erinkristen04
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- May 21, 2014
WARNING: This will probably be a wordy post, so thanks in advance to anybody who makes it through and offers their perspective! I tried talking it through with my husband and I'm pretty sure he dozed off midway lol, so though I'd come use my favorite Disney people as my sounding board!
We own at Poly, and will be returning later this year with our kids (4 and 6) for their second trip to WDW. Poly is definitely our favorite resort, but AKL is a close second (and the kids have never stayed there before). We were originally planning to allocate our split stay as follows (although I'm now second guessing this allocation):
ARRIVAL DAY: take a later flight, and head to AKL to head straight to sleep
DAY 1: leisurely enjoy our savanna view and let the kids explore the resort. May or may not do a park in the afternoon
DAY 2: Animal Kingdom day! Take advantage of the short bus ride from/to AKL
DAY 3: Hollywood Studios and transfer day! Drop our bags with bell services, head to DHS, and then take the bus to Poly whenever we are done for the day.
DAY 4: Rest day at the Poly (with resort hopping along on the monorail)
DAY 5: Epcot day!
DAY 6: MK Day!
DAY 7: departure day
As you can see, initial plan has us with 3 nights at AKL and 4 nights at Poly. I'm wondering if instead we should do 2 nights at AKL and 5 nights at Poly (i.e., at the end of our Animal Kingdom day, taking the bus back to Poly instead of AKL and already being over at Poly for the remainder of our park days). The biggest considerations for this are:
(1) sounds like the room refurb at AKL studios won't be until 2024? The room lay out works just fine, but my kids generally do better when they each have their own bed and the 2 murphy beds at Poly allow for that (versus sharing the pullout couch at AKL). its also nice having that second bathroom at Poly so that DH and I can get ready a little more easily without waking the kids up. At the same time, we are really only talking about one night/morning here though, so is it enough to make a difference? (spoiler alert: i don't know lol)
(2) Hoping to score a pre-lunch Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique time for my daughter on our MK day. Since that's the end of our trip, our 60+ day window for it will be based upon the start of the Poly portion of our trip. We've never done BBB but I've heard its insanely difficult to book and that the more days you have between your booking window opening and the day you're trying to make the reservation, the better your odds are. If we do 5 nights at Poly instead of 4, its just one extra day I'm adding in there and wondering how much it might help our odds re: a BBB reservation?
(3) Since it the kids' first AKL stay, we are hoping to score a Jambo House studio. We don't own at AKL, so we have to wait until 7 months. Figure if only Kidani is open for our dates, then if we only have to waitlist 2 nights at Jambo our odds might be better than if we have to waitlist 3 nights?
However, I'm also hesitant to change our plan because:
(1) It obviously costs more points to switch to Poly lake view (which is what we usually stay)
(2) We'll miss out on taking advantage of the short bus ride back to AKL at the end of our AK day, and then will have a slightly longer bus ride to DHS the following morning if we leave from Poly instead of AKL (my understanding is that its a shorter bus ride from AKL than from Poly but please correct me if I'm wrong!).
(3) I don't want the kids to feel short changed on their AKL time, or like they didn't have enough time to enjoy it and explore.
For what its worth, we will be there when the holiday decorations are up. Anyone ever had similar considerations/concerns/indecisiveness and care to chime in? What would you do??
We own at Poly, and will be returning later this year with our kids (4 and 6) for their second trip to WDW. Poly is definitely our favorite resort, but AKL is a close second (and the kids have never stayed there before). We were originally planning to allocate our split stay as follows (although I'm now second guessing this allocation):
ARRIVAL DAY: take a later flight, and head to AKL to head straight to sleep
DAY 1: leisurely enjoy our savanna view and let the kids explore the resort. May or may not do a park in the afternoon
DAY 2: Animal Kingdom day! Take advantage of the short bus ride from/to AKL
DAY 3: Hollywood Studios and transfer day! Drop our bags with bell services, head to DHS, and then take the bus to Poly whenever we are done for the day.
DAY 4: Rest day at the Poly (with resort hopping along on the monorail)
DAY 5: Epcot day!
DAY 6: MK Day!
DAY 7: departure day
As you can see, initial plan has us with 3 nights at AKL and 4 nights at Poly. I'm wondering if instead we should do 2 nights at AKL and 5 nights at Poly (i.e., at the end of our Animal Kingdom day, taking the bus back to Poly instead of AKL and already being over at Poly for the remainder of our park days). The biggest considerations for this are:
(1) sounds like the room refurb at AKL studios won't be until 2024? The room lay out works just fine, but my kids generally do better when they each have their own bed and the 2 murphy beds at Poly allow for that (versus sharing the pullout couch at AKL). its also nice having that second bathroom at Poly so that DH and I can get ready a little more easily without waking the kids up. At the same time, we are really only talking about one night/morning here though, so is it enough to make a difference? (spoiler alert: i don't know lol)
(2) Hoping to score a pre-lunch Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique time for my daughter on our MK day. Since that's the end of our trip, our 60+ day window for it will be based upon the start of the Poly portion of our trip. We've never done BBB but I've heard its insanely difficult to book and that the more days you have between your booking window opening and the day you're trying to make the reservation, the better your odds are. If we do 5 nights at Poly instead of 4, its just one extra day I'm adding in there and wondering how much it might help our odds re: a BBB reservation?
(3) Since it the kids' first AKL stay, we are hoping to score a Jambo House studio. We don't own at AKL, so we have to wait until 7 months. Figure if only Kidani is open for our dates, then if we only have to waitlist 2 nights at Jambo our odds might be better than if we have to waitlist 3 nights?
However, I'm also hesitant to change our plan because:
(1) It obviously costs more points to switch to Poly lake view (which is what we usually stay)
(2) We'll miss out on taking advantage of the short bus ride back to AKL at the end of our AK day, and then will have a slightly longer bus ride to DHS the following morning if we leave from Poly instead of AKL (my understanding is that its a shorter bus ride from AKL than from Poly but please correct me if I'm wrong!).
(3) I don't want the kids to feel short changed on their AKL time, or like they didn't have enough time to enjoy it and explore.
For what its worth, we will be there when the holiday decorations are up. Anyone ever had similar considerations/concerns/indecisiveness and care to chime in? What would you do??
