Universal for my DD's high school graduation (2016) - So many questions!

[CassieScraps]

My daughter will graduate in June 2016. She wants to go to Universal Studios (and maybe Disney World). This trip will just be the two of us.

Where is the best place to book the trip? Is there a place that lets you make monthly payments like Get Away Today?

How many days would be good to see Universal? Would 3 be enough?

What about Disney World? I was thinking 3-4 days.

What moderately priced hotels would you recommend?

Should I rent a car?

Should I fly into Orlando or another airport?

We are tentatively looking at June 24th - July 3rd, 2016. (July 2nd is her 18th birthday)

I'm sure I'll have more questions as I get closer to planning.

Thanks!
Cassie

 

[scrhsa]

Im taking my daughter for graduation as well( just the two of us also)...except we will be going a year early... graduates in '17 but we will be going next August. I've planned 4 days not counting check in/out days. One day is possible for Wet n Wild and another is for a day to eat at O'hana and do stuff at Downtown Disney and ride the Monorail around Disney. We were going to try to do a split stay but she just would rather spend the whole time at Universal...I did have to have a bit of the World...hence O'hana etc We will be staying at Cabana Bay. Not sure yet how I will be doing all my ticket/hotel purchasing yet. I will probably go through UnderCoverTourist for the tickets but I'm still up in the air on getting the room. I need more recommendations on that myself.

Can't help you with the airport/rental car business. We will be driving in from Texas. I know this doesn't really answer your questions but hey, we're basically planning the same stuff Good Luck!!

 

[CassieScraps]

Im taking my daughter for graduation as well( just the two of us also)...except we will be going a year early... graduates in '17 but we will be going next August. I've planned 4 days not counting check in/out days. One day is possible for Wet n Wild and another is for a day to eat at O'hana and do stuff at Downtown Disney and ride the Monorail around Disney. We were going to try to do a split stay but she just would rather spend the whole time at Universal...I did have to have a bit of the World...hence O'hana etc We will be staying at Cabana Bay. Not sure yet how I will be doing all my ticket/hotel purchasing yet. I will probably go through UnderCoverTourist for the tickets but I'm still up in the air on getting the room. I need more recommendations on that myself.

Can't help you with the airport/rental car business. We will be driving in from Texas. I know this doesn't really answer your questions but hey, we're basically planning the same stuff Good Luck!!

I hadn't heard of UnderCoverTourist. I'll have to check them out. I've heard that renting a car is pretty useless, but I'd like to sneak in one day of going to the beach. I wish we had the means to do like a 3 week trip, lol. There is so much I'd like to do.

 

[bas71873]

My daughter will graduate in June 2016. She wants to go to Universal Studios (and maybe Disney World). This trip will just be the two of us.

Where is the best place to book the trip? Is there a place that lets you make monthly payments like Get Away Today?

How many days would be good to see Universal? Would 3 be enough?

What about Disney World? I was thinking 3-4 days.

What moderately priced hotels would you recommend?

Should I rent a car?

Should I fly into Orlando or another airport?

We are tentatively looking at June 24th - July 3rd, 2016. (July 2nd is her 18th birthday)

I'm sure I'll have more questions as I get closer to planning.

Thanks!
Cassie

I'll try to help answer some of your questions based on what I would do

For Universal, you can book directly through them, or keep watch on Cheaptickets.com or Orbitz. I've booked our room at HRH for this summer using a 20% off code from Cheaptickets.com. I had to pay in full at the time, but you can cancel for a full refund.

Of the 4 ON site hotels, Cabana Bay is the cheapest prices wise, BUT, you don't get the front of the line (FOTL) access pass that the other 3 hotels do. For us, that pass is worth it's weight in gold. And seeing that you are going at the height of summer, the FOTL pass would be a huge benefit to you. So if I were you, I would pick Royal Pacific for your stay.

For us, 3 days at Universal works (although I could stay a week). We do a day at each park and the third day we usually do both, hitting the things we want to hit again. AND, it leaves us plenty of time for City Walk and just hanging around the pool and relaxing.

Renting a car depends on what you plan to do. Do you think you want to go offsite to eat or do other things - shop - or are you good with just staying onsite the whole time? We've done both and it just depends on how long we are staying and what we plan to do. For this trip in June, we aren't renting a car and will just stay onsite at US the whole time. We fly into MCO and in the past, I've used FL Tours (at town car service) to get us to and from the airport and the hotel (cabs and Mears shuttles may be cheaper, but we prefer to just have a town car all lined up before go). It's about $120 round trip. You could fly into MCO, take a town car to Universal, then have the town car get you at Universal and take you to Disney and then just take the Magical Express (which is free) from Disney to MCO when you go home. You will have to pay to park at the Universal hotels, but not that the Disney hotels.

For Disney, have you ever been to Disney? The number of days there would depend on what you want to do? Do you plan to visit every park? For me, at that time of the year, I would probably say 4 days would be my minimum, but everyone is different and it just depends on what you want to do and your budget.

Hope that helps some.

 

[johde]

It looks like your planning 10 days total (including arrival and departure days). I would probably to 3 1/2 days at Universal and 6 1/2 days at Disney.

Like others have said, there is no one "best" place to book. For Universal, check the Universal Orlando website with the APH (Annual Pass Holder) discount code. It could be enough cheaper to justify buying at least 1 Annual Pass. Also like mentioned above, check Orbitz, Travelocity, Cheaptickets etc. they often have 20% off coupon codes that are good at Universal's onsite resorts. Finally, if you are a AAA member you may want to call the hotels directly to check on AAA rates.

If you are flying in I would seriously look at flying into Orlando. If Busch Gardens or a beach day on the Gulf was in your plans, I would consider looking at Tampa. It is often cheaper than Orlando. But, unless you are saving a lot of money or doing something in that area the savings might not be worth it. On my last trip, Flying into Tampa was cheaper but the rental car was going to be much more expensive especially for a one day (I was hoping to fly into Tampa then back out of Orlando.