Back in 2016, I started this site just before we took one of our all time favorite trips to Disney World. It was an extended stay of eight nights that included four nights at both Yacht Club and Animal Kingdom Lodge. It was a “split stay.” Somehow, over several years, I put off writing a post about one of my absolute favorite Disney World tips—the split stay. In this post, I’m going to talk through the basics, pros, and cons of split stays at Walt Disney World.
Basics of Split Stays at Disney World
Split stays aren’t too hard to understand, so let’s quickly cover the basics…
What Is A Split Stay?
A split stay is when you stay at two (or more) different hotels as part of your visit to Walt Disney World. For example, you’ll fly in on December 1 and check into Pop Century. You stay there for three nights. On December 4, you check out of Pop Century and check into Grand Floridian. You stay there for two nights. On December 6, you fly home.
How do I move my luggage when I’m doing a split stay?
You can either move the luggage yourself (e.g. with a car or an Uber) or you can have Disney bell services do it. Bring your luggage down to the bell services desk at your first hotel and tell them you’re changing hotels. They have a protocol in place for transporting the luggage to your second hotel during the day.
Reasons We Love Split Stays at Disney World
Split stays enable you to experience two (or more) hotels on one trip to Walt Disney World. That’s…obvious. Sure, getting to “experience” the different themes is fun. But there’s much more value here than just seeing what a different hotel is like.
Deluxe Stays On a Budget (Er, “Budget”)
Disney’s deluxe hotels are a bucket list item for many people, and a common refrain is “but I just can’t bring myself to spend $4000!” So don’t. You can use a split stay to save on the cost of your Disney World trip.
The deluxe hotels are never cheap, but if you can find a single night for, say, $500 to $800 then at least you’re not spending the $4000+ you might be spending to have your whole trip at a deluxe resort. Our standard is to split a five-night trip into a split 3+2. Here’s some example pricing:
5 Nights Contemporary Resort - $3347
3 Nights Pop + 2 Nights Contemporary - $2094
5 Nights Pop Century - $1271
So upgrading your five-night stay at Pop to include two nights at Contemporary costs about $800, but it’s still about $1300 cheaper than if you’d booked the whole thing at Contemporary. You wind up spending about $400 per night for the total stay, which isn’t awful.
You could get those numbers even lower if you booked, say, All Star Movies and Animal Kingdom Lodge, but I picked these hotels for a reason…
Win the Transportation Game
If you ever look at deluxe hotel pricing, you’ll notice Animal Kingdom Lodge and Wilderness Lodge are priced cheaper than the other deluxe hotels. The reason is (mostly) transportation. Animal Kingdom Lodge relies on bus transportation to all four parks. Wilderness Lodge has a special boat to Magic Kingdom, but relies on buses to the other three parks.
The other deluxe resorts have much better alternatives. From Contemporary, you can make a short walk or take the monorail to Magic Kingdom. Polynesian and Grand Floridian have longer walks, plus the monorail and boat options. And from BoardWalk, Beach Club, and Yacht Club you can walk or take the boat to both Hollywood Studios and Epcot.
The bottom line—you want to avoid relying on the buses when you can. Structure your split stay accordingly.
We mentioned above the three resorts that have the best access to Magic Kingdom:
Wilderness Lodge is good for getting to Magic Kingdom, but not as good as the other three. Plan to lean in to Magic Kingdom the days you’re at one of those hotels.
For the other half of your stay, pick somewhere with easy access to Epcot and Hollywood Studios. If you’re on a budget, there are two value resorts and one moderate resort with Skyliner access to these two parks:
If you can afford it, BoardWalk Inn, Yacht Club, Beach Club, and Swan / Dolphin / Swan Reserve have walking and boat access to those two parks. Riviera Resort is also on the Skyliner.
You can’t do anything to get faster access to Animal Kingdom—all resorts get there by bus. At best, Animal Kingdom Lodge has a shorter bus ride, but you might still wind up waiting a while for a bus. This is why we’ll usually visit Animal Kingdom on the day we change hotels.
Make Late Night Events Easier
This is really related to both of the above two points, but if you’re planning a trip that will include an evening event at the parks, you might not want to wait for a bus back to your hotel afterwards. Depending on the schedules, After Hours, Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party, and Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party can have you exiting the park after midnight.
I’m trying to only stay at the Magic Kingdom resorts on party nights going forward, so I don’t have to wait for buses after a late departure. Now that we’ve started bringing our toddler to the holiday parties, having a close hotel is even more essential.
Beginning 2025 - Water Park Access on Check-In Day
Beginning 2025, Disney resort guests will have complimentary access to one water park (presumably only one will be open at a time) on their check-in day only. Generally I don’t consider this a great perk, but guests with split stays might find it valuable on the day they change hotels. Here’s more on the water parks:
Downsides of Split Stays at Disney World
The biggest downside to the split stay is the most obvious—you’ll have to repack and unpack your stuff in the middle of your trip. If you’re a big packer and/or someone who likes to unpack their entire bag when they get to a hotel, you might find this tedious.
This is particularly true if you’re getting in late the night before you change hotels or if you want to leave early in the morning the day you change hotels.
You can plan a bit around this. Plan a short day the day before you change hotels. Or accept that you’ll miss rope drop the day you change hotels (this can be a good time to maybe fit a character breakfast into your trip). If one of your two stays is particularly short (one or two nights), you might also be deliberate with your packing so you don’t have to take out much stuff for that stay.
If you have a toddler who still needs a daily nap, you might struggle with the split stay because you shouldn’t expect to have a room in the middle of the day when you change hotels.
If they’re small enough to nap in a carrier, or old enough to skip a nap, this won’t be a problem. If you have to have a midday nap, you could consider whether it can be in a stroller. Or this might not be the best trip for a split stay.
Next, it’s worth noting that mistakes can happen. Maybe one of the worst case scenario for your split stay is that your bags simply don’t get moved from one hotel to the next. You arrive from the parks at 10PM and…no bags.
This has happened to us twice—once at Disneyland and once at Walt Disney World. In both cases, the bags were found and brought to us within about an hour. Since then, I’ve placed an Airtag in one bag to enable me to track it (note: the bags might still go on a bit of a journey before getting to their final destination).
Finally, I have to note a…weirder issue. I’ve had lots of technical problems with my MagicBand over the years when it comes to things like Early Entry and Extended Evening Hours. I believe these occur more frequently during split stays. Usually I’m able to just show my reservation in the Disney app to a Cast Member and it resolves any confusion.
All Your Other Disney World Planning Questions Answered
Don't be overwhelmed by Disney World planning! Take a second to check out our most important content and you'll not only be an expert, but you'll save big $$$ along the way.
Just starting out? Check out our Walt Disney World planning guide! If you're still picking dates, we've got everything you need to know about Disney World crowd calendars. For picking your hotel, check out our Walt Disney World hotels guide.
When it comes time to book we’ll help you find discount Disney World tickets. Decide whether you need a dining plan in our Complete Guide to Disney World Dining Plans! And don't forget to book those Disney World Advance Dining Reservations!
Don't forget to master your Disney World Lightning Lane Guide and Strategy a few months in advance. We'll keep you out of long lines so you can maximize the magical time in the parks! We've got park-specific guides as well: Magic Kingdom Lightning Lane Strategy, Epcot Lightning Lane Strategy, Animal Kingdom Lightning Lane Strategy, and Hollywood Studios Lightning Lane Strategy.
Know what to ride with our guides to: Magic Kingdom rides, Hollywood Studios rides, Epcot rides, and Animal Kingdom rides! Plus learn about the water parks with our guide to Blizzard Beach and our guide to Typhoon Lagoon! And for some some fun prep, check out our Ranking of Every Ride at Walt Disney World.
Finally, before you head out, be sure to check out our to-the-point packing list, 10 essentials you forget to pack for every Disney trip. And if you're interested in saving, there's no better list than our 53 Ways to Save on your Disney trip from start to finish.