Please help me decide which order to do WDW & Universal!

[AussieMumma]

Hi everyone,

Still a while off but we need to make a decision about which theme park to do before our cruise and which one after.

The run down on the trip is: Eldest dd's high school graduation trip so she got to choose where to go, we have three weeks and had to choose the dates due to dh's work. Flights, cruise and Windsor Hills are already booked. DD chose, WDW, Universal Orlando, Disney Cruise & Disneyland (well actually she wanted to go shopping for four days, but I can't not go to Disneyland especially being their 60th year!).

We fly out of Brisbane on Sunday 22nd November, quick three hour stop over in LA then on to Orlando, our flight lands around 6:15pm.
We have 7 nights booked at a Windsor Hills townhouse until the 29th, this is Thanksgiving week.
On the 29th we drive to Miami and go straight on our 5 night Disney cruise.
On the 4th Dec we drive back to Orlando for 5 nights.
On the 9th we fly back to LA and have four nights in Anaheim.
On the 13th Dec we fly home.

So the dilemma is, which theme parks out of WDW and Universal do we attempt to do thanksgiving week?
I was leaning towards Universal as we only need 2-3 days there so can get that done by the Wednesday and then not have to go near the parks from thanksgiving onwards, and then WDW would be nice and quite after the cruise from the 4th-9th.
But then if we chose WDW for that first week we would get a 7 days pass so we could just go in for a few hours on those busy days which would mean more Disney days, but then would it actually mean more Disney time since it will be so busy??
Which ever one we choose for the 4th-9th, we will stay onsite, if it's WDW it will most likely be AOA, if it's Universal it will be Cabana Bay. Oh and that's the other thing to add to the mix, rumours about possible free dining around that time?!

Has anyone been during Thanksgiving week? Is it really really busy? We were at Legoland over Thanksgiving in 2010 and it actually wasn't too bad, but obviously that doesn't compare

All help appreciated

 

[MouseFan Down Under]

If it were me, I would pick Universal while you are at the Townhouse, and Disney once you get back from the cruise.
I love being in the "Disney Bubble", so staying onsite while at the parks is a must for me.
At the townhouse, you could do Universal, hit the shops and maybe tick the DTD box... then just worry about the parks while you are on site!

just my two cents worth...

 

[Kalice]

I've been wondering the same thing. We haven't done universal Orlando yet only wdw. However, when we did DL and universal after we couldn't help comparing and were disappointed. Although, we are definitely staying onsite for universal so we can get early entry. Considering one of the other three hotels tho so we can use the express pass.

 

[AussieMumma]

If it were me, I would pick Universal while you are at the Townhouse, and Disney once you get back from the cruise.
I love being in the "Disney Bubble", so staying onsite while at the parks is a must for me.
At the townhouse, you could do Universal, hit the shops and maybe tick the DTD box... then just worry about the parks while you are on site!

just my two cents worth...

Thank you, that's exactly what I was thinking, shopping and DTD, if we do it around the other way I don't think we'd get much time to do these!

I've been wondering the same thing. We haven't done universal Orlando yet only wdw. However, when we did DL and universal after we couldn't help comparing and were disappointed. Although, we are definitely staying onsite for universal so we can get early entry. Considering one of the other three hotels tho so we can use the express pass.

Have you checked out the list of rides that are included with the express entry pass? It doesn't include the 'popular' ones like Forbidden Journey and Gringotts etc, we decided that for the savings on accommodation being nearly $400 per night for our family of six it wasn't worth it.

 

[cola]

I'd probably do Disney the first week, cruise, do a couple more days at Disney, so you could get a 7 day ticket and if you don't use all of it the first week, you can use the last day or two after the cruise, or you can shop Disney Springs etc, then 3 days at Universal then fly to LA. It will give you a few days break from the Disney bubble in the middle. Mon-Wed will be much more sensible crowds at Universal than the weekend too. Do you fly back to LA early or late? Could you do the park on Wed9? You wouldn't get to a park until Mon23 and the ticket has to be used within 14 days, so would be valid up to Sun6.

3 days at Universal is more than enough, and I LOVE Universal. I stayed at Cabana Bay and found the early entry was enough to get the rides out of the way, but that was only doing them once per day. With teenagers, the Deluxe hotel Express Pass is probably worth it. Forbidden Journey is pretty much a walk-on compared to Gringotts. Gringotts, once you do the full queue has the Single Rider line (as does Forbidden Journey) and it usually cuts the queue down by at least 60min, but you do need to do the full queue at some stage. Other than Gringotts, Diagon Alley is atmosphere and retail, you even have to pay a fortune for water ($4 for Gilly Water vs $2.70 for normal brand water in the rest of the park). I love it, but there isn't much to actually 'do' there. Hogsmeade has more rides.

 

[cola]

Are you keeping the car for the last week?

 

[AussieMumma]

I'd probably do Disney the first week, cruise, do a couple more days at Disney, so you could get a 7 day ticket and if you don't use all of it the first week, you can use the last day or two after the cruise, or you can shop Disney Springs etc, then 3 days at Universal then fly to LA. It will give you a few days break from the Disney bubble in the middle. Mon-Wed will be much more sensible crowds at Universal than the weekend too. Do you fly back to LA early or late? Could you do the park on Wed9? You wouldn't get to a park until Mon23 and the ticket has to be used within 14 days, so would be valid up to Sun6.

3 days at Universal is more than enough, and I LOVE Universal. I stayed at Cabana Bay and found the early entry was enough to get the rides out of the way, but that was only doing them once per day. With teenagers, the Deluxe hotel Express Pass is probably worth it. Forbidden Journey is pretty much a walk-on compared to Gringotts. Gringotts, once you do the full queue has the Single Rider line (as does Forbidden Journey) and it usually cuts the queue down by at least 60min, but you do need to do the full queue at some stage. Other than Gringotts, Diagon Alley is atmosphere and retail, you even have to pay a fortune for water ($4 for Gilly Water vs $2.70 for normal brand water in the rest of the park). I love it, but there isn't much to actually 'do' there. Hogsmeade has more rides.

Not sure how we would fit in Disney and Universal after the cruise, do you mean just like one day and possibly the first night at after we drive up from Miami? Our flight leaves at 10am on the Wednesday so no chance or any park time that day. We weren't going to hire a car for those last 5 nights since we'll be staying onsite somewhere so I guess that would be a pain trying to get to Disney from a Universal hotel or the other way around?!
We did Universal in 2010, we are all huge Harry Potter fans so we spent nearly a whole day just wandering around Hogsmeade taking in all of the details, we can't wait to see Diagon Alley and ride the Hogwarts Express!

 

[mum2fourkids]

Hi AussieMumma!

Your trip is ALMOST identical to mine!!! I have 4 kids and we are leaving bris on the 22nd of Nov. Short stopover in LA then onto MCO to arrive by 6:15pm (although I did get an email from my airline stating we will now arrive 5:45pm). We have a week booked offsite with a rental car to visit seaworld/universal and to look around at the outlets from the 22/11 til the 30/11. On the 30th we have our 4 night cruise from PC. Then from the 4/12 til the 16/12 we will be staying at WDW. No LA visit this time. Have not officially booked any accomm yet but know were we want to stay.

 

[AussieMumma]

Hi AussieMumma!

Your trip is ALMOST identical to mine!!! I have 4 kids and we are leaving bris on the 22nd of Nov. Short stopover in LA then onto MCO to arrive by 6:15pm (although I did get an email from my airline stating we will now arrive 5:45pm). We have a week booked offsite with a rental car to visit seaworld/universal and to look around at the outlets from the 22/11 til the 30/11. On the 30th we have our 4 night cruise from PC. Then from the 4/12 til the 16/12 we will be staying at WDW. No LA visit this time. Have not officially booked any accomm yet but know were we want to stay.

Wow that's freaky! We must be on the same flight, I got that change of flight time email too...Virgin & Delta? Such a coincidence

 

[mum2fourkids]

Yes Virgin and delta! Have not flown with either of them, so not sure what to expect. Were you able to pick you seats for the delta flights?

 

[LivingforDisney]

We flew Virgin Aus & Delta in 2013.
Virgin was excellent and Delta were very good as we'll, no complaints.
I booked them with Flight centre and they assigned the seats on all flights for me.
Try to get as close to the front as possible in economy on Delta internal flights as it's pretty hectic boarding, the amount of stuff people take on board is scary and they will just use your overhead locker, so the closer to the front of plane you board quicker.
We are going Delta all the way this time, so will be interesting to see how the international leg is.

 

[AussieMumma]

Yes Virgin and delta! Have not flown with either of them, so not sure what to expect. Were you able to pick you seats for the delta flights?

No we could only select seats for the Virgin flights also, we booked through Flight Centre. We've flown Virgin to LA the past five years and have been really happy with them, and we've flown Delta a couple of times within the US and they were fine also, no complaints.

 

[Tashinwdw]

Hi, I would recommend doing Universal first, It will be really busy over Thanksgiving and even though if you do Disney then you might find you get less done due to the crowds. We had 3 days at Universal and found we did not spend the all day there, we were back at Cabana Bay by about 4 each day, the longest we were in line was Gringotts and that was 30 mins. Whatever you decide, it will be amazing.