How to Use a Split Stay to Hack Your Disney World Vacation

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As a frequent visitor to Disney destinations around the world, I’m always looking for ways to make my trips a little easier and a little cheaper. At Walt Disney World in Florida, one of the ways I’ve found you can really maximize the value of your time and money is to book a split stay.

What is a split stay? Splitting a stay is Disney terminology for staying at more than one hotel on a single vacation – a.k.a. hotel hopping. While many people use the term to mean moving between two or more on-property Disney hotels, it’s of course possible to move between on and off-property hotels in the Orlando area as well.

There are a lot of practical reasons you might want to split your stay on a Disney vacation. But you probably didn’t know that splitting your stay can also unlock some hacks that you might not be able to access otherwise. This guide covers all the ways you can use those tricks to your advantage.

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Why split your stay at Disney World?

Benefits of split stays

Even without considering the hacks, Disney guests have different reasons they might choose to split their stay. First is simply cost. Assume you have $2400 to allocate in your vacation budget to lodging costs. You could use that to stay 2 nights at a $600/night deluxe resort for a taste of luxury plus 5 nights at a $240/night moderate resort. The alternative would be a much shorter 4 night vacation if you chose to stay in the deluxe hotel the entire time.

Related: 33 ways to save money on a Disney World vacation

A second consideration is variety. Personally, I love resort hopping on longer Disney vacations for a simple change in scenery. There are so many unique hotels at Walt Disney World, with many different amenities to experience, pools your kids want to swim in, and restaurants you probably want to try.

Sometimes splitting a stay might happen out of necessity due to room availability. Say that members of your family really have their heart set on staying in the new tower at the Polynesian on a weeklong vacation, but there’s only availability for it at the time you make a booking for three nights. In that case, the best solution may be to book a three night Polynesian stay and then move to a cheaper moderate or value hotel.

Related: Deluxe vs. moderate vs. value – Which hotel is best for your Disney World vacation?

Finally, split stays can help with logistics and transportation. Disney World is a pretty spread out place. Traveling from some resort hotels to some parks can consume a lot of time in your day. If you have two different home bases, you can reduce your overall time in transit.

For example, a stay at the Polynesian gives you easy monorail access to both Magic Kingdom and Epcot. And a stay at Pop Century means you have Disney Skyliner access to both Hollywood Studios and Epcot. Combining these two on a split stay means you only need to take a bus to Animal Kingdom (likely while you stay at Pop Century which is closer to Animal Kingdom).

Related: Complete guide to transportation at Walt Disney World

Negatives to keep in mind

While there are a lot of benefits to split stays, there can be a few pitfalls to watch out for. The most significant of these is simply the hassle of packing up a hotel room and unpacking again elsewhere. This can be especially challenging with younger kids who can’t do the packing for themselves or if you are traveling with a lot of luggage.

For this reason, I usually will only split a trip between two hotels maximum. Additionally, I normally only split stays when I travel with my kids if we stay at least 2-3 nights in each property (solo I’m much more willing to hotel hop for a single night).

Disney alleviates some of the hassle of packing up and moving because it will actually move your bags between Disney-owned hotels for you. So if you are, for example, moving from the Grand Floridian to Coronado Springs, you need merely to drop your bags with Grand Floridian bell services who will magically whisk them away to Coronado Springs’ bell desk a couple of hours later. At Coronado Springs you can call bell services to deliver them to your room when you are back from the parks that day (bags usually arrive no later than 5:00pm but often are as early as 3:00pm).

There is one additional negative of a split stay that families with younger kids need to consider though: naptime. If you have a child of napping age, chances are good that their naptime will fall after lunchtime – after Disney’s 11:00am check-out time. But check-in time for your next Disney hotels isn’t until 3:00pm (and 4:00pm for deluxe villas). If you move hotels, you may well not have access to a room at the time you need it most. Sometimes rooms are ready for check-in early, especially if you do mobile check-in and indicate an earlier arrival time, but there is never a guarantee. This is the major reason we didn’t do split stays when we had babies and toddlers, as my kids were not skilled at taking naps on-the-go in a carrier or stroller. Now that my kids are tweens and teens, however, it isn’t a consideration at all.

5 Ways a Split Stay Can Help you Hack a Disney World Vacation

So now that we’ve covered the basics of split stays, how can you maximize the hacks?

To take advantage of Extended Evening Theme Park Hours for less money

One of the main benefits of paying the big bucks to stay in the most expensive Walt Disney World deluxe resort hotel is a perk called Extended Evening Theme Park Hours. This perk allows guests of on-property deluxe hotels like the Grand Floridian or Beach & Yacht Club (including the Swan, Dolphin, and Swan Reserve) to stay in a theme park a couple of hours late after it closes to all other guests.

As you might guess, with so few guests eligible for Extended Evening Hours, ride lines are usually very short. You get something close to an After-Hours party experience without buying the party ticket. And there’s no need to pay extra for Lightning Lanes to access shorter ride lines.

But this perk is only offered a couple of nights a week. Currently, the hours are most likely to be offered Mondays in Epcot and Wednesdays in Magic Kingdom. Hours change quite regularly due to seasonal and special events, so check Disney’s theme park calendar for specifics.

This infrequent schedule can be a negative, as it’s entirely possible to pay high deluxe resort prices and NEVER get to take advantage of the perk because your stay is only on days when it isn’t offered. But the schedule is also what introduces a very helpful element of hackability for others.

You can use extended Evening Hours on both your check-in and check-out days. Under the most common current calendar which has availability Mondays and Wednesdays, that means the following scenario works:

• Check in to a deluxe hotel Monday morning
• Use Extended Evening Hours in Epcot on Monday night
• Check out of deluxe hotel Wednesday morning, move to a less expensive property for Wednesday night stay.
• Use Extended Evening Hours in Magic Kingdom on Wednesday night (and return to less expensive hotel for the night when they are over)

This means you can get the benefit of Extended Evening Theme Park Hours in two theme parks paying for just two nights of a deluxe hotel. In contrast, a guest checking in Wednesday and leaving Sunday (paying for 4 nights of a deluxe hotel) can only take advantage of a single night of this benefit.

To get more value out of the Disney Dining Plan

Walt Disney World recently brought back the Disney Dining Plan which is an add-on to a Disney vacation package that allows guests to pre-pay for a set number of meals per night. Sometimes it’s even offered as a free promotion, but it means you can’t take advantage of other room discounts that may be more valuable.

There are actually two dining plans offered in 2025:

• Quick-Service Dining Plan ($59.14/adult, $24.71 child): 2 quick-service meals (per night), 1 snack (per night), 1 refillable mug (per stay) (note: when free dining is available, this is usually the only option offered to value/moderate hotel guests)
• Disney Dining Plan ($97.79/adult, $30.56 child): 1 table service meal (per night), 1 quick-service meal (per night), 1 snack (per night), 1 refillable mug (per stay)

One major reason my family never gets the Dining Plan is that we find it to be too much food. We often use Instacart or similar delivery services to stock our hotel room with inexpensive snacks and breakfast food. And we love eating at the food festivals in Epcot, where not all of the menu items are Dining Plan eligible. In short, we don’t need to eat that much at the places Disney specifies (even at the quick-service level). We rarely can get the full value of the Dining Plan on longer trips.

But on a split stay, you can potentially have far more success in maximizing the value of the Dining Plan. You could add the Dining Plan for only one of those stays and focus on the dining aspect of a Disney vacation during that portion of the vacation only. Because you can use the credits flexibly (all on a single day or some on every day of your vacation from the morning of check-in to midnight on check-out), you can really maximize their value when you are only keeping track of them for a couple of days.

For example, say you stay 2 nights at the Contemporary and book the Disney Dining Plan for those days only before moving to a less expensive hotel for 5 nights. You’ll have 2 table service credits, 2 quick service credits, and 2 snacks to use over three full days. You could use those credits to dine at a character meal at Chef Mickey’s for dinner on your check-in day (one of the best uses of a single table service dining plan credit per WDW Prep School), eat quick service meals for lunch and dinner in the parks the following day, and then use your final table-service credit for lunch or dinner at another regularly-pricey character meal like Garden Grill on the day you check out of the Contemporary and move to another hotel.

To get more value out of a concierge level stay

A similar calculation can be applied to another Disney upcharge: club level stays. Guests who stay in rooms with concierge level access (available at all deluxe hotels plus the Grand Destino Tower at Coronado Springs – a moderate) can utilize this benefit on both their check-in and check-out days. Disney’s club lounges have included breakfast, snacks throughout the day (often enough to make a meal), and plenty of free beverages. Having this benefit for three full days, for example, while only paying for two hotel nights could potentially help many guests save a significant amount on food.

Personally, I wouldn’t try to do the Dining Plan at the same time you are staying club level (that’s definitely way too much food!). But guests doing a higher-end vacation overall, for example, might want to pair a deluxe hotel stay (using benefits like Extended Evening Theme Park Hours plus purchasing the Disney Dining Plan) with a stay at Grand Destino with Chronos Club access. This combination would allow you to sample the benefits of both splurges for the least amount of money.

To maximize the new 2025 water park check-in day benefit

in 2025 Disney introduced a new perk for all on-property hotel stays. Guests are able to enter one of Disney’s two water parks on the day of their arrival for free. Many guests (especially those flying to Orlando from far away like me!), however, won’t be able to use this perk because they will arrive after the water parks close for the day.

But guests who split their Disney stay can hack this benefit even if they have a late arrival into Orlando to start their vacation. They are eligible for the water park benefit on check-in day at their second (or third hotel). This allows you to take advantage of the water parks on the day that you move between Disney hotels without paying for an extra day of park tickets.

It also allows you to start your vacation off-property (perhaps at another theme park down the road like Universal?), go to a water park on the day you move hotels, and then go to Disney parks for the remainder of your trip.

As someone who often likes to schedule a rest day in the middle of our our family’s Disney vacation anyway, hitting a water park for a couple of hours fits in perfectly with our plans. We don’t have to pay for a theme park ticket for that day or even pay to upgrade to the Park Hopper Plus ticket type that also includes water park admission.

To get 7 day priority Lightning Lane booking windows

As of summer 2024, Disney World has a new system for its Lightning Lane services – the successor to Fastpass that allows guests to access shorter express queues for select rides, for a fee. The two most common products that regular guests buy are Lightning Lane Multi Pass and Lightning Lane Single Pass (learn more about them in this Lightning Lane 101 episode on my Disney Deciphered podcast).

Guests staying at on-property Disney hotels and select partner hotels get an earlier booking window than guests staying at off-property hotels in the area. On-property hotel guest can select Lightning Lanes (both Multi and Single Pass) 7 days in advance of their check-in date for the length of their stay. Everyone else is left booking Lightning Lanes 3 days in advance day-by-day.

As you might guess, Lightning Lanes for the best rides at the best times get booked up by the on-property guests, leaving crumbs for everyone else, particularly during the busiest times of year.

If you are a guest who plans to stay off-property for your Disney World vacation, you can hack this problem, at least partially, through booking a split stay with at least a few days on-property instead. I get why many guests may prefer to stay off-property (better prices, more space – especially for larger families). But if your traveling party really cares about attractions, I’d recommend staying at least a couple of nights on-property so you can use that status to book better Lightning Lane return times on those days.

For example, say you plan to stay 7 nights in Orlando, arriving and leaving on a Saturday. You could book the first 2 nights (Saturday and Sunday) at a Disney-owned hotel, moving to off-property lodging on Monday for the final 5 nights. You would then be eligible to purchase Lightning Lanes of your choice for park visits on your check-in date, check-out date, and everything in between. In this example, that’s Saturday, Sunday and/or Monday.

Applying the length of stay rule, you’d actually be eligible to purchase Lightning Lanes 7 days in advance for rides on Saturday, 8 days in advance for rides on Sunday and 9 days in advance for rides on Monday. If you only plan to pay for Lightning Lane one day of a vacation, then the best day to do that would be on Monday. You’ll find much better ride availability 9 days in advance vs. the meager 3 days that your off-property stay affords you.

This approach would allow you to book several headliner attractions much more easily for one or more parks (particularly Hollywood Studios which is hyper-competitive for rides like Slinky Dog Dash), taking the pressure off of your touring agenda for the rest of the week. And remember you’ll also get the benefit of Early Entry on those three days as well, so you can ride even more if you just get up early, even if you don’t purchase Lightning Lane at all.

Final Thoughts

For Disney guests who have the mobility to move between hotels, it’s possible to get a lot of extra value out of a split stay. Most on-property Disney perks are available on the day of check-in and check-out, meaning you can still use the benefits for a full day even as you are moving to or from another hotel. If you time things right, you can take advantage of the perks maximally to have a higher quality Disney vacation for less.

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