Staying at one resort for 7-9 nights vs two separate resorts for 4-5?

[Robbie Cottam]

I used to love spilt stays.... even staying at 3 resorts over 12 or 14 days....
My wife HATES spilts stays with a passion....

You end up homeless on check out day.....

Our typical day puts us back in the room between 1p and 4 or 5 p every day..... we goto the pool the kids run back and forth between the room and the pool.... You can't do that with a spilt stay....

I split a wait list for an 8 day trip coming up soon. I think we are going to hate it if we only get one half of the wait list....

Maybe I would try it for 3 or 4 nights at each resort without kids, but with kids, at this point I think 5 or 6 nights would be the minimum I would want at one resort...

 

[Chili327]

You end up homeless on check out day.....

Our typical day puts us back in the room between 1p and 4 or 5 p every day..... we go to the pool the kids run back and forth between the room and the pool.... You can't do that with a spilt stay....

I'm thinking (but have never done it), if you just plan accordingly its not so bad, just make your travel day a big park day so you just leave one place in the morning & return to the other?

 

[Sandisw]

I'm thinking (but have never done it), if you just plan accordingly its not so bad, just make your travel day a big park day so you just leave one place in the morning & return to the other?

We split stay a lot and our strategy has been to stay at a park until close njght before.

Sleep in and enjoy the morning. Check out at 11 am…book a sit down lunch either the park or DS….by the time we do all of that and either shop or tour the park a little bit, room is ready.

We don’t get back until about 3:00 ish and almost always have our room ready!!

 

[Elephantay]

If you end up needing to do a split stay, consider your switch day to be a pool day. We typically have breakfast at the resort we are leaving, maybe do some laundry, and pack up. Then we uber to the next resort to enjoy the pool, leaving our things at bell services ( we keep one bag of pool stuff with us). When our room is ready we head up to the room and get settled, then head out for dinner/evening.
In the past we took off for the parks but the past few trips our new approach worked much better! You can see if there are any room issues, and be all settled in when you return at night.

 

[mamaofsix]

Split stays can be tricky. I've found it helpful to research how much availability a resort generally has for the time of year / room type I want. While we can't predict the future, the past is a good indicator. dvchelp.com is a good one to look at. You can check historical data to see if your length of stay would likely to be available at the 11 month mark at certain resorts and room categories, etc.

Might help set your mind at ease when making a plan.

 

[Ruttangel]

We’ve just done a 4 resort split stay, had success every time getting a room early, which was great for PVB as we asked for them to move us from parking lot view to resort view. Much easier to do that early in the day.
AKV 2:30
PVB 1:00
BCV 2:20
BWV 11:00am!!!

It was a 16 day trip so didn’t feel that bad to us.

 

[tom1944]

We just got back from a 7 day trip at BLT.

I want to try a 9 day trip next year with 5 at a MK resort and 4 at SSR.

Depending on my next contract I think we will do trips from 7 to 10 days. I hope we like the split stay and can do them on trips over 7 days.

 

[DVCjj]

We definitely do split stays and like them very much. Once we did a 5 way split (!) for a 9 day trip and loved it.
It's just the 2 of us and DH actually got bored on a trip when we were at home resort (BCV) for 6 nights. He missed a split.

We think it's like a whole new vacation when we switch to a different resort plus we get to try out a new one to see if we like it. Because of a recent split, after many years of never going there, we found that we actually really liked SSR for a future split. That was a shock for us. Same trip, we actually didn't care for new GF vs the DVC bldg and not going back.

We just got back from a 7 day trip at BLT.

I want to try a 9 day trip next year with 5 at a MK resort and 4 at SSR.

Depending on my next contract I think we will do trips from 7 to 10 days. I hope we like the split stay and can do them on trips over 7 days.

We think 5 and 4 split is ideal as we've tried several combinations in the past.

 

[JulieBeeRN]

I love split stays but we don’t have small children either. And we also have a rental car so we drop our luggage off at bell services and go do other things.

 

[Chili327]

We’ve just done a 4 resort split stay, had success every time getting a room early, which was great for PVB as we asked for them to move us from parking lot view to resort view. Much easier to do that early in the day.
AKV 2:30
PVB 1:00
BCV 2:20
BWV 11:00am!!!

It was a 16 day trip so didn’t feel that bad to us.

Is that 4 days at each resort?

 

[Ruttangel]

Is that 4 days at each resort?

6,3,1 and then 6

 

[tjkraz]

It took me 20 years to fully come to terms with my feeling on split stays. There are two scenarios where I think it's tolerable:

1) Staying in a different resort for one night at the beginning or end of a trip. If we have to alter plans due to flight prices or some other unexpected factor, it's not so bad to basically live out of suitcases for that one night.

2) If it's just my wife and I staying in a studio. With just us 2 adults, no perishables and presumably no more than 2 suitcases worth of gear, I can handle packing up and moving to another studio. It's fairly quick and painless.

For anything else, forget about it. If we're staying in a 1-2 BR villa, we usually have groceries which are a pain to pack up and move. If our kids and/or their friends are with us, I'm not managing a move that involves 4+ people. Plus if you're getting help from bell services and tipping people appropriately, it's probably going to cost a minimum of $40-50 to move bags and groceries between the two hotels. Maybe more if you need an Uber or rental car.

 

[Lorana]

Now that Disney won't transfer items that need refrigeration, I have a slightly less enthusiastic view on split stays, if only because I have to order groceries twice. Amusingly, when our kids were little, we split stay all the time, as that was how we could afford to "splurge" on higher end accommodations.

Now, our split stay is often because I book a "cheaper" point room for the first 1-2 nights as we usually arrive after 9pm and I hate "paying" a lot of points for an accommodation we might not make the most use of. We also like experiencing different resorts.

Or, if we're staying for longer stays (more than 5 nights), we'll split stay to break things up and have some new experiences, as well as to focus what parks we are visiting around which resort we will be at to minimize time spent traveling to/from the parks.

Now that my kids are older, they enjoy split stays less than they did as kids (they loved it as children), and even though technically we have less to pack up and move between stays now than we did when strollers, diapers, toys, etc. were in the equation, we tend to do split stays less frequently. If it's just my husband and I, we don't mind doing it more, though his requirement is to try to stay a minimum of 3 nights, and ideally 4-5 (exception being that first night if we arrive late I mentioned above).

When our kids were younger, the split day was often a pool day, or an all-day-in-the-park, so the split part of it was never an issue. Now that they're older, it's usually a planned park day where we have evening plans that we do it, because they aren't as big fans of spending ours on the pool or out in the sun.

 

[kboo]

Removed your dates regarding travel so this is not seen as a reservation for rent wanted post. I like split stays and we did them a lot, even with our little ones.

The day we switched resorts, we slept in, enjoyed the pool, and didn't check out until we had to...then, we would do a lunch somewhere, many times at DS...and then head to the park or the resort. By the time we did all of that, it was usually close to check in time....

We are big split stayers and have been since the kids were little. It is doable, and when they were little we knew how to get them a stroller nap....

Funny, we used to be rope droppers and on move-out day, we would do a park day instead of a resort day. I would schedule a lunch in the park, and take the AM to get our stuff together, check out, drop our stuff at bell services, then go to a park for lunch and some fun. We've had varying success with luggage transfer both before and after pandemic, so now we leave our stuff at bell services and then sometime after 4-ish we go back to the original resort, get a car service and pile all our stuff into the new resort. If room isn't ready, we drop the stuff and hang out at the resort pool. (one bag packed separately is pool stuff) FWIW the last time we had a room ready after 4 was 2017. We've always gotten notice our room was ready before 4 - and if it is, it is much better to take your stuff yourself than wait for Disney luggage transfer.

Split stays dont work with kids sometimes.

Kids don’t adjust to the same plans you have. You might decide that the first 5 days when you're close to Magic Kingdom that you'll do Magic Kingdom. Your kids will decide they don’t like Magic Kingdom, only Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom.

Then when you switch parks to near Epcot, they’ll fall in love with Magic Kingdom all of a sudden and want to go there every day.

I think it depends on your kids and your ages? My family knows I'm the Disney planner and so they don't usually ask to do something different unless there's a clear reason (everyone knows what the loose plan is each day, or at least what the park reservation is)

I'm thinking (but have never done it), if you just plan accordingly its not so bad, just make your travel day a big park day so you just leave one place in the morning & return to the other?

Yup, that's what we do. If we don't leave for the park until 10am ish then the park time doesn't feel like that long before it's time to leave. The other thing you can do is move luggage etc upon checkout and go to the park from resort #2.

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We recently did a 1-5-2 split - BWV bw view, BWV std, AKV kidani - I would have preferred 5-3 or 4-4 but I messed up our wait lists. Ironically, now that our kids are easier to move (8, 12 - they can carry and pack their own stuff, we don't need to keep a lot of food refrigerated in the unit) I feel like I might actually prefer to stay in one place for a whole week or so. Maybe it's because taking a bus is SO easy without a stroller and because the kids can carry some stuff of their own.

 

[kboo]

Now that my kids are older, they enjoy split stays less than they did as kids (they loved it as children), and even though technically we have less to pack up and move between stays now than we did when strollers, diapers, toys, etc. were in the equation, we tend to do split stays less frequently. If it's just my husband and I, we don't mind doing it more, though his requirement is to try to stay a minimum of 3 nights, and ideally 4-5 (exception being that first night if we arrive late I mentioned above).

I would prefer to stay at least 3 nights in each place, too.

 

[Chili327]

6,3,1 and then 6

AKV 6
PVB 3
BCV 1
BWV 6

How does 6 nights at AKV feel, is it worth staying that long, do you do a lot of resort days when there, or do you bus out 4-5 days?
Also, going from BCV to BWV doesn't sound too bad. (7 days total in that area)

 

[Ruttangel]

AKV 6
PVB 3
BCV 1
BWV 6

How does 6 nights at AKV feel, is it worth staying that long, do you do a lot of resort days when there, or do you bus out 4-5 days?
Also, going from BCV to BWV doesn't sound too bad. (7 days total in that area)

No bus problems at AKV. The early morning buses only go to Jambo or Kidani so no issues of it turning up full. Longest ride is MK but that’s only 20 mins.
We could just spend 14 days at AKLodge to be honest, immersive yourself in culture, art and animals. If the parks ever disappeared it would still be a tourist attraction on its own. I mean theres a flock of flamingos right next to the pool at Jambo. We first went there 10 years ago now.

We had 14 day U.K. tickets which include park hopping and water parks, mini golf etc so no end of things to do. We didn’t do any full resort days though but usually 3-4 hours in a park and then back to swim, eat and relax.
We also enjoy Jiko and Sanaa.
If you were only there a few days you might feel a bit rushed to complete everything but being DVC means you are going to come back so don’t try to do too much.

Yes, we just walked over to BWV, a night at BCV was just a bit of a last minute waitlist thing, we had Beaches and Cream booked in the afternoon and fancied a late night swim in SAB.

 

[BCarruthers]

We almost always do split stays when we visit. Usually we are there for 8-10 nights and I try to stay at a new WDW resort for the first half, do animal kingdom and magic kingdom. Then we switch to the Swan or Dolphin as I have a lot of Marriott points, then we just walk or boat ride to hollywood and epcot. Plus walking around the boardwalk on a rest day is so nice.

 

[intamin]

My partner and I are huge proponents of split stays. We like to try out as much as possible in as many resorts. Being an adult couple does make things a lot easier though. Once we have young kids I’m not sure I’ll want to pack up the kids stuff as frequently as we pack our own right now.

In June we did 3 days at BWV, then 2 nights in OKW, then a night in AKV club followed by AKV value. So 4 different rooms in 7 days. It really wasn’t that difficult, especially the AKV part where we just took our luggage down to the lobby and had them hold it while we went into the park. It also allowed us to access the amenities at club level the full 2 days we were allowed to which was really nice.

Going on a week long trip today actually that is a split between 3 nights of BRV and 4 nights of RIV. Should be fun having part of the trip close to MK and then closer to HS for Moonlight Magic for the second half.

Then in March we’re doing the same strategy with 1 night in an AKV club and a standard AKV room to take full advantage of club level without the full price and then 3 nights in a BLT standard studio and then 2 nights in BWV boardwalk view studio.

Being flexible with split stays can really help get you into some of these more coveted rooms. I managed to book the first club and value studio at AKV at 7 months and then obviously the BLT standard and BW studio because of my willingness to do a split stay.

 

[bravenyc]

We usually do longer trips every other year (9-10 days) and we have always done split stays with these trips - mainly because we love so many resorts and also because we can optimize MK resorts and EP/HS resorts. In our experience it works best to have a park day on the resort transfer day. We notify bell services that we are moving resorts and have our stuff packed that morning and they come pick it up. We head to the parks and then return to our new resort (we are not big mid day break people). I found I did not enjoy a resort day as much without a room - once we did not get a room until 5ish and it was pouring outside. I also pack our stuff into two different suitcases - one for each stay - this makes it much easier. While it is a bit of a pain to have to repack and unpack - the benefit of 2 resorts is worth it - and I think it encourages us to be neater during stay #1. When we have stayed less than 7 nights we stay at one resort.