Split Stay Newbie

[PollyannaMom]

We've been to WDW several times, but are very likely about to plan our first split stay - probably POR or POP, depending on finances, then definitely AKL. (So, obviously, I've already heard the "go from lower to higher" advice.) But other than that, I know I have a lot to learn!! Please share your best tips and "wish-I'd-knowns" from your split stays to help us have a great time.! Thanks.

P.S. - If it matters for any reason, we'll likely be driving to WDW from a relatives house in Florida, then leaving WDW for the airport when we head home.

 

[cruisin5]

What are your plans for move day? Will you be a park commando or chill day at the pool at either or both resorts?

 

[mi*vida*loca]

If you don’t plan on being in the parks all day on moving day take your bags to AKL yourself. That way your stuff is there. If you let disney move it, it can take until 4-5 pm to arrive. We are midday pool people and didn’t have our stuff so we napped instead.

Next trip we are moving to DVC so i don’t expect my room anytime before 4. I’ve planned for us to do a lunch ADR but I’m still going to move my bags myself just in case we want to swim before our room is ready.

 

[PollyannaMom]

What are your plans for move day? Will you be a park commando or chill day at the pool at either or both resorts?

Tentative plans are for that to be our chill day.

 

[cruisin5]

Pack the stuff you'll need for the pool in a tote. Drive to AKL, leave your stuff with bell services or in your car. Bell services will properly store any refrigerated items to pack those separately if you have any. Relax and wait for your room to be ready!

 

[Hopefully]

Tentative plans are for that to be our chill day.

I definitely wouldn’t make move day my chill day, you are “ homeless “ for hours. I would move my stuff to AKL early in the morning and then take a bus to a park for the day. Then late afternoon head to you room at your new resort, call for your stuff and settle in

 

[mi*vida*loca]

Tentative plans are for that to be our chill day.

If you are planning for it to be your chill day then take your stuff with you to AKL. You can use the shower area if you want to change for the pool. You get access to all of the amenities. Book an ADR. Just enjoy the resort.

I would also use oneline check in and make my only request to be for early room availability.

 

[NYCgrrl]

If you don’t plan on being in the parks all day on moving day take your bags to AKL yourself. That way your stuff is there. If you let disney move it, it can take until 4-5 pm to arrive. We are midday pool people and didn’t have our stuff so we napped instead.

Next trip we are moving to DVC so i don’t expect my room anytime before 4. I’ve planned for us to do a lunch ADR but I’m still going to move my bags myself just in case we want to swim before our room is ready.

Only move your luggage yourself if you are Minnie Van/Lyft/Ubering OR have your own car.
One idjit in our split stay party decided that it was easy enough to take 1 airline carry-on spinner from Contemporary to YC via monorail to Epcot, out IG to YC.
Apparently forgot about all the internal security checks which of course included the luggage. Good thing I errr I mean the idjit packed neatly.

 

[mi*vida*loca]

Only move your luggage yourself if you are Minnie Van/Lyft/Ubering OR have your own car.
One idjit in our split stay party decided that it was easy enough to take 1 airline carry-on spinner from Contemporary to YC via monorail to Epcot, out IG to YC.
Apparently forgot about all the internal security checks which of course included the luggage. Good thing I errr I mean the idjit packed neatly.

Oh wow lol. That’s a big no no.

If we don’t use bell services we are ubering it.

 

[Sue M]

On moving day I move my own luggage via Taxi. I haven’t done a split stay since Uber came! If it’s your chill day you can sleep in and have a relaxing morning until 11:00 check out time. Then grab a Uber or Lyft and move to AKL. You can pack a separate bag for pool and check the rest of your things with Bell Service and do early check in. Occas our room was ready early. Enjoy lunch at AKL, walk around to check out the resort and of course enjoy the pool. They have a nice area with lockers and showers.

 

[PollyannaMom]

Thanks for all the replies so far. - I'm definitely seeing there are two very different styles concerning moving day!

Our personal reason for moving day coinciding with chill day is to avoid the dreaded "day 3 curse" of 3 busy park days in a row. - We'd likely book 3 nights in each resort, so our week would look like this: arrival (R1) park (R1) park (R1) move/relax/explore (R2) park (R2) park (R2) departure.

Our arrival would probably be fairly late in the day (as we'll spend part of that day with family) and our departure mid-day, with plans for a slow morning and - very importantly - a substantial breakfast before leaving (correcting another previous mistake .)

Chill day ideas are pretty vague at this point, but may include resort time, Disney Springs, a special meal, and/or checking out other resorts. (A couple of times before, we've "scouted" for future trips by booking ADRs at resorts that interested us. Or if we go near Christmas, I might want to do a monorail loop to see the decorations.)


A specific question - Did anyone pack a certain way for a split stay? (And if so, what was helpful and what wasn't worth it?)


Also, have I got the following details right? -
There are two sets of magic bands, but they're all linked together and you can wear either any day?
The 180 and 60 day windows are separate for each part of the trip?
But that doesn't mean you loose the multi-day discount on ticket prices?

 

[mi*vida*loca]

Your ADR days are separate but FP+ day is for length of stay. You don't lose multi day discount ticket prices.

 

[MusicalAstronaut]

I definitely wouldn’t make move day my chill day, you are “ homeless “ for hours. I would move my stuff to AKL early in the morning and then take a bus to a park for the day. Then late afternoon head to you room at your new resort, call for your stuff and settle in

Majorly agree with this. My chill day means I'm eating at the resort, reading/changing/napping in my room, swimming at the pool, etc. It can suck for that to be the day you're in between resorts because you won't have access to your room for a big part of the day. I like moving on the day I'm going to be in the parks all day because then I don't care that I can't get into my room.

 

[MamaJessie]

I packed for each part separately, using packing cubes would have simplified that.

Using the resort change day as a chill day was not as restful as I expected - if we had multiple relax days it would not have been as bad but as it was we only had the one so we barely relaxed.

 

[loves to dive]

We do split stays just about every trip and we drive down. I usually use a packing cube for the first resort, just stick that in the regular bags but take it out of the car instead of the big bag and put the clothes back in it as dirty clothes and throw it in the back of the car. I have taken the entire suitcase in but just used the packing cube for the first stay. I keep a hanging toiletry bag packed all the time since either me or my honey is almost always going somewhere and it's just easier. That plus the packing cube gets pulled out, I hang the bag in the bathroom and use my toiletries out of it and put them back in as I use them. That way nothing gets left behind and nothing clutters the cabinets. It's easy enough to grab that and the packing cube for the first stay. I pack travel food in a canvas tote and that gets thrown over my shoulder and taken into the room at both stays. On move day, I get up early and pack the car, go eat breakfast and check out. Some resorts you can get express checkout and can skip this step but I've yet to get it. Sometimes I can check out over the phone, sometimes I have to go to the front desk so I tend to just go by there after we eat breakfast. We then drive over to resort #2, check in and drop off our luggage if it's a deluxe resort for them to store. Then it's off to a park for us, we tend to rest in the middle of the day every day so no built in rest days.

 

[Sue M]

My trips are 10-14 days so when we’ve done split stays I don’t pack differently. Since you only have 3 days at AKL I wouldn’t waste it by going to DS or other resorts. Enjoy all AKL has to offer. They have 3 great restaurants and one CS. Boma and Sanna are very good. I’d recommend Sanna at Kidani for lunch so you can enjoy the Savana views. Boma is one of our fav buffets. Jiko is the 2TS restaurant and very good as well

 

[mickeymom22]

We do split stays all the time! I normally pack a suitcase for each resort and just use the appropriate suitcase. We pick which resort to stay in first by park hours and crowd forecast. If we have our own car, we wake up super early, grab a snack, and head over to our new resort. We check-in and every time our room has been ready! We drop off our stuff and take a bus to a park for rope drop. We use the next day for a rest day. I think it would be hard to use your switch day as a rest day unless you for sure could get in your room. If you want to make it a rest day, I would definitely head to your new resort and hang at the pool. Disney Springs exhausts me! Haha!

I wish you pixie dust and that you get in your room early and your trip is truly magical!

 

[ninafeliz]

we did our first split stay ever recently and it was a three way split. I definitely didn't want a chill day on our switch day, I wanted a planned day so we could have Disney move our luggage and not need to worry about when we would get it. We went to Legoland on our first switch day and did a TL (DH and DDs)/DS (me and the babies) day on our second switch day. That worked perfectly, when we were back after all activities our rooms were ready and we called bell services and had our luggage within minutes. I wanted Disney to move our luggage even though we had a car - with 6 people who didn't have to fly and had 2 toddlers we had a ton of it, so the beauty of a split stay at disney is they move it for me and I don't have to schlep it around and pack a car multiple times!

I did pack differently. I put one outfit for each kid into a 2.5 gallon ziplock so I could grab one a day for all 4 kids, and they all fit into one suitcase. I had one suitcase, and put each full outfit into a large ziplock as well, and we had a third for all of the random stuff (ponchos, goggles, umbrellas, mickey ears, etc) (My DH fended for himself). Then I didn't unpack everything, just my toiletries and just got what we needed out of the suitcases. Finding places to keep them wasn't too bad - at the YC they fit under the bed which was great, but even at the BC and CR we managed without it feeling too cluttered, some always fit even laying down between a bed and wall or window (even with 2 pack n plays!) Then I took a very large collapsable duffle bag to put dirty clothes in, and we just had that extra bag that disney moved between resorts and at the end I put it all in one suitcase full of laundry.

I had never wanted to do a split stay, so i was apprehensive, but I would say it went well. We had 4 nights at each resort, I don't think I would really want to do less than that at one resort unless there were extenuating circumstances requiring it (Like that's all I could get, or the CR for a party, etc). I am usually a complete unpacker, so this was quite a change, and overall I still prefer staying at one resort for at least 6 nights and fully unpacking but splitting ended up being not bad and doing both an Epcot resort and a MK resort is a great split if you can do it. We only rode a bus once, we walked everywhere but the AK (and threw in some Minnie Vans also).

 

[ArielDreams]

We did our first split stay - POP to AKL - last summer and it worked beautifully! Here’s how we did it:
- Booked a package - 4 nights at POP with free dining and a 6 day park hopper - and the 3 nights room only at AKL. Since we had a late arrival on the first night, we had a full day’s worth of dining credits for our resort switch day.
- For the POP days, we focused on DHS and MK and saved AK and Epcot (F&W started toward the end of the trip) for the AKL days.
- On switch day, we dropped our luggage off at guest services at POP and packed a small tote with a change of clothes and bathing suits to bring to the park. We spent the morning at Epcot and took an easy morning. I received our room number (with a surprise upgrade to savanna view!!!) around 11 so we took the bus to AKL. The bags weren’t there yet but we could check in and hang by the pool and ate a QS lunch at Mara. When we were done with the pool, we checked guest services and our bags were there. We dined at Sanaa and then went to AK for a sunset safari, FOP and ROL. It ended up being a really relaxing moving day and I was glad everything went so smoothly! AKL is a fun resort with a lot to keep you busy.

 

[DaisyDuck001]

I've done many split stays, and the most important strategy I learned is:

It's easiest if you delay buying your Mickey balloon until you're at the last resort. If you buy it before that, then on the transition day, drive directly to the next resort and bring the balloon in right away. If your room isn't ready yet, then bell services can store your balloon for you, along with your luggage. My rookie mistake was leaving the balloon in the car for a few hours on transition day. It deflated. Live and learn!