What are your favorite split-stay combos at WDW and why?

[Piglet99645]

I've only stayed at the All Stars and off-property. We only get to WDW about once every five years (Regulars at DL as we are on the West Coast). So I want to try two resorts on our next trip or I'll never get to try them all!

What combos do you like? I've heard to move to the "nicer" one last, so you are upgrading your experience.

I plan to start our next trip at AoA or Pop. I want to try the Skyliner. We will do Epcot and HS during our days there. Where would you move from there to do Animal Kingdom and MK? (I'm more likely to hit a moderate but really want to try boardwalk).

 

[TheSouthernBelle]

I tend to agree front loading your trip with the lower cost/booking category and finishing up your trip in the higher amenitized resort is the way to go. You could reverse engineer it but imo it would end the trip on a not as good note. We've done off property and then on property but most of our trips are not long enough to justify split stays since we usually only do 4-5 nights on average.

If I did Pop/AofA first, the only resort near AK is Animal Kingdom Lodge, which is a bus trip to the park, so that's an option and of course, Poly, Grand Floridian and Contemporary are very close to MK. Beyond that, you could do Wilderness Lodge with bus/boat access to MK but then everything else would be a bus ride away from MK and AK.

We've done Boardwalk and it's a great resort but there is some construction going on around the actual boardwalk. It's not crazy and won't affect your room stay but just an FYI. And would be better suited for your Epcot/DHS days.

 

[TikiRob]

This is an interesting question. Here are some combos I'd look into (though I haven't stayed at POP or Coronado)...

Art of Animation / Coronado Springs (Tower): Both of these seem nicer than their respective category.
Caribbean Beach / French Quarter: Upbeat vibe balanced with a quieter, more relaxing resort last.
POP Century / Contemporary: I see some parallels in the resorts despite wildly different pricing.
Animal Kingdom Lodge / Poly: My favorite combo and you'll never screw up this order... it can go either way IMO!

 

[kylenne]

I have only stayed at Coronado in the Tower and POFQ as mods go and I honestly preferred CSR to several deluxes I've stayed at (BC/YC).

Grand Floridian/Yacht Club was fantastic for the transportation convenience of only needing to take buses to AK and being able to walk to the other 3 parks. My only regret was doing it in that order, in the future I would definitely end at GF. But in the future I'm much more likely to do Swan/Dolphin then an MK resort.

No matter where you stay you'll end up taking a bus to AK so I liked saving it for the day I switched resorts. Was nice getting my room ready text while relaxing at Nomad Lounge.

 

[TCRAIG]

DVCer - My favorite is VGF and BCV for a split stay…

 

[Disneylover99]

We almost always do split stays.
We do different variations of Pop/POFQ/Poly

We don’t mind staring off at a Deluxe and moving to a value or mod, because we love all these resorts.

 

[Piglet99645]

No matter where you stay you'll end up taking a bus to AK so I liked saving it for the day I switched resorts. Was nice getting my room ready text while relaxing at Nomad Lounge.

Oh great idea!

 

[aerxo17]

I've heard to move to the "nicer" one last, so you are upgrading your experience.

Yes, but do this carefully!!

On my last trip, the five of us did 3 nights in standard rooms ASMu and 2 nights in a Polynesian DVC lake studio.

Our MISTAKE: 2 rooms at ASMu, and only ONE studio at the Polynesian.

Although the square footage was about the same, and we had two showers in our Poly studio, it was certainly not the same when we were all sleeping in one shared room, vs. 2 hotel rooms.

Choose wisely! Good luck!!

 

[kylenne]

Yes, but do this carefully!!

On my last trip, the five of us did 3 nights in standard rooms ASMu and 2 nights in a Polynesian DVC lake studio.

Our MISTAKE: 2 rooms at ASMu, and only ONE studio at the Polynesian.

Although the square footage was about the same, and we had two showers in our Poly studio, it was certainly not the same when we were all sleeping in one shared room, vs. 2 hotel rooms.

Choose wisely! Good luck!!

This is definitely a good point. Square footage can be deceiving sometimes. I like to watch room tours on YouTube when researching different resorts because you get more of a feel for how the rooms are actually laid out. Here to the Ears has nearly everything on property and they update regularly when refurbs happen.

 

[loves to dive]

I do split stays just about every trip, have one coming up in April.

It will be 2 nights All Star Music and 5 nights at Dolphin. I will do MK the first full day at Music and AK on the move day. Then it's HS and Epcot. I have hoppers so every day I will spend some time at Epcot (F&G eating at booths) and at another park and may even do 3 parks some days. I drive down so move day is a little easier for me since I can just either move my car early in the morning or move it when I'm done with AK later in the day. My splits are almost always 1 or 2 nights at a value then move to an Epcot resort (mostly Swan/Dolphin) although in the past I've done 1 or 2 nights at a moderate and moved over. I never move over to a MK resort, we just don't spend a lot of time in MK, we will make one park reservation there and hop out that day and hop over to MK for a couple of hours on other days. I have done an AK/BWI split before just because it was actually less with an AP discount at the time.

My favorite values are anything not on the sky liner, I'm not a fan. Moderate is CSR, I've even stayed there for an entire trip although I've never stayed in the Tower. I've found I can usually stay at Swan/Dolphin for the same price as the Tower and would rather be able to walk to two parks. I like the Casita section but am fine with any of them. My favorite deluxe is YC but that is a money is no object resort and lately, that hasn't been the case.

 

[beccasmom]

We have done 4-5 nights at BRV and a few nights at the club-level CR just to feel a bit pampered. It was easy when the boat was operating between the two resorts. But the CR room renovation is not to my liking, so we won’t be repeating it any time soon (and the boat is no longer running either). We may check out another resort with a club level at some point. We have often done two DVC resort stays, usually when we want to check out one that has recently opened. We have 2 trips coming up, but we’re staying put both times.

 

[nw6675]

Prob a weird combo. But we did YC CL and a 2br BCV in May so parks were just whenever, whatever. We'll do a Riviera (3 nights) and Villas at the Grand Floridian (7 nights) split in November. HS and EPCOT in the beginning then AK on the move day. MK and then hop in the evenings for the remainder.

 

[Piglet99645]

Yes, but do this carefully!!

On my last trip, the five of us did 3 nights in standard rooms ASMu and 2 nights in a Polynesian DVC lake studio.

Our MISTAKE: 2 rooms at ASMu, and only ONE studio at the Polynesian.

Although the square footage was about the same, and we had two showers in our Poly studio, it was certainly not the same when we were all sleeping in one shared room, vs. 2 hotel rooms.

Choose wisely! Good luck!!

Oh definitely. Going from 2 rooms to one, no matter how nice, would not be an upgrade for us!

 

[robinb]

If you're starting with Pop/AoA, I don't think I would go with the Boardwalk area as your second resort. And, while I love Animal Kingdom Lodge (we own DVC there), I would recommend a MK area resort as your second. If you go with a moderate, I would go with POFQ as I find POR to be really spread out. If you want to go with a Deluxe, I would look into renting DVC points at the Poly, Bay Lake Tower or Wilderness Lodge.

 

[AnnabelleTheTalkingTree]

I love doing a few nights at one of the Epcot resorts then one on the monorail. So far my favorite combo would be Boardwalk view at Boardwalk Inn, then Grand Floridian. Have not had the opportunity to stay at Poly yet though, so that could be a contender for the MK leg.

 

[tetera]

We have done split stays at AoA Cars Suites and the Cabins at Fort Wilderness and also POR and The Cabins at Fort Wilderness (we always end there). We love the Cabins at Fort Wilderness (and just Fort Wilderness in general!) but it's also a great base when visiting MK and AK.

 

[Piglet99645]

Thanks for all the ideas. I live in Alaska so although I haven’t been to fort wilderness it seems like it wouldn’t be that unique for us. Lol.

Also we are Disneyland people so MK is not the top priority for our visit. But I love hearing everyone’s ideas.

 

[StevieB81]

We've done splits at AKL followed by BWV as well as BLT followed by AKL. Walking to MK is great and the monorail crawl is something we like to do. BWV is in a great location and I like the bars there. You can also get to the skyliner, if that's something you want to do. AKL is simply AKL, which is a beautiful resort with great restaurants. Transportation isn't great, but we always drive so not that big of a deal to us. The vibe there fits my family.

 

[Peter T.]

we've done a few split stays as DVC owners usually because we plan late and it's hard to get many dates in a row together at that point. I would say the Poly then BLT 1 BR was my favorite as we appreciated the extra space going into the 1BR. Also OKW then AKL at Kidani. Kidani has the slightly bigger 1BRs than Jambo.

 

[Garyjames220]

Doing 15 night carribean beach and then 3 nights at the grand Floridian next year (Dec 2024)

all booked