Split Stay-check out/in day

[florep1]

I dont worry about it. my room should be ready after 4. never had a room not ready after coming back from the parks. the only pia for doing it this way. is bell servuces will have your luggage and when you get there you would need to call them and have it brought up. not usually a problem but one night at SSR took like an hour.no biggie except it was like midnight by the time our luggage arrived and we were tired waiting

It works the same for checking in yourself anyway. When we transferred from BCV to Kidani, our room was ready early and we went to settle in, called bell services, and our luggage was "lost" for a while. Even though I wrote Kidani on the tag, they took it to Jambo and Kidani bell services had to look for it at Jambo. I don't remember how long it took them to find it but they kept me updated on the phone every so often. We had a savannna view so we were "busy" while waiting but if we waited late at night to call, I would have been cranky.

 

[disneydreamingdebby]

I guess I am the rebel. I use online check in

I like the idea and I think I will use online check in for our first location...maybe if we run out of milk and creamer for the second. If we don't have perishables, I think I like this option! Thanks for suggesting it.

P.S. Erika- congrats on the Podcast Cruise!

 

[Montigar]

We went this May, we did a split stay, our first part we stayed at Boardwalk for 5 nights, then checked out on a Friday, got a cab moved our luggage to Bay Lake Towers for the last four nights. Our room wasn't ready yet but we just checked in and left the luggage at the bell desk. Then went to the Magic Kingdom for the day, they text-ed us when our room was ready. It worked out great! Didn't even mind paying for the cab, we wanted to make sure our luggage arrived there on time. Thinking of doing it again for our 2011 trip~

 

[Sandisw]

If you do online check in on split stays, how do you know when your room is ready? Is there an option for texting/phone call?

Even with online check in, you still have to go to the front desk when you arrive at the resort to get your keys and information packet.

Until you do pick up those things, they won't text you. We used online check in last summer for all three of our resorts but still headed over there in the morning, before going to the parks and/or DTD, to get our keys. BLT was actually ready. VWL was not but we did get the text by 1:30 pm which was nice.

 

[dianeschlicht]

I get up early (7am) and drive to the new resort and check in (sometimes the room is even ready), that way they Just call when the room is ready. I take any items that need refrigerated and have the new resort store them. I then pack the car (or you can have bell services transfer luggage, but you may not have them till late afternoon) and by that time we are ready to head to the parks. Once they call that the room is ready we take our mid afternoon break and "move in". We do 3-4 resorts on each of our 15-16 day visits.
We also travel "light", or as light as possible with 2 kids and sometimes 4-8 extended family members.

bookwormde

We do something very similar (minus the kids). We find it's just easier to pack our stuff in the rental car and move in as soon as we know the room is ready. We are also early risers, so checking out of one and checking into the other early in the morning is easy for us. We then park our car at the "new" resort and take Disney transportation. We find driving to the parks wastes a lot of time getting in and out with parking trams etc.

 

[Sid74]

On our last trip, which was our first DVC vacation, we had 4 moves. It looked like a good idea on paper, but we don't want that many on the next trip, lol.

We had a rental car, so on the morning of the move we packed everything up, including perishables, and teenagers, and went off to the next hotel at about 7am. We did the paperwork, dropped everything with bell services, and made our way to rope drop for that days chosen park.
When we were ready to have a break, we checked with the hotel front desk to see if our room was ready. If it was then we went and moved in, but if not we went somewhere for lunch, or to look around another resort until it was.

It was nice to stay at other hotels, but it was a pain having to keep 2 teenage girls tidy, and repack for the different moves. Next trip there will just be DH and I, and we will have a maximum of 3 moves. DH would happily stay put at OKW for 11 of our 14 days, and I would happily move to a new DVC resort every 3 days, so we are compromising.

We always start our trips to WDW with a stay at a value, and when we have stayed at all the values, we will start on the moderates, in our quest to stay at all the onsite hotels.

 

[rosiejo]

We pretty much split stay all the time now that we have DVC. Last trip we moved from AKV to OKW - we did online check in and said we'd be there at 10am. We put our swimming stuff out so that we could head over to BB. We got up, had breakfast and then drove over to OKW and our room was already ready!

We tend to do shopping/swimming activities on change over day so that we don't have to be up and out too early. I think on that day we actually went swimming and then headed over to Sea World for the afternoon/evening.

 

[disneydreamingdebby]

On our last trip, which was our first DVC vacation, we had 4 moves. It looked like a good idea on paper, but we don't want that many on the next trip, lol.

I am glad to see that our rope drop plan has been practiced by others (with teens no less). Our eight year olds are early risers.

We pretty much split stay all the time now that we have DVC. Last trip we moved from AKV to OKW - we did online check in and said we'd be there at 10am. We put our swimming stuff out so that we could head over to BB. We got up, had breakfast and then drove over to OKW and our room was already ready!

I think we will probably do mostly split stays - but keep it to two in the future.

 

[buzz5985]

We are doing a split stay at AKV, BCV and BWV (10 days). I am curious what others do for a split stay and WHY you do it the way you do.

We are commando - we are still new to Disney (first DVC trip) and still try to absorb as much as we can.

I am trying to decide if we should check out of AKV and drive to HS for EMH; then drive to BCV when we are finished at the studio or do we go to the studio, then return back to checkout?

I am interested in hearing others ideas because I feel like I am not thinking of variables I should be considering...

Thanks!!! Debby

We do split stays often - it's like 2 different vacations. We also plan our park days according to where we are staying. It sounds like you have your own car - what I would do is check out of AKV, drive over to BCV check in - leave your stuff with bell services - and walk or take the boat to HS.

Enjoy your trip.

 

[bumbershoot]

On our last trip, which was our first DVC vacation, we had 4 moves. It looked like a good idea on paper, but we don't want that many on the next trip, lol.

We had a rental car, so on the morning of the move we packed everything up, including perishables, and teenagers, and went off to the next hotel at about 7am. We did the paperwork, dropped everything with bell services, and made our way to rope drop for that days chosen park.
When we were ready to have a break, we checked with the hotel front desk to see if our room was ready. If it was then we went and moved in, but if not we went somewhere for lunch, or to look around another resort until it was.

It was nice to stay at other hotels, but it was a pain having to keep 2 teenage girls tidy, and repack for the different moves. Next trip there will just be DH and I, and we will have a maximum of 3 moves. DH would happily stay put at OKW for 11 of our 14 days, and I would happily move to a new DVC resort every 3 days, so we are compromising.

We always start our trips to WDW with a stay at a value, and when we have stayed at all the values, we will start on the moderates, in our quest to stay at all the onsite hotels.

I like your style; every little bit of it! Our first stay involves...moderate, 2 bedroom OKW, 1 bedroom OKW, Universal, 1 bedroom Jambo villa. When I write it down, I get a headache! I have a feeling we're going to enjoy it though...we're just strange like that.

 

[Sammie]

If you have the option of taking your luggage yourself I would never recommend letting Disney take it and move it.

They will tell you it will be ready after 3pm but it can be much later than that and they lost some of ours. It was not located until the next day.

 

[lakohls]

This thread hasn't had any activity in a while, but seems the closest I could find to add on my question instead of starting another thread. Hope this is ok?

First the background info:
We have our week booked for this fall at DVC - AKV 2BR as we have 4 kids, we booked at 11 months. In the past our flights were early am for MCO arrival about noon (2pm at resort via ME) and depart last flight of day 6 or 7pm to get a full day in & we could sleep on the plane. Cheaper flights have always been at an airport about 2.5 hrs away, so we usually get an inexpensive room in that city night before, but drive straight home on return.

Now the flight info is coming out for this fall. Right now it appears that I can probably do our normal plan,

or

Fly out a night early on last flight, arrive in Orlando about 7:30pm instead, so 9:30pm with ME at resort. Then I would need 1 more night at Disney = split stay? If we stay at a value resort (All Star I believe) it would only be about $30 more than if I had followed original plan because flights are cheaper (and with 6 of us it adds up fast). Another night at AKV for 2BR is not a point option (chart shows 37 needed for our date), and cash prices make it way more than a $30 difference.

Now I don't want an extra day of meal plan or park tickets since we'll be arriving so late. So from PP as well, it sounds like I should do a split stay for the extra night. Get myself only up really early & run over to AKV to check in, get our KTTW w/meal plan & tickets etc, then meet back up with family over at All-Star to start our day dropping off stuff with bell services for the transfer?

Does this sound right?

 

[pickles]

I usually do what you do, the first time around we did the hotel at the airport thing.
after that we simply got to the airport early and suffered, sometimes we take a nap when we arrive in orlando, most time adrenalin kicks in and we get started on doing things

I wouldnt worry much about staying at a hotel at disney or the airport. this last trip i did alone, got to the airport at 1 am and slept in the van 2 hours until my flight. not much sleep, but I wouldnt have gotten any more sleep in a hotel either!
If you need to just plan for the pool or something where you can relax when you arrive..save your money

 

[goingsouth]

We are splitting between BLT/AKV and BCV in August. We plan on sleeping late (finally) the day of the 1st switch, checking out at the last moment, grabbing a late breakfast before heading over to AKV. We will have bell services move our bags/groceries. That will still give us a couple of hours (if room still not ready) to hang out by the pool or check out the resort. I'm sure we can stand it by the pool for a couple of hours without access to the room. We are more or less doing the same thing on the day we switch to BCV. I would be hesitant to plan an entire pool day, but a few hours shouldn't be a hardship. My kids are older -3 teenage girls-(yikes). I'm not sure I would attempt this with little ones.

joanne