How to Do a Split Stay at Disney World Hotels
Doing a resort split stay at Walt Disney World is great for trying two hotels or splurging on a luxury or Club Level accommodations. It can also be leveraged for proximity to the parks, making transportation, Early Entry, Extended Evening Hours, and midday breaks all easier! This covers strategy, tips & tricks, whether it’s worth the hassle, and more. (Updated January 21, 2024.)
A lot of readers have asked us about split stays, and the primary question is whether they’re worth the effort. We won’t bury the lede here: yes. We love the resorts at Walt Disney World almost as much as the theme parks, and staying at multiple hotels is a great way to experience different ‘thematic settings’ during a single trip.
Your resort can set the tone and atmosphere for the entire trip, so changing resorts makes it feel almost like a different vacation entirely–travel to both Fiji and the Pacific Northwest during your Florida trip. Right now, we’re even bigger advocates of split stays as a form of splurge that’ll allow you to take advantage of better on-site perks…
That’s because Walt Disney World is offering Early Entry and Extended Evening Hours through at least 2024 as a replacement to Extra Magic Hours. The former allows all on-site resort guests and those staying at select third party hotels to enjoy 30-minute access to any Walt Disney World theme park, every day before normal operating hours begin.
We’re big fans of Early Entry, as it essentially offer a couple of ride headstart for on-site guests, which can be pretty significant. (Learn more strategy in our Guide to Early Entry at Walt Disney World.) However, it’s not really relevant from a split stay perspective, since all on-site guests have access to this.
Where split stays come into play is with Extended Evening Theme Park Hours. This benefit is exclusively for guests staying at Deluxe Resorts, Deluxe Villas (Disney Vacation Club units), or other select hotels (currently Swan & Dolphin, Swan Reserve, and Shades of Green). Guests staying at Value or Moderate Resorts are not eligible for Extended Evening Hours.
Extended Evening Theme Park Hours occur only two nights per week in total–typically Mondays at Epcot and Wednesdays at Magic Kingdom, with a 2-hour duration starting immediately after normal park closing. Two hours should allow eligible guests to accomplish more, but this is only a perk for those who book more expensive hotels.
Currently, the two newest attractions in Epcot and Magic Kingdom–Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind and TRON Lightcycle Run, respectively–both use virtual queues. This means you can only ride once per day via the virtual queue, assuming you score a spot, but Extended Evening Hours is an exception to that. On those evenings, there’s another chance to join the VQ. (See our Guide to the Virtual Queue at TRON Lightcycle Run for everything you need to know–same applies to Cosmic Rewind.)
Extended Evening Hours (ExEH) is a huge advantage. Crowds are virtually non-existent, as are lines for most attractions. It’s way better than Evening Extra Magic Hours were, which had become overcrowded due to expanded eligibility during its last few years. However, ExEH is only so blissfully unbusy because it excludes a large chunk of guests–everyone staying at Value and Moderate Resorts.
This is where a split stay comes into play. You’re eligible for these extra hours both on your checkin and checkout days, meaning that you could theoretically do a 2-night stay at a Deluxe Resort, checking in on Monday and checking out on Wednesday, and take advantage of Extended Evening Hours in two parks. (See our Guide to Extended Evening Hours at Walt Disney World for more rules, eligibility, strategy, etc.)
As of early 2024, Extended Evening Hours is back at Magic Kingdom and EPCOT. Our favorite park for ExEH is Magic Kingdom, thanks to its ride density–there are more attractions and they’re easy to knock out in quick succession. (By contrast, there’s a lot of “commuting” at EPCOT that eats up valuable time.) Expect Magic Kingdom to continue hosting ExEH until around October 2024, when the heart of Party Season arrives and the perk is presumably (again) moved to Disney’s Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom.
The same idea can be applied to a split stay and doing Club Level at Walt Disney World. You’re eligible to use the concierge lounge and all of the perks that come with staying Club Level on both your arrival and departure day, meaning that one night essentially enables you to access that lounge over the course of two days. Doing Club Level for a night or two, arriving early and leaving late gives you the most bang for your buck, and is a good way to get a taste of the Club Level life without breaking the bank.
Accordingly, we highly recommend Club Level as part of a ‘treat yourself’ split stay splurge. If you opt to do this, we highly recommend doing Club Level at the end of your vacation. This is partially because it’s tough to go back to normal accommodations once you’ve been in da club. More importantly, because you’ll spend the first portion of your trip racing around the parks doing everything that you want to get done, exhausting yourselves in the progress. Then at the end, you’ll have a Club Level stay to relax, rejuvenate, and actually vacation.
When we stay Club Level at Walt Disney World, we seldom leave the hotel–often bouncing between the lounge and the pool. For our favorite concierge lounges and recommendations, see our Guide to Club Level at Walt Disney World. If it’s going to be a big splurge and you want to do it but are unsure it’s in your budget, our recommendation would be Chronos Club at Gran Destino Tower, which offers far and away the best bang for buck.
(Once advance-booking of Lightning Lanes debuts later in 2024, it’s also possible that Club Level guests will have access to more or better ride reservation options. See When Will Pre-Arrival Lightning Lane Bookings Start at Walt Disney World?)
Only do the Disney Dining Plan for a portion of the stay, if at all. As covered in our 2024 Disney Dining Plan Info & Tips post, we think it provides too much food and can take too much time. Only doing the Disney Dining Plan for one portion of the trip allows us to do an attractions-oriented half of the trip, and a food-oriented half.
We almost always do the food half of the trip second, when we’re ready to slow down, relax, and focus more on eating. This also allows you to maximize savings by booking ADRs for the Best Uses of Disney Dining Plan Credits during the second half of your trip, while focusing on your favorite ‘good value’ restaurants during the first half. This isn’t something often discussed when it comes to split stays, but we wholeheartedly recommend it.
To that point, do NOT do the Disney Dining Plan at the same time as Club Level. It’s one or the other, not both. However, if you have a really long Walt Disney World vacation and really want to get creative and have fun, consider splitting your trip into thirds. This does allow you to do both the DDP and Club Level, just not at the same time.
If you’re worried about split stays wasting too much time, don’t. They actually offer a number of other different strategic advantages. One is in leveraging location for more efficient transportation to the theme parks near your hotel. This is of particular relevance when it allows you to avoid Disney buses, which aren’t typically as efficient as the non-bus transportation.
If you do a stay at Crescent Lake or at one of the Skyliner resorts, you have easy transportation–either via gondola or your feet–to both Epcot and Disney’s Hollywood Studios. If you follow that up with a Seven Seas Lagoon or Bay Lake resort stay, you have non-bus transportation to Magic Kingdom. That leaves only Animal Kingdom, and you could probably just deal with the buses for that.
The benefits of a convenient location cannot be overstated. This is especially true for Early Entry–walking to Epcot or Magic Kingdom, or taking the Skyliner to Disney’s Hollywood Studios or Epcot is far more efficient and easier first thing than relying on a bus. The time you save during Early Entry in turn gives you the freedom to leave the park–avoiding crowds in the middle of the day by taking breaks for pool time, afternoon naps, etc. Seriously, split stays open up a world of time-saving opportunities that you probably never imagined existed.
This approach also opens up more opportunities for enjoying and comparing a variety of amenities. For instance, you could do a head-to-head comparison and settle the Polynesian vs. Caribbean Beach Resort debate once and for all. Or, you could simply enjoy a greater range of restaurants, pools, and other entertainment that’s unique to each resort.
If you’re going to be spending more time at the pools or eating breakfast and dinner at your hotel, this helps you mix things up. Doing a split stay opens up more options–variety is the spice of life and all that.
As you can probably tell, we are huge fans of split stays. We change hotels frequently at Walt Disney World. Part because we really enjoy it and part because it’s necessary to keep our Walt Disney World Hotel Reviews updated. There were times in the past when we’ve done as many as 6 hotels in a single trip! While I definitely wouldn’t recommend that, changing once over the course of a week is really no big deal at all.
For our own sanity, we’ve developed a few more ‘rules’ when it comes to split stays…
First, never do just a single night at any hotel. We’ve done that several times, and it can become exhausting. Unpacking and packing, settling in, and getting acclimated, only to do it all over again the next day. Plus, one night is simply not enough time to ‘get to know’ a resort and even partially enjoy its amenities.
Second, coordinate park days with resort stays. If we’re staying at the Contemporary or another monorail resort for one part of the trip, that’s when we go to Magic Kingdom. If we’re staying at Beach Club or another Crescent Lake Resort, that’s when we go to Disney’s Hollywood Studios and Epcot.
This may seem like a minor or even odd thing, but it’s strategically huge. Walking between the Contemporary and Magic Kingdom is a pleasant stroll of less than 10 minutes, with the shortest security check you’ll encounter for the park. Waiting for and taking a bus, then going through the main bag check, can take over an hour. Ditto walking to and from Epcot or DHS.
Finally, go low to high if at all possible. This is to say, start at the lowest tier hotel and end at the highest. This is kind of implied above with the Club Level recommendation, but applies even beyond that. One big motivation for doing split stays is to splurge on something nice without breaking the bank on a full week there. You probably do not want to go from the Grand Floridian for 2 nights to All Star Sports for the next 5 nights.
That’s simply too jarring of a change, and in the wrong direction. Experiencing the nicer properties first really amplifies the shortcomings of the lower tier ones, and will make you less comfortable. It might sound silly, but beginning at a Value and ending at a Deluxe is a far superior approach, and will help you appreciate the Deluxe more.
Here’s our ‘formula’ for this:
- Start with 3-4 nights at a lower tier resort and go hard on the parks
- Switch to a nicer resort, get the Disney Dining Plan, and slow down for the next few nights
- End it all with a couple days for rest and recovery with Club Level accommodations.
Numbers 2 and 3 could even be at the same resort if you don’t want to hassle with transfering your luggage repeatedly. We’ve done trips like the above, and they’re a ton of fun. It sounds more complicated than it really is!
It’s worth noting that the low to high “rule” can be difficult to reconcile with the above advice about Extended Evening Hours, since those happen Monday and Wednesday and most vacations start over a weekend. If it comes down to one or the other, err on the side of Extended Evening Hours. Like the Pirate’s Code, these are really more what you’d call “guidelines” than actual rules.
With that said, consider “rethinking” your vacation time frame if at all possible. Resorts tend to be more expensive over the weekends, so it can be savvy to do a Value Resort Friday through Sunday to pay the (comparatively) lower rates for those as opposed to a Moderate or Deluxe Resort.
Equally as significant, crowds on Saturday and Sunday are lower than Monday through Thursday. Accordingly, you can do ‘commando style’ park touring over the weekend, then take things slower Monday through Wednesday, enjoying the nicer resort more before doing Extended Evening Hours to end the night! (See the ‘Wonky Weekends’ section in our updated Best & Worst Days to Visit Every Park at Walt Disney World.)
The resort transfer itself is pretty easy. On the morning you check out of your first resort, take your luggage down to Bell Services and indicate that you’re transferring resorts. They’ll ask where you’re going, at which point you’ll want to specify the full name of the resort to which you’re going.
As we cover in our Tipping at Walt Disney World: Info & FAQ, you’ll need to tip the Cast Member to whom you give your luggage. After that, you can head to the bus stop/monorail/etc. and start your day. Only a few minutes of extra effort, and you can be on your way to the theme parks.
Most transfers occur in the mid-afternoon, so plan on not receiving your luggage at the next resort until as late as 5 p.m. At your new resort, you’ll almost always have to either go down to Bell Services to retrieve your luggage or call down to have it delivered again. Again, you’ll need to tip.
One thing we’d caution against is opting to ‘do it yourself’ and transfer resorts via Uber, Lyft, or (worst of all) Disney transportation. There are several exceptions to this: those with a rental car, transferring between monorail resorts, or any hotels within walking distance of one another.
Additionally, it can be easier at resorts that are spread out among multiple buildings (like Caribbean Beach), or between off-site and on-site hotels (at which point doing it yourself is necessary). In these cases, Uber or Lyft can pose an advantage.
We understand that some of you may be apprehensive about the luggage transfer, but we have done split stays dozens of times (probably nearly 100 times–so many we’ve lost count) and have had zero issues with the luggage transfer. This doesn’t mean they don’t happen, but they so infrequent it’s not worth worrying about.
More importantly, doing it yourself is a complete waste of time and money. You’ll have to take the time to go to the new resort and spend the money on a ride. You’ll most likely still have to drop your luggage off with Bell Services at the new hotel, because you’ll be arriving there by about noon at the latest and your room is unlikely to be ready.
With the greatness of split stays established, let’s turn to some of the potentially unpleasant logistics. Some Walt Disney World visitors make a huge deal about the planning “hurdles” that come with a split stay, but in fairness, people make a huge deal about everything Walt Disney World-related. It’s not that much additional coordination at all.
No matter how you want to do the split stay, you’re going to be stuck booking multiple reservations. This is irrespective of whether you’re doing a vacation package, room-only reservation, Disney Vacation Club booking. Unfortunately, Disney’s system is not sufficiently sophisticated to allow for a single reservation to encompass multiple hotel stays.
From our perspective, tickets are the most important element to discuss, and you’ll want to purchase tickets for the full duration of your stay with the first stay. The reason for this is, quite simply, that one 7-day or 10-day ticket is cheaper than two shorter tickets.
There are potential hiccups and exceptions (you know, the usual when it comes to Walt Disney World planning), but that’s essentially it. For most visitors, booking a split stay and planning all components shouldn’t be much of a challenge, particularly if you’re a more laid back planner.
With that said, we did just lay out a bunch of rules/guidelines, some of which are contradictory. If you want more thorough guidance or assistance navigating the ‘split stay’ planning waters, we’d highly recommend contacting an Authorized Disney Vacation Planner. Those travel agents are free-to-use so long as they handle your booking, and they can offer personalized planning that takes into account your priorities and preferences. No Disney planning advice is one-size-fits-all, and that includes our strategies for split stays!
Overall, hopefully this helps you understand the ins and outs of how to do a split stay and, much more importantly, the upsides of doing one. In case you can’t tell, we love split stays. There’s something truly special about sleeping in the rustic seclusion of Fort Wilderness for a night, and then flipping a switch to the grandiosity and elegance of the Grand Floridian the next.
Likewise, staying within walking distance of Magic Kingdom at the Contemporary for a couple of nights, and then walking distance of DHS and Epcot at BoardWalk a few nights is both a ton of fun and smart strategy. Those are just a couple of examples, but the options for changing from one richly-themed environment and ‘region’ of Walt Disney World to another are pretty much boundless.
Planning a Walt Disney World trip? Learn about hotels on our Walt Disney World Hotels Reviews page. For where to eat, read our Walt Disney World Restaurant Reviews. To save money on tickets or determine which type to buy, read our Tips for Saving Money on Walt Disney World Tickets post. Our What to Pack for Disney Trips post takes a unique look at clever items to take. For what to do and when to do it, our Walt Disney World Ride Guides will help. For comprehensive advice, the best place to start is our Walt Disney World Trip Planning Guide for everything you need to know!
Your Thoughts
Have you done a split stay at Walt Disney World? What’s your favorite approach to doing different resorts during the same WDW vacation? Do you agree or disagree with our advice? Any hotel combos you particularly like? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing your feedback–even when you disagree with us–is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!
We luuuurve split stays! And I particularly love the challenge of planning them.
We take a sort of spend less, visit more approach and split stays let us have a few higher end stays. We’ve rented DVC points, gotten castmember discounts, and just caught a few good deals.
Tom’s right about which order to stay where but we’ve done it in reverse out of necessity a few times and still had a great time.
If you do a split stay & choose to do the Dining package does it mean two separate ADR windows, one for the start of each reservation?
Brad,
No this will not affect ADRs, as long as you are out 180 days from your first reservation.
We love doing split stays. Coming over from Australia, we tend to stay at Disneyworld for 14 nights, which gives us a great opportunity to experience two resorts. Like Tom suggested, we buy the 10 day tickets with the first booking as a package, much cheaper than buying two separate lots of 5 day tickets.
We did a split stay once – a week (or thereabouts) at Animal Kingdom Lodge followed by a week at at the Boardwalk. It was fabulous. The first week was quite relaxing, isolated as AKL is, and we spent a lot of time at AK and MK. The second week was spent mainly at Epcot and DHS, taking advantage of the hotel’s location. Our main driver for splitting the stay was because we really wanted to stay at AKL, but we love hotels that are convenient for Epcot (particularly during Food and Wine). I would do it again in a heartbeat.
Gee, Tom, did you used to be a porter in your prior life? I don’t “need” to leave a tip, and don’t “need” to be reminded 2x to leave a tip for luggage transfer. Kind of obnoxious.
Yes, you do “need” to leave a tip and if you dont think that you do, you obviously “need” to be reminded. Kind of obnoxious that you dont agree.
Gee, sensitive much?
Tipping at WDW can be confusing. So yes it is helpful to mention who and who should not be tipped. Tipping for a luggage transfer is customary…or you kind of look like a jerk:)
Shame on you Herb! It is now decreed from henceforth you “need” to tip at least 10 bucks for every porter you encounter to make up for your previous stinginess!
I’m from Europe and expectations around tipping in the US can be confusing. I really appreciate advice like this regarding when it is appropriate/ expected to tip – I don’t find it obnoxious at all.
Just wondering if you are not doing a park on your split day if you can have access to the pools and such before checking in?
Yes, you definitely can! We try to fly in on the earliest flight to make that day a pool day for our kids. We just drop the luggage with bell services, check-in, and hit the pool while we wait for our room. We pack swimsuits, sunscreen, and any other necessities in our carry-on to make it super easy.
We do exactly the same thing… fly in early and fly home late. It may seem like a little thing, but you can get nearly two more days out of your trip this way.
In a related fashion, I can also recommend the strategy of doing for example four nights off Disney and then four nights at one of the nice monorail resorts. One can rent a fairly spacious inexpensive accommodation and get to AK or HS or Epcot by uber or personal car very quickly, avoiding EMH. Then leave MK for the monorail resort stays.
Best line of the whole review:
“people make a huge deal about everything Walt Disney World-related.”
I feel like some readers could do well by watching either Free Solo or The Dawn Wall (two amazing documentaries). A viewing will offer some good perspective on planning for things when it really matters. You’re going to Disney-it will be good. Relax…
My family did a split stay at the beginning of December and and our bags weren’t yet delivered when we left at 6pm after nap time. (They were picked up before 9am) I called at 5:15 and was assured they would be right up. Assuming they were swamped we headed off to Candlelight Processional and Illuminations and took our time getting back. A few minutes before 11 our bags had still not arrived. I called again and finally we had our bags delivered at 11:25 with no explanation. I received a discount on that nights stay after voicing some concern at the desk the next morning, but was disappointed by the way it was handled and never given any explanation. We loved doing a split stay, but baggage staff was so disinterested at both resorts we’ll have a hard think before we try that again.
We had a similar issue transferring from Pop to Beach Club. Our luggage did not arrive in time for a change of clothing before the rehearsal dinner we “hosted” that evening at Cape May, and after much back-and-forth with the front desk, I was the one who finally ascertained that instead of being transported to BC, our bags had been sent to CB (Caribbean Beach), where I assume they would have languished indefinitely, had I not done the sleuthing. Others in our group made their morning hotel transfer via Lyft, and arrived at the meal in fresh clothing instead of the sweaty park gear we wore. ;-D ‘Not the end of the world, but I’ll be less inclined in future to rely on resort baggage transfer, which up until that point had been seamless.
I’ve also called Bell Services to pick up my luggage from my room, although this was mostly out of necessity due to the Caribbean Beach Construction at the time. But if you feel outnumbered by bags or young children, it is something to consider. We have never had to wait longer than 10-15 minutes, but it could slow down your exit strategy a bit.
We also like to do the dining plan at the beginning so we have our mugs the entire stay.
Do you have suggestions for your favorite split-stay combos? I’ve been searching all over to see some pairings that people have enjoyed most.
We’re not nearly the veterans of Split-Stays that the Brickers are, but we’ve done 2. We splurged on DVC point rental to stay at a deluxe and split between AKL-Boardwalk once and Beach Club-AKL the other time. It was great – crescent lake was wonderful for a short walk into Epcot and a walk to DHS as well. And then switching to our favorite resort of AKL for the rest of the trip was nice.
The weirdest split stay we ever did was 5 nights at POFrench quarter/5 nights at PORiverside. . While we were at FQ we even took the boat to eat at Boatwrights and walk around seeing which rooms we might like
We prefer the dining plan for the first resort. It’s a lot of food for us. Dining plan credits are good till midnight if checkout day. We save A TS credit for the first nights dinner at a restaurant at the 2nd resort. We have even also saved a QS credit and got a meal from the food court at the new resort “to go”. Put it in the room fridge and the next evening nuked them for dinner at the food court. And yes, you now have the mugs for the entire trip…..( years ago you could get a full size bag of chips or a box of 8 donuts for a snack credit. We also waited till the 2nd resort to get that the first day to be in our room
We added a day at the beginning of one trip ( at sort of the last minute due to a change in airline schedule) and had no problems shifting from Saratoga Springs to Bay Lake Tower. No problem with FP+ as the first day wasn’t a park day. Another time we split between OKW and Saratoga (due to deciding too late to do the trip and not being able to book at one place). I was able to get all FP+ the same day and dining I did 2 different days. Both times the luggage transfer was perfect.
Unfortunately, they’ve recently made some changes to booking FP, and, currently, booking FP’s for split stays now works the same as ADR’s. So, you’ll be able to make FP’s for the first stay one day, but you’ll have to wait till 60 days from the first day of stay two to make FP’s for that stay.
We always split stay, but we come from the UK and our trips are just short of three weeks (we still run out if time for everything we want to do )
Because we visit universal, and a few other places we always get a hire car for part of the trip, so we just plan our resort move around when we have the car. We also tend to do a water park on moving day, 2 people go in the car between resorts with the luggage, while everyone else goes to the water park then we meet up there.
Because water park days are shorter days for us it gives us a nice but of time to explore the new resort in the late afternoon or evening
We love to split stays. We normally do 8 nights. 4 AKL and 4 WL. This way we can do the regular dining plan for 4 nights and quick service for 4 nights. The regular dining plan is a lot of food so we do that plan first so we can carry over to the 5th day. By the time the 5th day comes, we are pretty full. Having 16 snacks each also stretches the belly. We also get two refillable mugs each to take home to the grand kids. Moving from one resort to the other is no hassle at all.
Thanks for this post and for the link to the gratuity recommendations. We’re doing a split stay between Poly and Wilderness Lodge. Staying at Poly first, since I wanted to end our early December stay with the extra Christmas flair of Wilderness Lodge. I know we’ll be going from larger to smaller rooms, but it seems like the right plan to me. We’ll be exploring Wilderness and hope to make it to Trail’s End for breakfast.
I agree- going from 5 nights at the Polynesian to 1 night at All Star Music was VERY jarring. We were joking how we were slumming it for the last night. It very much animates the shortcomings of a Value resort. Like the comments above, we added on another night because it was much cheaper to fly out on Monday vs Sunday. We did run into one issue with this, however, since we were at All Star Music only one night, Disney did not put our Magical Express departure letter on our door for the next day, nor did they check us in for our Southwest flight, as they have always done in the past. This is despite the fact that I had already made the Magical Express reservation months in advance, and they knew about the resort change.
When we got to Art of Animation we had to stop at the front desk to get our transportation voucher which only took a couple of minutes. When we did airline check in at the resort, she had to put all our info in as well. A minor annoyance was that we flew JetBlue and had two bags to check. I went online to the JetBlue website the night before and paid my $30 per bag fee. When I did resort Airline checkin, they had no record of this and asked me for proof that I had paid. JetBlue doesn’t email any confirmation of the payment so after trying to bring up my bank account on my phone to show that I paid, they took my word for it and that was it.
Just a note about our recent experience. In early January we stayed 6 nights at AKL and then 6 nights at WL. We agree that the baggage transfer went without a hitch and it was really fun to get to experience two new-to-us resorts in one stay. Definitely recommended!
However, when I went to make our ADRs 6 months out, I had to do it over 2 different days – I could make the ADRs for during our AKL stay, but had to wait 6 days to make the ADRs for the 2nd half of the trip. A minor annoyance, since I live in the Pacific time zone. At 60 days out when I went to reserve our FPs, I WAS able to make them for the whole trip. I was rather pleasantly surprised and am not really sure why that was.
that recently happened to me as well- I had to add on an earlier night for our trip, so I had a different resort confirmation number. I got up to make the FastPasses for the first day, and was very pleasantly surprised that I was able to make them for the entire trip.
depending on how many that you are moving . i heard that the minnie vans are 35 dollars no matter where on property , i did a comparison online first , Uber was less than lyft as well
Last week, we did 8 days at Animal Kingdom Lodge and then 1 night at Art of Animation Little Mermaid Room. During planning, we didn’t realize that it was cheaper to fly out on Monday than Sunday and by that time, there were no more rooms at AKL. Transferring the bags was easy as we dropped them at Bell Services at AKL the morning we checked out and headed for MK. When we got to Art of Animation, later that night, our bags were waiting for us in our room. I agree that going from a Deluxe to anything lower can be a big letdown and our first realization of this was stepping into the Food Court that night, It was chaos that we hadn’t experienced at AKL during our whole stay there. Then the walk to the Mermaid rooms……..The only glitch was arranging Magical Express over two separate reservations. A quick call to DME a couple days prior to leaving fixed the issue in a couple minutes.
Ha, we have done the ‘book an extra night to save on airfare’ thing many times. Always a smart move!
You did get lucky with the luggage waiting for you in your room. In our experience the last couple of years, that’s becoming increasingly rare. It still *does* happen, but it used to *always* happen, and that’s no longer the case.
if you do it get an uber too pick you up and move you to the other hotel . they come right up to the area where you are . no waiting for bell services and luggage . it cost us like 8 dollars to go from OKW to Boulder ridge last week
That’s an excellent point–I’ll go back and add that note about the spread out resorts.