. Variety in nearby dining was a hit, too. The downside: packing up 2 adults and 2 kids who tend to sprawl their stuff all over the place. The time required to collect everything up twice in one trip was a big drag. Our next trip was all at one resort.
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What made it a disaster?
We loved our split stay. AKL, BCV, POLY. TRANSFERS were all smooth. The only bad part was tipping everyone fir moving our luggage. We’re doing split stay in November, BLT. AND BCV. I’m sure you’ll love BC. Why happened with your split stay? We just plan late lunch that day.
About to do our first split stay this fall. Someone here recommended packing bags together for each resort. For example we’ll only open the POR bag at POR then the POLY bag at POLY and soforth. We also drive so can shove the dirty stuff in and deal with it at home. I plan to try this for me and three kids (7,5,4). DH said he can handle his on his own 
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I did this two years ago. A bag for each step (some overlapped with each other).
Carry on for AutoTrain
One night (2 days) Universal Royal Pacific
One night Port Canaveral (Park/Stay/Cruise)
Five Night Cruise
One Night WDW Beach Club
Instead of everyone having their own suitcases, I grouped it all based on where we were…and everything else stayed in our van. It took some planning, but made everything easier in the moment.
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well…part of this was my fault by I tried To piece the last part of the trip together. We did 3 nights at BLT, which was excellent. Then I wanted 4 nights at BWV, but they had limited availability so I had to book a couple nights with DVC points and then another night with cash through DVC (they had no more points rooms). Then part of our party was leaving and we wanted to stay so booked a 1 br for the last 2 nights (we had a 2 br with 8 ppl). I added dining plan through DVC for all nights but the cash night, which they said I could not do until I arrived at the boardwalk. We had our own car so we moved our stuff ourselves. We arrived to check in just before 1030. We planned to check in, get the dining straightened out, then head to Hollywood studios for the day. When we arrived, they had a hard time adding the dining for the 1 night and this took forever. We also realized that 3 nights were booked in a pool/garden view room and 1 night in a standard view room. Again, my fault…live and learn. But…when I asked of there was anyway we could stay in the same room…even if we downgraded to all nights in standard view, things got crazy. Let’s just say they were not only not accommodating, but also very rude and unapologetic. The whole mess with the rooms and dining took almost 2 hours to straighten out. Different people quoted us different amounts for the dining and when I questioned this, Charlotte the supervisor argued with me, telling me that I must have heard wrong previously. In the meantime, they had taken my husbands car keys and forced him to move his car to parking which was quite a hike away. We had no choice at that point but to bring all of the 5 children inside and store our things with bell services as our room was not ready. Here, we waiting 2 hours to get things straightened out. I was so frustrated at that point that I was brought to tears. At this point, I felt the staff began to make fun of me. They would turn away, whisper and laugh. I heard one of them mock me actually, which really made me want to leave. Finally, they were able to add the dining but could do nothing to accommodate the room situation. We ended up moving 3 times during our 4 night stay. I realize this was my fault and have learned from this but I find it hard to believe that there was absolutely nothing they could have done, even considering I offered to stay all nights in the lower level room. After 2 hours in the lobby, the room was still not ready and the manager (Tyler) assured me that they would put a rush on our room and that housekeeping would clean that room next. This was at 1230 and our room was not actually ready until 4pm. I had requested a room on the 5th floor, pool view, but when we walked in literally all we could see were tree branches and we were on the 3rd floor. I understand that requests are not guaranteed, but at this point, it really seemed as though they were purposefully trying to Create a hassle because of the situation. All in all, we loved BLT and we regretted moving to BWV. For all of our trouble, they gave us 2 extra fast passes for the day. 1 we used, and when we tried to use the other, it was missing. Just all in all, not our best experience at Disney.
Agreed! I had a friend do one night at POR, simply because they flew in a night early and needed a room somewhere, then transfer to WL for 4 nights last year and she said it was fine, but wouldn’t have wanted to do it the other way around!
I’m a “stay put” kinda gal. These split stays sound too complicated and stressful. Just my opinion. It seems to be a popular thing. I don’t think I would do it unless there was a room availability issue. I’m just not that adventurous.
No interest in them. If I was going to be there for 10 days, maybe, but my trips are typically 5 or 6 nights and it’s just not worth it to me to have to repack in the middle and relocate.
I’m not sure I would move between Disney resorts unless there was a room availability issue, but we are moving from Universal to Disney this year. Seemed the easiest way to spend several days at each and get the onsite perks. We’ll see how it goes!
So if you add dining to the first reservation you can use stretch it out for the whole trip?
You can only use it until midnight of check out dsy. You can use the refillable mug for your second stay.
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We’ve done quite a few split stays (including the last two trips). I personally wouldn’t do it if we were staying less than ten nights or so, since moving day can be quite disruptive.
We never make rope drop on that day, since there is no way we can be all ready, packed and checked out that early. We also normally go back to the resort after lunch, go to the pool and relax for a couple of hours. This too goes out the window on moving day - I guess we could technically do it, but we don’t normally stay by the pool longer than 2 hours max (normally just over an hour), and there is no guarantee our room would be ready for showering etc at that point since DVC’s official room-ready time is after 4pm.
So why do we do it? Mostly to get two different experiences out of one vacation. Back in October we did CCV and SSR, since we wanted to try CCV which was brand new at the time. SSR is DH’s favorite - he absolutely loves having Disney Springs within easy walking distance. In May it was SSR and BWV,(handy for the F&GF), and in September we’re doing AKV and BCV. We haven’t stayed at AKV since DD4 was born, so really want her to experience that resort. And BCV because…F&WF!
I must add that DH much prefers staying in one resort and only puts up with moving since I’m the one who does all the packing and organizing anyway…!
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This was my experience too. Rope drop and our afternoon swim went out the window. We wasted so much time on moving day.
Hi. I have questions about split stays and throwaway rooms. Family wants to go to Universal before our Disney trip. We are flying into Orlando, and I don’t want to drag all of our Disney stuff to Universal with us for 2 days. I would rather take the Magical Express from the airport. I also want our FP 60 day window to open as early as possible because I am worried about getting FP’s for the popular attractions like FOP and SDD. I was thinking about booking an inexpensive room at WDW for the first 2 nights, having our luggage delivered there, and just taking an overnight bag to Universal after we check in at WDW. On Day 3, have Guest Services transfer our bags to our villa. Is this possible? What problems will we encounter with this plan (other than transportation between WDW and Universal)? Will we end up with 2 separate 60-day windows? Thanks!
Done split stays multiple times, but it was one resort to another…never did different rooms for same stay and same resort. Sorry you had a bad experience.