Hey everyone, it's Jacqueline for Pixie Dust PhD. When you're vacationing
at Walt Disney World you don't have to stay in the same accommodation for your
entire trip. If you decide to move hotels at any point this is often referred to
as a split stay. In today's video we'll go over all of your need to know
information about the logistics of split stays.
Staying on property at Walt Disney World can of course be incredibly expensive. A
neat way to try to get the best of both worlds--that is your perks from staying
on Walt Disney World property, but also save some money--is to do a split stay. In
general, any combination of changing hotels during your vacation can be
considered a split stay. This can be a combination of off property hotels and
on property hotels, or this can just be a combination of moving around the various
hotels in the Walt Disney World Resort area. Split stays can also consist of as
many different hotels as you'd like. A very common type of split stay will be
between two on property Walt Disney World Resort Hotels. However, if you have
a seven night trip in theory you could stay at seven different hotels and that
would still be considered a split stay. Other than saving money there are
several reasons to consider doing a split stay. For example, if you and your
party can't decide on which resort you want to stay at doing a split stay
will allow you to stay at multiple. Also sometimes the resort that you want to
stay at may not have availability for the entire length of your trip. By doing
a split stay you'll still get to experience that resort while maintaining
the length of your trip. And I'll touch on this a little bit later in the video,
but doing a split stay and coordinating your hotels with the theme parks you'll
be attending on that day can be a great way to save on commute time between the
parks and your resort. A split stay can also be a great opportunity to
incorporate the Disney Dining Plan for only part of your trip. I recently did an
entire video covering the Disney Dining Plan, so check that out in the card in
the upper right hand corner here and let me know if you have any questions. So all
in all, split stays sound pretty great. But of course there are some downsides.
In my opinion one of the biggest downsides is the roomlessness you
experience on the day you check out of one hotel and check into another hotel.
Your room is not guaranteed to be ready typically until the afternoon. If you're
staying off property of course this is going to vary, but generally speaking
most hotels don't guarantee your room to you ready until 3 or 4 p.m. So if you
enjoy taking a midday break back at your room, this day when you're changing rooms
may make that more difficult or not feasible at all. If you take your midday
break sometime around lunch there's a very good chance that your new room
simply won't be ready. Moving luggage between hotels can also be a hassle. If
you're moving within Walt Disney World property, meaning you're moving from one
Walt Disney owned and operated resort to another Walt Disney owned an operated
resort, well they do make this a little bit easier for you. Take your luggage
down to Bell Services and speak with the cast
member. Bell Services will coordinating your luggage from your current hotel
that you're checking out of to your new hotel. However, do note that the process
of moving your luggage can and will take several hours. If there's anything you'll
need throughout the day be sure to keep that on your person, and don't give it to
Bell Services assuming you'll be able to get it at your new hotel ASAP. And note
while luggage transfer is technically a free service be sure to tip the Bell
Services cast members at both hotels. People have pretty variable opinions
about what is an appropriate amount to tip. Personally, I do about two to three
dollars per bag. So if they were moving three bags for me honestly I would just
round up and give them a ten. If you're moving between on property hotels and
off property hotels Bell Services is not going to move your luggage for you. In
this case, if you have a rental car you can move them yourself or you can order
a ride share like an uber or lyft and move them yourself. If you're doing this
in the morning it's highly likely that your new room won't be ready, so you can
simply store your luggage with Bell Services at your new hotel. Or if you
don't want to deal with this in the morning
simply store your luggage at Bell Services at the hotel you're checking
out from, and then go enjoy your whole day--do the parks, do everything you had
planned. Come back at the end of your day to pick up your luggage and then move it
to your new hotel. By this time in the evening or at night it's highly likely
that your new room will be ready. So gather your luggage from the hotel you
check out of and make your way to your new hotel where you'll immediately be
able to check in and hopefully settle into your room. And know even if you are
moving between two on-property hotels you can of course do either of these
options as well. Moving your own luggage, either with a rental car or through a
ride share, is the only way to guarantee that your luggage will stay in
your possession the entire time. And note even for between on-property hotels I'm
suggesting or ride shares here and not the free Walt Disney World
transportation. Although there is free transportation, for the most part these
go between resorts and parks. So if you are moving from All Star Sports over to
the Grand Floridian there isn't going to be a bus that connects those two
directly. Rather, you would have to take a bus from All Star Sports to a theme park
or Disney Springs, and then wait there for a bus to Grand Floridian. While this
is totally feasible and you can do it, it is going to take quite a lot of time and
I wouldn't personally recommend it. Another downside to note is that
multiple reservations for Walt Disney World resorts will incur multiple
deposits. And while off-site properties all have their own rules it's
highly likely those will incur a deposit as well. There is simply no
getting around having multiple deposits if you're a booking a split stay. Whether
you're booking vacation packages or room only reservations you will incur deposit
for each segment of your split stay. And last, split stays really do take an
additional amount of planning. A split stay with two hotels is really 100%
doable and if that's something you want to do you absolutely can and it's really
not that difficult to manage. A split stay with more than two resorts gets a little
bit more complicated every time you add another reservation. Each reservation is
a little bit more information to keep track of, both when you're planning and
making those reservations as well as when you're on property during your
vacation. If you're not a big planner and keeping track of those details doesn't
sound feasible for you then a split stay may not make much sense for your
travel party. A big reason folks stay at Walt Disney World owned and operated
resorts is all those perks, including that extended FastPass+ booking
window. Let's do a quick rundown of how those perks will look when you're doing
a split stay. For ease of examples I'll be talking about a split stay between two
resorts only. If your split stay is between two Walt Disney World owned and
operated hotels then your FastPass+ booking window in theory should begin 60
days prior to your arrival from that first hotel check-in date, and from there
you should be able to book FastPasses for the length of your trip. Please note
though that this is how it's supposed to work in theory, and as recently even as
April of 2020 there have been instances reported of glitches for certain guests.
In this specific case, a split stay between two Walt Disney World hotels,
folks have noted as recently as April that they're FastPass booking window
opened 60 days in advance of check in for a reservation number one and only allows
them to book out FastPasses for the length of that reservation. And then they
have a second booking day 60 days in advance of their check-in day for resort
number two, which is also your checkout date for the first resort. Since Walt
Disney World switched to a date based ticket system it seems that there have
been some glitches reported in FastPass booking windows. Originally the system
didn't appear to recognize split stays between only Walt Disney World owned and
operated resorts at all, and that FastPass booking window was not extended to
begin with. However, that glitch was addressed and for the most part folks
have had pretty decent success rates in being able to book their entire FastPasses
starting 60 days before their first check-in day. But it does still
seem like there are occasional glitches for people. Having to deal with that
uncertainty can certainly be a downside of split stays.
Similarly, there are conflicting reports about booking FastPasses if you start
on site and then move to an offsite hotel. Generally, 60 days in advance of
your check-in for your on-site portion you'll be able to book FastPasses for
the entire length of your on-site stay, and then you're able to make additional
selections when you reach 60 days in advance of your off-site stay one day at
a time. However, again there have been individual
guests reporting that this isn't working this way for them and they actually have
to wait until 30 days in advance for their off-site portion of this stay. And
last if you start off-site and then move to on-site the FastPass booking window
for the off-site portion of your stay will be 30 days in advance one day at a
time, and the FastPass booking window for the on-site portion of your stay will be
60 days in advance of your check-in and then you can book your FastPasses for
the remainder of your trip. That's the details for FastPass booking
windows. When doing a split stay between two resorts the same logic applied to
FastPasses actually does not apply to advanced dining reservations. If your
split stay is between on property resorts, unlike with FastPasses, for ADRs
you actually won't just have the one booking day.
You will be able to book 180 days in advance of your check-in date for each
reservation. Meaning 180 days in advance of your first check-in day you can go
ahead and book ADRs for the length of that reservation only, and then you'll
have to start over again for your second check-in day. In this way, advanced dining
reservations essentially function as normal.
If you're staying off property you can book 180 days in advance but only
one day at a time. And if you're staying on property you can book 180 days in
advance of your checking date for the length of that reservation. So even if
your split stays are contiguous, meaning you check out from hotel one on one day
and you check into hotel two on the same day, they are still separate reservations
and so you'll have separate advance dining reservation booking windows. For
Magical Express if you're staying on property during your whole split stay
you can use the Magical Express bus as normal. The only difference will be
that you will just have different reservation numbers. If you are starting
or ending your vacation off-site, however, you'll only be able to use the Magical
Express bus for the one leg of your trip where you're on-site. For split stays
that are completely on Walt Disney World property note that there are a number of
ways you can combine room only reservations and
vacation package stays. Rather than go over all those possibilities I'll simply
say this: I personally would recommend that you book the vacation package
portion for the first leg of your trip, and when doing so buy a ticket that is
long enough to cover the length of your trip. Ticket cost per day decreases
greatly when you continue to add more and more days.
So to take advantage of the greatest ticket savings possible you'll want to
have a little longest possible ticket, meaning you need to start using it day 1
of your trip. So excluding any package deals with certain restrictions to work
around, generally speaking the least hassle and
the greatest amount of savings is going to be to book your vacation package
first followed by room only reservations. Alternatively, the most savings is often
going to be simply doing room only reservations for the entire length of
your trip and then buying your tickets separately. Be sure to scrutinize the
specials page for Walt Disney World to see what makes the most sense for you. If
you want more information about all the options for combining vacation package
stays and room only reservations for a split stay I'm going to leave a link in
the description below to WDW Prep Schools article about this--it's a really
great resource and I highly recommend you read it if you want to get into the
weeds. That covers the basic logistics of split stays at Walt Disney World. Now
let's move on to some practical tips that are highly opinion based. First, I
personally wouldn't recommend staying only one night in a hotel. The exception
to this is for your arrival or departure date perhaps you want to stay at a hotel
closer to the airport. This can save you money, and depending on the time that
you're arriving or leaving Orlando it can be a real lifesaver to just be able
to crash at a hotel close by. But in my opinion staying one night at a resort
during your trip, say somewhere in the middle and not book ended at departure
or arrival, really doesn't make that much sense. You won't have time to explore the
resort and get to know it, and you'll hardly have any time to enjoy the
amenities. I also personally find it annoying to deal with the packing, the
unpacking, and getting settled in; not to mention the logistics of finding my room,
remembering how to find my room, and changing that over day after day for
one night stay is just not my idea of a good time.
Second, for a split stay I would highly recommend that you start at the least
desirable hotel and you move to your most desirable hotel. If you start at the
Polynesian then move to Pop Century and then move to an off-site hotel you may
find yourself being a little bit disappointed with every move. But if you
had instead flipped that order and started off property, and then moved to a
value on property resort, and then a moderate or deluxe on property resort
you will probably get more and more joy with each move. Now all the hotels on
Walt Disney World property are excellent and they are themed and you'll have a
good time, but certainly that luxe feeling and the
level of lusciousness, especially with the amenities, increases as you
increase in category. So don't set yourself up for disappointment and
instead end on the highest category. And the last tip is if it's at all possible
try to coordinate which hotel you'll be staying at with which park you'll be
attending. If you're going to splurge to stay at the Contemporary, for example, it
makes the most sense to line those days up with the days you'll be attending the
Magic Kingdom the most. Part of the reason the deluxe resorts are so
expensive is their proximity to the parks. From the contemporary it's
literally about a 10-minute walk to the Magic Kingdom--no other hotel has that
kind of access to that park. And if you're gonna pay for a deluxe resort make sure
that you're taking advantage of that proximity to whatever park is closest as
much as you possibly can! This is especially useful for those of
you who are big rope droppers. Having a quick stroll over to a theme park for
rope drop is so much simpler than dealing with the Walt Disney World
transit in the morning. If you found this information helpful please like the
video and consider subscribing to the channel;
ring the bell icon for notifications whenever I post new videos. And if you
want to interact with me on other platforms you can find me on Twitter and
Instagram @PixieDustPhD. Have you ever done a split stay, and if yes would you
do it again? What did you like and what did you not enjoy about your split stay?
And if you haven't done a split stay yet is that something that you'd consider in
the future, or do split stay simply seem like too much of a logistical hassle for
you? Let me know in the comments down below. I hope you're having a magical day,
and we'll see you real soon at Pixie Dust PhD!