Split Stay - Something I Didn't Know

[Basket Mommy]

I'm sure if I read the boards more regularly I would've discovered this, but I had no idea...

We tried to book BCV for 9/25 to 9/30, but the night of 9/27 wasn't available. I chose to book a split stay, spending 9/25 and 9/26 at BCV (because we wanted to use Stormalong Bay), then checking into BWV on 9/27. It all went smoothly, except for one thing that I didn't realize until almost too late. The dining credits, which are on your room key, wouldn't be available for our character breakfast at Cape May for the morning of the 27th unless we went and checked into the BWV before breakfast (we'd already used our TS credits for the 25th and 26th). Luckily we weren't that far from the BWV, so my husband went over and checked into the BWV so we'd have our DDP credits to use at breakfast (luckily I'd planned a later 10:15 ADR!) Another thing: all dining credits on the 1st set of room keys expired at midnight on the day we checked out of BCV. We don't usually spend every credit every day, so we had to make a point of using up all our remaining CS and snack credits before they expired that night. Had I realized all that earlier, we would've made a point of using them earlier.

It was a minor inconvenience, but still a hassle nonetheless. I won't be booking any split stays in the future! Just thought I'd share in case anyone else out there is considering using the DDP with a split stay.

All in all we had a magical trip, one of the best we've ever had. It was amazing!

[iheartdisney]

Thank you for posting your opinion. You brought up things I hadn't thought of. We've done split stays before but never with the dining plan. This spring I'm planning on taking my daughter and wanted to surprise her with a night or two at the Grand Floridian. I can't afford it for the whole trip but you've giving me something to think about. Maybe we'll do room-only for that part of our stay.

[ibelieveindisneymagic]

Exactly! It can be a little frustrating, since Disney treats each part of the stay as a completely separate trip, so as you said, your dining plan credits expire/start based on the different resort stays.

Many people choose to do a short room-only stay, combined with the longer package stay when switching resorts, to avoid the credit mess.

[SBETigg]

Good caution for people doing split stays. I'm so glad you had a wonderful trip!

[disneymom2000]

I will have to remember to plan on OOP meals during the actual split time. I usually have to pay for 2 or 3 anyway each visit so that would be a good time. I don't think this has been brought up before to my knowledge.

[Belle619]

On a somewhat related side note, if you need to change a room for any reason, your dinning credits will be affected. On our trip last year, we were given a room with two queen beds when we had requested a king size bed (it was our anniversary trip). The front desk was very nice and said they could change our room and to just go about our day at the park and they'd take care of everything. We were told to go to the front desk when we returned for our new room assignment and our bags would be in the room waiting for us.

The only problem was that our room key for the old room was deactivated...along with our dinning credit information. They were very nice about giving us our money back for the meals we had to pay out of pocket for, but it was a little embarassing to have our cards denied at various locations.

[PlutoPlanet]

Good point, Basket Mommy. We do a split stay every year and love it.

[Mousemates]

We do a split stay every year and love it.