1 day at Universal..worth it???

[dlawallace]

My faimly and I are going to be in Disney World for 7 days the first week of October. We have never been to Universal and I was considering spending just one day at Universal. We have 2 boys 8 and 4....I think they would love it, but I'm just not sure if we can get enough done in just one day to be worth $400?

If anyone does think we should do it...what are the main attractions we should try and hit?

 

[Lori444]

My faimly and I are going to be in Disney World for 7 days the first week of October. We have never been to Universal and I was considering spending just one day at Universal. We have 2 boys 8 and 4....I think they would love it, but I'm just not sure if we can get enough done in just one day to be worth $400?

If anyone does think we should do it...what are the main attractions we should try and hit?

I was wondering the exact thing! We're going to Disney World for 8 days in November and have 2 girls age 9 and 4 so a very similar situation to yours!

 

[clarkfamily]

We've been wondering the same thing here, too...so hopefully some more informed voices will chime in. We've priced out transportation to and from our WDW resort, along with park tickets, and at roughly $400 for the day, it seems like an expensive, expensive add-on! We'd absolutely love to see the new Harry Potter attractions; I guess we just have to decide if we're willing to spend that much to do so!

 

[dlawallace]

I also thought about Sea World...I just dont know..its not quite as much...but then again its only one park...might be easier...I just dont know?

 

[Kat&Dom]

We went in August and spent 8 nights. We did 5 Disney days, 1 SeaWorld and 2 days Universal/Islands of Adventure. My son was almost 4 at the time. It was expensive but we did enjoy the non-Disney parks.

I was very impressed with the Spiderman Character Breakfast. They had about 6 characters interacting with all the guests and it was very reasonably priced about 1/3 to 1/2 less than the cost of a Disney Character Breakfast. Spiderman spent a lot of time with my son, my 10 year old niece and 13 year old nephew telling them to eat healthy so that they could be strong and help him fight bad guys. My son still talks about it and what he got out of the experience made everything worth it.

I found the rides to be a bit more intense than the Disney rides and done very well. The parks were less crowded than Disney parks. I liked that the parkade was covered so your car was not like an oven. I felt the parks were themed very well and had great rides.

What should probably be your deciding factor is - will you be coming back to Florida and be able to do those parks later or should you just go for it now? I was travelling with my brother and his family and it will probably be their only Florida trip so we decided to see and do everything.

I have 2 trips planned to Disney this year and am thinking that next spring, we will head to Florida but spend a week doing Universal, Islands of Adventure and SeaWorld. I am thinking of adding days, park hopper, water parks and more, and no expiry to our 7 day base ticket that we are using next month so that next Spring, if we want to do a Disney day or Disney waterpark, we can.

For SeaWorld, I bought their 2 year annual pass for $149 because just going to visit 2 times pays for it. I used it this past August, I will be using it this April and plan to use it next Spring so I will have definitely gotten my money's worth out of it.

The parks are definitely worth seeing. We did Islands of Adventure/Universal on our first day in Florida so we had great energy. If we had waited to do them after all the Disney parks, we might have found them more exhausting because it does feel like you do more walking at Universal. My sister-in-law had a pedometer on and we walked 14 miles (22 kms) that day - we averaged about 10 miles (16 kms) at Disney.

 

[megan10310]

My husband LOVES Universal. We went in 2005 prekids and had a lot of fun. We are skipping it on this trip, mostly because of expense and the fact that our kids are little. (3 and 1) I do think that the rides are more intense and imo it is more fun for kids 5+ in age. JMO of course. If it was cheaper and we didn't have such great options to visit Disney parks, we would. We are going to hit Sea World, it is a can't miss for us.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

For any one considering visiting Universal I highly recommend spending at least 1-2 nights at one of their onsite hotels. There are only 3 but they're all deluxe (Loews) and within walking distance (through beautiful landscaping too) to the parks. Also there's a relaxing water taxi if you don't want to walk. They deliver park purchases directly to your hotel room.

Our favorite is the Hard Rock Hotel. It's the closest and has an awesome pool with slide and dive in movies.

The best part about staying onsite is that if you show your hotel key, you can enter the express lines. It's like an unlimited fast pass. Once you try it, you are instantly spoiled and as much as we love WDW, we dread waiting in lines there now.

Our 1st visit we didn't stay onsite and just weren't 'feeling it'. 2nd time we did and just loved it all.

We are AP holders which gives huge hotel discounts. They also have AAA rates. Even if you only stay 1 night, you get 2 days of Front of Line Access: the day you check in and the day you check out until park closing.
http://www.universalorlando.com/OverviewPages/Hotels/3worldclass.aspx#

check out the Universal boards here on the Dis. Lots of nice, helpful people there.

 

[kramer222]

We are longtime Disney fans and, like you, we were intrigued by a day at Universal. I've got to be honest with you: I wasn't impressed. First of all the service, compared to Disney, is abysmal. We were appalled at the lackadaisical way the cast members carried out their duties. There was an apparent lack of interest in the jobs they were performing.

As for the actual rides, I would recommend the Spider-man attraction. The Simpsons ride was cute, and the Mummy ride was okay. But everything else is done better by Disney. Splash Mtn is better than Jurassic Park, IMO. Kali River Rapids is better than Popeye's Bilge-something, IMO. And Twister, ET, and the live shows are just all-around off.

If you are concerned with getting your money's worth in terms of "doing enough things", we arrived early on an October weekday and did everything we wanted to do. We did not go on a Halloween Horror Night, and I think this helped keep crowds relatively low.

Have a great trip!

 

[GingerJay]

We just got back from a Universal/Disney trip. My kids' ages are 3, 7, & 8. I would have to say, if you want to go then you defintely should! We had a blast at Universal. We stayed onsite at one of their resorts and the combination of low crowds and the express pass made for a wonderful stay there! Since the parks are so close together, you can easily bounce around between the two to experience all they have to offer.

I would recommend with your boys' ages that you visit IOA and do all there is to do there before heading over to Universal. They have superhero island and toon lagoon, and Jurassic Park...not to mention the WWoHP when it opens. It will be worth it

 

[kathy884]

All the theme parks in Orlando are world class from the four great Disney parks to Sea World to IOA/US. It's very much individual preference that determines which will be your favorites, and what is worth the expense. We get to Orlando fairly often, so are happy to pick and choose and not do everything.

Sea World is our favorite park. We stay near there (offsite condo for a week trip or longer or Hilton Garden Inn (walking distance to Sea World for a mini stay)) and have the two year season pass for $149 (10% off food and gifts and free parking come with that), and our expensive day is a day at one of the Disney parks typically. On a typical trip we do two full days at Sea World and one day at another park of our choosing. Note: The one day advanced purchase Sea World ticket is about $70 and allows you to go for a second day within a seven day period if you stop at the customer service desk to pick up a ticket to come back.

We prefer Disney parks to IOA/US, but next year instead of going to a Disney park, we will do a morning at IOA (pretty expensive for the short time we'll go), as we'll really just do the Harry Potter stuff and take a look at all the HP theming. The only things we plan to do besides this at IOA are the Hulk coaster and the Jurassic Park Discovery Center (That's all we are really interested in there). We, though, are just too curious about new HP theming and attractions, so will bite the bullet and do this (put it in our budget).

 

[smidgy]

first off, I think the lines for Harry Potter will take up your whole day there. just sayin'.
adn staying on property .. I don't think will do much good if THAT PARTICULAR ride is the focal point. they probably won't take express passes for it. (we were staying onsite at Universal when RipTide (the new rollercoaster) opened, and it didn't take the express pass.
we have done universal for one day, driving from disney. but ONLY did the studios. It was a lot of fun. (we had a car)
once we stayed on property (just like disney) we were spoiled. once you get the free express pass for staying on site... you can't go back.
the 2 parks are walking distance from each other (really close). if you don't want to do harry, you can enjoy both , but you won't be able to do both in one day.
we like to take 2 days at the front of our disney trip, stay at Royal Pcific (the cheapest) and really enjoy both parks.. then.. head to the magic! if you stay onsite, you can pool hop! use the pools at all 3 resorts. (don't eat at the resorts.. too pricey, eat at city walk).. take in an evening at Pat Obrien's (deulihg pianos)
If harry potter is real important, it will probably take up half your day, right now.... sorry.
we actually prefer the studios at uni, to mgm. (esp for older kids)

 

[smidgy]

ok, I just rechecked your kids ages. they would love seussland at islands of adventure (IF you have been reading them the seuss books, which don't seem to be as popular anymore)
but I think it would not be worth $400 for you for a one day visit at this point.

 

[Metro West]

My faimly and I are going to be in Disney World for 7 days the first week of October. We have never been to Universal and I was considering spending just one day at Universal. We have 2 boys 8 and 4....I think they would love it, but I'm just not sure if we can get enough done in just one day to be worth $400?

If anyone does think we should do it...what are the main attractions we should try and hit?

I was wondering the exact thing! We're going to Disney World for 8 days in November and have 2 girls age 9 and 4 so a very similar situation to yours!

We've been wondering the same thing here, too...so hopefully some more informed voices will chime in. We've priced out transportation to and from our WDW resort, along with park tickets, and at roughly $400 for the day, it seems like an expensive, expensive add-on! We'd absolutely love to see the new Harry Potter attractions; I guess we just have to decide if we're willing to spend that much to do so!

You guys should come over to the Darkside...the Universal boards and ask. You will get lots of great feedback!

 

[englishteacha]

We had a wonderful Orlando vacation in 2007. We did several days at Universal, a day at Sea World, and drove to Tampa to Busch Gardens. It was too expensive to do these things with our 2006 Disney trip, so we did them on their own in 2007. While I would LOVE LOVE LOVE to go to the Harry Potter part of IOA this summer on our trip, I know it's just too expensive to add to our existing plans. I'm a Harry Potter nut, but it's not worth $200 for me to see the new section of the park. It will be soooo busy this year being new that we'd probably spend all day in line.

 

[Wish I lived in Fl]

I'll chime in with a different experience. My family did a 4 day WDW and 2 day US/IOA and the whole week was just one blur.Unless your family is used to a fast pace it might be better to take it slower to better enjoy it.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

I'll chime in with a different experience. My family did a 4 day WDW and 2 day US/IOA and the whole week was just one blur. Unless your family is used to a fast pace it might be better to take it slower to better enjoy it.

This happens to us whether we go fast or slow, just WDW, just USO, or both or add SW too, or just cruise or anything. The anticipation is sooooo long then the week is over in a blink.