Wanderlust & Wishes

Episode 75: Is a split stay right for you?

• Julie & Krystle

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On this week's episode, Krystle and Julie break down everything you need to know about split stays. We share our own split stay experiences, the pros and cons of moving mid-vacation, and insider tips to make it as seamless (and magical!) as possible. Whether you’re dreaming of starting your trip immersed in Disney magic at Disney’s Polynesian Village Resort and ending with thrills at Universal’s Cabana Bay Beach Resort, or just curious about how to make the most of your resort hopping — this episode will help you decide if a split stay is right for you

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SPEAKER_00:

Welcome to Wonderlust and Wishes, the podcast where we explore the world one destination at a time. I'm Julie.

SPEAKER_01:

And I'm Crystal. As travel agents with fantastical vacations, we are here to share our passion for travel and help you turn your wonderlust into reality.

SPEAKER_00:

From hidden gems to bucket list adventures, join us as we dive into the sights, sounds, and stories of our favorite destinations.

SPEAKER_01:

So grab your passport, pack your bags, and let's embark on this journey together. Hi everybody, welcome to episode 75 of Wonder Lust and Wishes. This week we're going to talk about split stays, what they are, why people do them, and whether they're worth the hassle.

SPEAKER_00:

If you've ever thought about staying at two different resorts in one trip, maybe a few days at Disney Hotel or a few days at Universal or even two different Disney resorts, that's what we're gonna chat about. Because we've done them, we love them, sometimes we hate them, but split states is a very common term among the theme park world. So let's chat about it.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and like Crystal said, we've both uh done this before. So we're gonna share some personal experiences and we also have clients that do this, and just to give you some tips on how to make this go smoother or whether it's the right option for you in different circumstances. Just starting off with the basics, a split stay is when you divide your vacation between two or more resorts, and that can be two or more resorts at the same destination, like two Disney resorts or two Universal Orlando resorts, or across destinations. So splitting your stay between a Disney resort for part of your trip and a Universal Orlando resort for another part of your trip.

SPEAKER_00:

Sometimes it's just one night somewhere special before moving to your main resort, like my one night stay at Beach Club just for the pool and the convenience of waking up steps from Epcot.

SPEAKER_01:

I love those resorts. I love being right there. It's such a nice perk. Other times it's, you know, it has to do with what's most practical. Like we've done a couple of times actually with our agency trips. Crystal stayed at dockside at Universal Orlando first, where we wanted to go for a couple of days, and then we moved over to the Riviera for the rest of the trip because our agency trip was focused in Walt Disney World. And then the next year, our agency trip was actually at Universal and we started off at Cabana Bay, and then moved over to Caribbean Beach to kind of get in some Disney bubble time. We actually have to, just as an example, we have an agent friend, Danny. She's a little crazy about the split states. There's been a couple of times that I've been like, wow, this that's a lot. I'm pretty sure that there was an instance where she has gone on a trip with her dad to Disney World. And I know her dad has DVC points, and so I think they used points for this, but they stayed at like four different resorts while they were there. And it was when she was just with her dad, so they didn't have a lot to carry around, so it it made it easy, but still I thought that was a lot.

SPEAKER_00:

Uh, as agents, we hear all sorts of fun stories because uh collect resorts as agents, but it's to help you all with our experience. So yeah, it's resource. Yes, exactly. So let's talk about the why you would do a split stay. There are so many reasons to consider it. One big one for me personally is the budget. You can spend a night or two at a deluxe resort to get those extra perks, like extended evening hours, but then stay the rest of the trip at a moderate or value to keep the cost down. So we have a couple of quote examples, caveat, these are examples. Pricing availability will vary by day, and honestly, availability will vary by hour. These are November 25th through the 29th of this year with a three-day park hopper. If we were at the Grand Floridian that entire time, it would be$7,196. Is this just two people?

SPEAKER_01:

It is two adults and two kids, eight and ten. Sorry, I forgot to put that in there.

SPEAKER_00:

And then if you were to do those same dates, same three-day park hopper, half the trip at Pop Century, half the trip at the Grand Floridian, it would be five thousand seven hundred and sixteen, saving you around fifteen hundred dollars for food, merch, all the things. So you still get the experienceable, but you're saving a big chunk of money.

SPEAKER_01:

Exactly. It's a it's a great way to get the taste of a higher-end resort without the full-on price tag. To give another example at Universal Orlando, if you stay at Hard Rock, Puertofino Bay, or Royal Pacific for one night, you get unlimited express passes for check-in and checkout dates. So that's a really major perk, but those hotels are expensive. If you stayed, same scenario where you stayed the same dates November 25th through the 29th of 2025 with a three-day park hopper, two adults, two kids, eight and ten. And I'm sorry, not three-day park hopper, three-day, three park park-to-park ticket. It would be sixty two hundred forty-four dollars eighty-three cents for Royal Pacific for that time frame. If you were to split it with half at Cabana Bay and half at Royal Pacific, it would be$4,981.81. And so that's around the same amount of savings. I think just a little bit less, maybe$1,300, but same thing where you can use that money on food, merchandise, other fun things that you want to do during your trip.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, and honestly, once you factor in the express pass of Royal Pacific for four people, you're probably saving another$2,000. That's true. Yeah, especially during Thanksgiving for sure. Another reason you might do it is the proximity and convenience. So let's say you're doing like a Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween party or the Christmas party. If you stay on the monorail that night, it means you can walk or hop on a quick ride back after midnight instead of waiting on buses. So do that for two days and then, you know, maybe hop over to a Skyliner resort and do Ebcot or Hollywood studios on the back half of your trip.

SPEAKER_01:

Absolutely. Those transportation options are huge. And having those, you know, using the monorail or the skyliner makes such a huge difference time-wise. I know we always joke about the buses. The buses are great. I mean, they really are. It's still much better than you know using other types of transportation, but you really can't beat the skyliner in the monorail.

SPEAKER_00:

Splus days also make sense if you're doing multiple destinations. I have lots of clients who will do like four days at Disneyland and then do two days at Universal Hollywood. Or another popular one I see is Disneyland followed by SeaWorld San Diego. Yeah. I don't think I realized that the SeaWorld got thrown in there. Yeah, it's probably about 45 minutes, depending on what time of day and traffic. So it's like you're already there. Why not do a day or two?

SPEAKER_01:

Right, right. And of course, both of us have tons of split states between Walt Disney World and Universal Orlando. There's a lot of people that really like to do that. We have Harry Potter fans that they want to go to Disney, but they also can't be in that area without visiting Universal Orlando and being able to go to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. That's usually, at least in my experience, that's been the families that want to do the split stays, is those that want to experience both of those IPs during the same time frame. And of course, another example is the pre or post-cruise stays. A lot of people like to come in and stay at a Walt Disney World resort before their cruise, like just a night before they leave, and they can take Disney transportation or Disney cruise line transportation down to the port and then also stay on the back end. Same thing. They can take that transportation back up to the Walt Disney World Resort and maybe go to the park for a couple of days.

SPEAKER_00:

I those are probably going to be my favorite because it's like the best of both worlds. If you want to get really crazy, I have people who will stay at Disney all week, but then it's cheaper to get a room at Universal for the Express Pass for one night. They have a place to land, they have a place for little kids to go nap in the afternoon. So they don't even technically unpack at Universal, but they do have a room there.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes. I've had I've had plenty of um people do that. We call those a ghost room. It's not a bad thing or it's not a secret or anything. Universal actually encourages this. Interestingly enough, they encourage people to do it, but you can utilize that room to get the express passes, and a lot of times it's cheaper to have that night stay. And like Crystal said, you also have a place to go during the day at Universal instead of having to go all the way back to your Walt Disney World resort room.

SPEAKER_00:

All right, let's chat pros and cons, the good and the bad. Starting with the pros. Variety is definitely a big pro in my book. You get to experience more theming, different pools, restaurants, and vibes all in one trip.

SPEAKER_01:

I want to definitely hit on the pools and the food. Generally, it kind of comes with the pricing. You get a little bit better pool, you get a better, uh, better food options at the deluxe or the premiere resort. So it's nice to be able to go and do that and like we talked about the budget part of it, not spending the full amount. It also can kind of feel like you have two vacations in one because you get to stay in one place and experience everything at that resort and then go to a different one and experience that. Also, if you're looking to try something new, you're afraid to like go all in because you've never stayed there before and it's just a new experience. Do this where you can split stay, you can do a test run at the second resort that maybe you've never stayed at, and then the other half of the time you stay at one that you are very comfortable with and you already know it.

SPEAKER_00:

I feel like I see that in your future. Doing a night somewhere else and then ending at the Riviera just to make sure everybody is okay with it.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I think that is definitely something I want to try. We'll talk about it in the cons, but I have two people that are a little less flexible in the way they do things. So it would be a good test run to try out a different resort.

SPEAKER_00:

And if you're traveling for different purposes, like we do often, like part work, part leisure or family time, splitting it can make it easier to separate those experiences.

SPEAKER_01:

So now to move on to the cons. There are going to be a few of them. The biggest one is going to be the hassle of moving, packing and unpacking, waiting for your new room to be ready. It can eat up a chunk of your day on the day that you're moving for sure.

SPEAKER_00:

So Disney does transfer your luggage. You just give it to the Bell Services and they will get it to your new location. But they don't promise anything before like check-in time, which is like 3 or 4 p.m. So you could potentially be without your bags all day. So if you really have to plan so you really have to plan that transition day carefully. It it's nice if you're doing it on a park day because if you're at the park all day, you don't need your bag. But the con to that is you have to get up even earlier and the hassle of just making sure you're packed up and getting it to Bell Services is that extra sh that extra step while you're trying to get to the park. Just note that Universal Orlando no longer transfers luggage, they used to. So, like my recent trip, I just had to get my bag to Dell Services. And then after I was done, I got back to the resort, I Ubered with my luggage to my new resort. So it is a little bit more difficult in that situation, especially if you have like a big family and trying to get six or eight bags.

SPEAKER_01:

Another downside is you do lose that settled in feeling. If you or someone in your family really likes to get somewhere, unpack everything, like you know, actually utilize the drawers and the storage space, put everything away and that you're there for the week. This is not something that would be comfortable for those type of individuals because it's gonna disrupt that. You're gonna have to get packed up again in the middle of your trip and move again.

SPEAKER_00:

So I just kind of mentioned this, but I think it's probably even harder with families, especially if you have kids or strollers, because it's just an extra layer of chaos. Depending on how well your kids do a transitions, or if this is your first day, I probably wouldn't recommend it for the first or second stay, or with lots of little kids. It's a lot easier to do as adults as we talk through our experiences. Like most of these are just we're doing on our own. Rarely do we have our families with us?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, that's true. So moving into you know our own experiences, one of mine in particular was when we stayed at Cabana Bay at Universal Orlando for our agency meeting. I loved Cabana Bay. We talked about this, I think, in our post-trip report and when we've talked about Cabana Bay overall, it was fantastic. It was right in the middle of everything that we needed, especially for our agency trip. But then I had a conference for my day job, but I had a night in the middle where I didn't have anywhere to stay. And so I needed a kind of a night of transition. And I shared a room with one of our agents, Danny, at Caribbean Beach, and we just did that one night, and it also got me in the Disney bubble. We actually walked over to the Riviera and we did some work in the little library. It was perfect, and it was very easy.

SPEAKER_00:

That's a really good point. Sometimes one night is all you need to shift gears. We did something similar for a spring break trip. We drove and we gave ourselves a day on the front end of our trip just in case something happened. We took longer to get down there, and we really wanted to experience Stormlong Bay, and that was our main reason that we did one night at Beach Club. We had my father-in-law with us, and Reese was under three. We were in a room that slept five adults, so we put us all in one room, which was also kind of like the budget thing. We didn't need two rooms for one night. We made it work. So then we also had the convenience of waking up steps from Ebcot, which honestly, it just felt like a mini splurge day built into the trip because it was so nice to just hang out all day at the pool. And then since we drove, our car was right there and we just put all of our luggage in the car instead of checking it with bell services. Right.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, that it does make it easy for sure when you are driving to get from one place to the other in between the trips. It's a little bit more complicated when you fly and you don't have the option, you know, to have your own car and you need some help getting your luggage from one from one resort to the other. So we also had the the example of staying at dockside for the first two, was it two nights or one night? Yeah, two nights, and then moved over to Riviera for our agency trip because it was focused at Walt Disney World. For that one, Crystal and I wanted to experience Universal a little bit, uh, Universal Orlando. So we had a couple of days prior to when the agency trip started when we needed to be there for agency meetings, and we experienced that. Dockside is one of the value options at Universal Orlando, so it was very budget-friendly. And Riviera is not budget-friendly, but it is beautiful.

SPEAKER_00:

And so relaxing, just to stay out the balcony on the balcony, here's the rib. And then if you've been here recently, when I was just in Orlando for the Halloween Horn Nights RIP tour, I did a night at Terra Luna and then I split it with a night at Aventura. Aventura was just very convenient for and where all the agents were staying. It was in walking distance, and so I kind of just went from there picking where I hadn't been so I could check it out. So that's why I did Terra Luna. It's newer, but then kind of the best of both worlds and a great way to get first-hand experience at two properties without needing longer trip. And I did have to, like I said, I Ubered with my luggage between resorts.

SPEAKER_01:

And that's a that's a good point about it being a benefit for travel advisors. I know we joke that we do stuff for research purposes, but we actually kind of do. Like we for us to be able to give you an honest opinion of the resort and the amenities and what it has to offer and whether it's worth the price. It might be a budget-friendly, but it's, you know, maybe we just don't prefer that one for some reason. It's good for us to be able to truly understand what we're recommending to our clients.

SPEAKER_00:

All right. Now for some tips for making your split stay go a little smoother. If you're thinking about doing it, a few tips that may make it easier is to pack by resort or by section of the trip. So this could look like packing cubes, one for each day. When we did our Tabana Bay to Caribbean Beach, I put all of our stuff for our beach club day in one of my kids' suitcases. And then we left like the big suitcase in the car because there's no need to bring it in just for like one or two little things. Another thing is to plan your park days strategically. For example, on transfer day, visit a park near your new resort, maybe do it on a rest day, use Bell Services. Disney will move your luggage between all property resorts for free, which is a huge perk. And then we always talk about this with cruising, but it's very helpful for split stay to keep a day bag, have swimsuits, snacks, maybe a change of clothes, meds that you might need in case your room isn't ready yet. Like if your bag is at Bell Services, you can always go and ask Bell Services and like go, they'll go get it and dig through it, talking from experience. Um but if they're in the middle of the move, it might be like a full two or three hours and they don't know where it's at. So I'm pulling up my air tags, like, it isn't made it yet. I need to go find some diapers.

SPEAKER_01:

And just little things like, I don't know, I'm thinking like earbuds and things like that, or even a book, or you know, something that you may not, you don't want to pack it in your suitcase that's where you can't get to it. You also just need to be realistic about how much downtime you'll have that day. Probably not a good idea to plan an early dining reservation or an open-to-close park day because of just not knowing when you're gonna be able to get into your room. You could treat it as just a chill day or a pool day, especially like we've talked about. If you have younger kids or a large group, it's just gonna be a little bit more of a difficult transition to get everybody from one place to the other so that you're not coordinating all of that. It's different. I think Crystal just you know mentioned earlier, if it's just you or just a couple of adults, it's probably gonna be a lot easier to coordinate. So you just kind of have to think about those things.

SPEAKER_00:

I think about it a lot with our busing days. I will plan around that. Like if we have Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom, and I know I'm busing regardless, does it matter if I'm staying at Old Key West, or does it matter if I'm staying at Animal Kingdom? Probably not, because I'm busing regardless. So I kind of think about it through transportation eyes a lot when I'm planning my park days. But I definitely have to make sure everybody's expectations are managed. If you go into it knowing that moving day isn't a full park day, you'll enjoy it a lot more. You don't have to go hunt down your luggage from bell services after the fireworks and try and find your room after or any of that kind of stuff, right?

SPEAKER_01:

Should at least plan some time where you go back to wherever that resort is just to like get everything settled, even if you you know if you are going to do fireworks, go back and check everything out and then go back or go back to the parks. So, bottom line, split stays can definitely be amazing if you have a plan and setting expectations, like Crystal said, but they're not necessarily for everybody.

SPEAKER_00:

If you love a variety or want to stretch your budget or even want to experience multiple destinations, then they're totally worth it.

SPEAKER_01:

But if you are the kind of traveler or you have the personality that likes to truly settle in and stay put, one resort might be your best bet. As an example, part of my family is much more flexible and go with the flow than the other half. I wouldn't think anything about a split stay. I think it would be super fun. As long as, you know, we know where we're going and what we're doing and we have a plan. I would be all for it. For the other two, if I were to consider doing a split stay, there would be lots of prepping of expectations and kind of talking up the split stay to talk the other two into it because they would be grumpy about having to change and just not being as flexible with moving their things around once they put them in their spot.

SPEAKER_00:

Either way, if you talk to your travel advisor, uh hi, shameless plug. We can help you figure out if a split stay makes sense for your trip and we can help you handle the logistics so it's as smooth as possible. Like we said, we do it in the name of research for you guys. Yes.

SPEAKER_01:

And we would absolutely love to help you. Thank you so much for listening, everybody. We hope that this has been very helpful. We would love to hear about your experiences with a split stay if you have already done this in the past and you have a particular maybe two resorts that you like the best or maybe two destinations that you like to mix up. We'd love to hear about it. Have a fantastic week and we will talk to you all next week. Bye. Thanks for tuning in to another episode of Wonder Lust and Wishes.

SPEAKER_00:

If you enjoyed today's episode, don't forget to subscribe and leave us a review on your favorite podcast platform.

SPEAKER_01:

And remember, the world is full of wonders waiting to be explored. Until next time, happy travels. Bye for now.