Universal for a week?

[morecowbell]

Is there enough to do in Universal (and area) for a week long vacation? We may nix our 4 days in Disney and stay at the Portofino.

 

[disneystick]

We went to US during the week between Christmas and NYE...and stayed on-site, so we got the Express pass...after 3 days of just doing IA and US...we felt that was all that we can take. However, in the area are lots of fun stuff to see and do around International Dr. ex. SeaWorld, Arabian Nights, Ripley's etc.... so you can do as much as you want or as little as you want.

In fact one vacation we decide to give the mouse a rest and not do anything Disney and had a great time just doing all the attractions that Orlando and Kissimmee had to offer.

 

[AJA]

We have 6 days planned (staying 7 nights but one of those days is a travel day). We're planning 4 park days, hopefully a day at the beach, and one day totally relaxing at the Hotel.

 

[Larrabe]

Is there enough to do in Universal (and area) for a week long vacation? We may nix our 4 days in Disney and stay at the Portofino.

We had initially planned on splitting our vacation between Disney/UNI but after doing more research, we decided to go mouseless. Two days at IOA, two at US, one at SW, one at W&W, one where DH and DS go fishing while DS and I hit WWOHP (again,) Mythos, and wherever our wild little spirits take us, and then one free day for favorites or Aquatica. (We're getting the Flex Tickets.) I can't wait!!

Good luck with your trip planning and I hope you have a great time!

 

[Darby O'Gill]

Glad to hear you get to go on an Orlando vacation!!!! However, my opinion is that after 2 days (3 absolute max), you will be bored. This is not to say that Universal will not be amazing. But the 2 parks are kinda small(even with WWoHP), and there is the mouse hovering nearby .
I have gone on 4 trips to Orlando since 2003, and every time spend around 10 days there.(trip 5 in October) I do both Universal and Disney every time and both are lots of fun!!! Universal is just smaller than Disney is all. So if anything other than Universal interests you in Orlando, my advice is no more than 3 days just doing Universal parks.

Happy days....
Darby O'Gill

 

[unionville]

We leave in 2 weeks for an 8-night stay at Portofino. We have never spent more than 4 or 5 nights, but we are quite excited. We have 7-day passes and do not plan to spend full days at the park. We will spend a few hours in the morning and maybe the evening. Our afternoons will be spent being lazy by the pool. For our family, this vacation is about some "down-time" which will never happen if we went to WDW. We are spending one day at Discovery Cove, my husband and son plans to golf, and we will also visit Downtown Disney. It's wonderful to not have everything planned unlike when we visit WDW.

 

[morecowbell]

I can't believe we have gotten to the point where we are considering going mouseless. Times sure have changed.

 

[braddillman]

We had initially planned on splitting our vacation between Disney/UNI but after doing more research, we decided to go mouseless. Two days at IOA, two at US, one at SW, one at W&W, one where DH and DS go fishing while DS and I hit WWOHP (again,) Mythos, and wherever our wild little spirits take us, and then one free day for favorites or Aquatica. (We're getting the Flex Tickets.) I can't wait!!

Good luck with your trip planning and I hope you have a great time!

We're planning much the same, but we may do some park hopping, say do some Suess & Spider-man in the morning, then Aquatica in the afternoon.

Also, I think we'll get 4 FlexPasses & 1 annual pass to both US/IoA and SW/Aq. That way, the annual passes pay for the parking, and I don't feel I have to stay all day since I just paid $14 for parking (or avoid the $14 by skipping altogether). With free parking, it becomes more feasible to just duck in for a couple of hours when we feel like it.

Generally, 3-4 days gives good coverage for both US & IoA (say 1 each, then another 1 or two for repeats of favourites and missed stuff). But we have 14 days in Feb. 2011 (mouseless, due to the sliding-scale price effect - but we tend to prefer IoA over Disney anyway), so we're planning to stretch out (US, IoA, W&W, SW, Aq) over the 14 days, really take our time, go shopping and swimming at our own pace, etc.

We also plan to cook (well, re-heat frozen stuff, no one wants to cook) to save the cost of restaurants (just treat ourselves a few times). So we can use the extra time to take longer meals at the timeshare when the kids are at the pool (and one parent gets a break from the kids for an hour).

 

[damo]

A vacation need not be rush, rush, rush...go here, go there. There is plenty to do even if it means sitting by the pool sipping a drink and reading a book. Sometimes people forget that a vacation can also be about relaxing and not needing another vacation to get over your first vacation.

When we are at Universal for more than three days, we do lots of short park visits split up by pool time, Citywalk time, movie time, eating time, sleeping in in the morning-time. We will often add another park into the mix, mostly SeaWorld, and that is enough.

 

[Planogirl]

Everyone will be different. We like to do three days in the Universal parks and we spent one day just shopping and pool hopping. You can go offsite to Sea World, Discovery Cove, Wet n Wild, the Kennedy Space Center, Busch Gardens, beaches, outlets and slews of smaller attractions. Some of these are a bit of a drive but many are close by.

I think that I could stay busy in the Orlando area for a month and never even visit WDW.

 

[Phoenix41]

Recently, we were at the park and spent about 4 days there. We did everything multiple times. You can't really drag it out for a week unless you just love it so much and want to do everything over and over again. However, City Walk has some great things always going on and the surrounding area is also awesome. Sea World and Wet N Wild are very close. There are also tons of shows and smaller parks (arcade like) around. The outlet malls are also close. In your Hotel they usually have pamphlets that show some cool stuff in the area that will definitely fill your week.

 

[arthur06]

There is no way that I could drag out Universal/Islands for a week with the family! My boys are too little to re-do the same things over and over....

If it was just DW and I, then I think we could easily manage it. Spend some time riding, poolside with some drinks and relaxing...

 

[amystevekai&bump]

I've been reading this thread with interest, as we had originally booked a week at HRH over New Years and have recently decreased it to 5 nights - and I was worried if that wouldn't be long enough!!

We only had 2 1/2 days at UO last time and really wished it had been longer. The only reason I reduced it this time was because I was worried about the weather and thought that perhaps we would be bored after a week if the weather wasn't good enough to swim/sit by the pool in the afternoons

I am currently planning to get there as early as possible on New Years Day (although we have a 2 hour drive from Vero Beach so guess we won't be there until 10-10.30am), then we have the rest of saturday, sunday, monday, tuesday, wednesday and until thursday lunchtime. We are handing in our car at HRH so we plan just to stay onsite at UO for the whole time. I am really hoping for some great weather and to make good use of the HRH pool, as well enjoying movies/food at Citywalk.

 

[drinkme]

This thread has me worried! We are booked for 5 nights at the end of Aug. I was thinking we should drop a night after reading this thread, but my husband says we'll find stuff to do. I looked at how much tix are for a day at WDW and that's too much (I really wish I would have done the "Give a Day" before the tix ran out). So, we're going to do a day at WnW.

Can anyone give me info on the shuttle to WnW from the Royal Pacific? Such as, is it free? How often does it go back & forth to the hotel & waterpark? Also, is it best to go to WnW on a weekend and save US/IoA for the weekdays, or vice-versa?

TIA!

 

[amystevekai&bump]

This thread has me worried! We are booked for 5 nights at the end of Aug. I was thinking we should drop a night after reading this thread, but my husband says we'll find stuff to do. I looked at how much tix are for a day at WDW and that's too much (I really wish I would have done the "Give a Day" before the tix ran out). So, we're going to do a day at WnW.

Can anyone give me info on the shuttle to WnW from the Royal Pacific? Such as, is it free? How often does it go back & forth to the hotel & waterpark? Also, is it best to go to WnW on a weekend and save US/IoA for the weekdays, or vice-versa?

TIA!

As you are going in Aug, I think 5 days will be wonderful, to have the luxury of wandering back to the hotel pools in that heat will be amazing and we found it very relaxing just pottering around and chilling in May - I am only concerned because the lovely pool breaks may not be an option for us if we are unlucky to get a 'chilly' January!!

I can't answer your WnW question as I haven't been there for ages, but I would say that the atmosphere around the UO hotels pools was much nicer than I remember about WnW. But if you do decide to go to WnW, I believe most waterparks are busier at weekends due to the locals going then as well

 

[mjohnson96]

We usually stay about 5 nights when we go, this year we stayed 5 nights at RPR. We took one day and did SeaWorld, which I would never do again with an infant in the summer.

We also take the time to go pool hopping and just relax, with WDW I feel that our downtime is missed time I don't feel that way at US. I am a firm beliver to not make the kids go go go and to go back to the hotel for naps and pool time. Helps eliminate or reduce melt downs when they just get to tired to do anything else, even eat.

 

[damo]

This thread has me worried! We are booked for 5 nights at the end of Aug. I was thinking we should drop a night after reading this thread, but my husband says we'll find stuff to do. I looked at how much tix are for a day at WDW and that's too much (I really wish I would have done the "Give a Day" before the tix ran out). So, we're going to do a day at WnW.

Can anyone give me info on the shuttle to WnW from the Royal Pacific? Such as, is it free? How often does it go back & forth to the hotel & waterpark? Also, is it best to go to WnW on a weekend and save US/IoA for the weekdays, or vice-versa?

TIA!

The shuttle is free. However, a cab is only about $5. When we took it, it went once a day. However, that may have changed.

 

[nmartin]

We leave in 2 weeks for an 8-night stay at Portofino. We have never spent more than 4 or 5 nights, but we are quite excited. We have 7-day passes and do not plan to spend full days at the park. We will spend a few hours in the morning and maybe the evening. Our afternoons will be spent being lazy by the pool. For our family, this vacation is about some "down-time" which will never happen if we went to WDW. We are spending one day at Discovery Cove, my husband and son plans to golf, and we will also visit Downtown Disney. It's wonderful to not have everything planned unlike when we visit WDW.

That is what we are doing at the end of August. We are spending a week onsite at HRH. We are excited not to go commando like we have in the past. Any time spent with my family away from the pressures of home is time well spent. Have a great time!

 

[unionville]

"Any time spent with my family away from the pressures of home is time well spent."

nmartin - I love this quote! That is exactly what our week long vacation at Portofino will be for us.

 

[Metro West]

"Any time spent with my family away from the pressures of home is time well spent."

nmartin - I love this quote! That is exactly what our week long vacation at Portofino will be for us.