Planning to do an off site & onsite Split vacation.

[Andrea Castro]

Hi guys, so I'm looking for some advice from the experts! We will be visiting Orlando for 15 days. We are thinking of staying offsite the first week of our trip, we will have a car rental this week, during that week we will be doing some 2 or 3 days of disney parks, sea world and some shopping.. then the second week we are thinking to move to a Disney value resort to be able to experience some disney bubble.. we wont have a car rental during our stay at Disney, and will be doing some 3 or 4 days of parks and use the magical express to get back to the airport.

So what do u guys think or suggest us for this split idea?? We are thinking of purchasing the park tickets from Undercover Tourist to save some $$ Also how will the park tickets and fastpass work as we will visit parks before or WDW stay.? Do I have to purchase another magic bands for the off site days? Any ideas or suggestions???

 

[katyjeka]

I know many people who do split stays and we have several times. I have no problem with it and enjoy the change of scenery but my "grump" dh hates to move in the middle of a stay. He likes to unpack and stay put. We love long stays and 15 days onsite can be very expensive. My only suggestion is to visit SeaWorld and shop the first few days and maybe increase your onsite stay by a couple days so that you can do WDW once onsite. You wouldn't have to rent a car as long and pay for parking at the parks. I've always bought gift cards to buy our passes and went with Disney so I have no experience with Undercover Tourist. I've never found a way to save on tickets other than one year skipping the hoppers. Have a great trip.

 

[Monykalyn]

We've done split stays multiple times-we go from onsite to off though. This allows us to "do Disney" while we are "fresh", and our offsite accommodations are bigger (2bed/2bath condo with w/d, full kitchen etc) and we are ready to slow down and relax. Plus the 60 day window is a "rolling" window after your resort check out date-meaning that you can still make FP 60 days in advance for offsite part, just one day at a time.
However you do it-there is lot more to Orlando than just Disney.

I get tickets from whatever outlet has the best discount at the time, for amount of days I want. Have used UT multiple times (bonus cashback from Ebates as well), you will need to manually link any tickets not purchased from Disney in your MDE. It is an easy process though. Once that is done you can make fastpasses at 60 days starting from the onsite portion of your resort stay. I also often make the resort reservations through orbitz or undercover tourist if the savings is better than through a Disney promotion (also will need to link these type reservations manually in MDE).

You will get your magic bands sent to you about 2-3 weeks prior to start of onsite stay-they will work for offsite portion as well-as long as you have ticket days left. Magic bands are already linked to your account.

Just keep in mind-if you do a Disney day while offsite you will have to pay for parking at the parks (unless someone gets an Annual Pass-which depending on number of days and whether you want Memory maker and how many days you would be paying for parking at the parks may be worth one getting an upgrade, as well as discounts on merchandise and table service dining).

 

[MissCJ]

I get tickets from whatever outlet has the best discount at the time, for amount of days I want. Have used UT multiple times (bonus cashback from Ebates as well),

Just curious: From what I see, tickets from Undercover Tourist are excluded with eBates. Did you get the eBate credit anyway? If so, that's really cool and I'll have to try that when I'm ready to buy our tickets! =D