Ever considered doing a split stay while vacationing at the Walt Disney World Resorts! It’s a great way to experience a Deluxe hotel, while splitting your stay with a Value or Moderate hotel to save some cash during your vacation.

I’ll add more to this post soon, but I wanted to get a quick tutorial up on the blog to match my Instagram Freebie Friday post for those who were curious.

What’s a split stay?:

When booking your trip, you make two reservations. One reservation at one resort, and then right behind that, another reservation at another resort. Doing trips this way actually provides a lot of flexibility with Disney dining plans as well as travel time to the parks. Again, more to come on that later.

This year we split our stay between the Port Orleans Riverside, and then we hopped to the Grand Floridian for the back half of our trip. We did this so that we could experience two Disney Resorts in one trip (I think we have an unspoken bucket list wish to stay in them all, right Dad?) and not have to pay for a Deluxe resort for the entire 5 night stay.

First I’ll note, we absolutely LOVED staying in BOTH resorts, even though they were different “tiers” of hotels. I definitely had an unexpected favorite, but I’m keeping that hush hush until I write the reviews.

So, let’s talk about how to do the FREE luggage transfer. It’s super easy so I’ll fill you in to save you wasting the time in the Bell Services line like I did.

Basically, we arranged to switch hotels on the Sunday of our trip. It was also the day that I planned for us to spend the day at Hollywood Studios. I would highly recommend making sure you switch resorts on a day you are planning to be at a park.

Since we were going to be at Hollywood Studios, and were trying to get boarding passes for Rise of the Resistance, we were up and out of the hotel room at 6:15am. No problem, Bell Services were alive and kickin at that early hour. All you do is take ALL of your luggage that you are not taking with you to the parks, and take it over to “Luggage Storage”. Usually Luggage Storage is not right next to Bell Services, but just around the corner. When you get to Luggage Storage, let them know that you are transferring to a new resort. They’ll give you a blue tag, and put your name on all your bags.

Then, you leave for the parks! It’s that easy!

Now, the reason I recommend hitting the parks on your switch day is because:

• The luggage is easy peasy, and you don’t have to think about it, BUT, they do ask for a 3 hour window to get it from the first resort to the next resort
• Think about it.. your transportation to the park is probably free, and when you leave the park, you just get on the bus, monorail, boat, that goes to your next resort (which is free!)
• Your check out time is technically 11am at your first resort, and your check in time at your second resort is probably 3pm… so what else are you going to do!?

Once you enjoy your time in the parks, when you get to the new hotel, you just check in at Bell Services and let them know you’ve arrived. If you’ve been assigned your room through the My Disney Experience App, you can go straight to your room after you let them know and they will bring your luggage to you! Or, you can pick it up from them and go straight to your room if you don’t want to wait (or if you’re craving some solid pool time like we were).

The process really is that easy and seamless. I just love that Disney does it for free. When they could be charging for absolutely everything, and they don’t, it just makes the magic of Disney that much sweeter!

Any questions, be sure to drop them in the comments below and I’ll be sure to answer!