1 week to do Disney and Universal?

[Keri Barker]

Heading down to Orlando for weeks in October 2022 till Nov, with my husband, mom, and 14 year old. The second week is a business trade show for my husband and I. The first week is family time seeing the parks. So we only have 1 week to explore the parks all day (might check out parks at night depending if we missed anything or Disney springs or such the 2nd week?). So question is we are planning on hitting all 4 Disney Parks and all of Universal from Oct 23 to 30th (4 days for Disney and 4 at Universal), which day of the week is best for Disney vs Universal? We might miss 1 day at Universal to relax and go to HHN in the evening instead, is this a good plan? Defiantly getting express pass at universal, and thinking about Genie+ in Disney. First time with a teenager what is top not to miss for teens? What do they care less about? Also would really love to go to Volcano Bay but not sure how to fit it in!!!! Is it even warm enough still in October for water parks?? any help would be amazing! Thanks!

 

[musika]

So take this advice as you will, but I think you're planning on too much. You are going to overload if you go to the parks every day for 8 days straight.

Is your teen super into Disney movies? You might be able to condense and do a park hopper/do 2 parks in 1 day in order to get a rest day.

If your family is into horror then HHN is probably a good fit. I think it would be probably warm enough for VB, but I doubt you'll have time for it.

 

[kuhltiffany]

We usually do 3 days at Universal and find it’s enough, that would leave you an extra day to rest/shop or add an extra Disney day. With 4 parks it’s hard to fit everything in!

My teens love Avatar so we make sure we go to Animal Kingdom and stay late to see the area during the day and evening.

At Universal we always have park to park passes so we can ride the Hogwarts train in between, they are big Harry Potter fans.

 

[Aug2020distrip]

I personally think you wouldn’t need 4 days of Universal. We were just there and did pretty much everything in 2 days. Add an express pass to that and you can easily do it in 2 days. Although I suppose could use a third day to actually really explore the Harry Potter area, etc. or save that day for volcano bay. I think you will for sure want a rest day in there! (To me volcano bay would count as a rest day though lol)

 

[hdrolfe]

So we don't do "rest days", we will take a mid-day break but we do something every day. We are on vacation but we want to get the most from all the parks. We also like a break to swim in the afternoon or have a nap if we were up really early for rope drop and planning to close the park later. I can't imagine taking a whole day and not going to a park though, but I am sure lots of people do that.

We haven't done Universal yet but I have the feeling 3 or 4 days would be good there based on the size of the two parks, and the water park if weather is nice. We plan to do park to park so we can take the Hogwarts express between them.

For Disney, have you been before? We know what rides/activities we want to do and plan around those things. We do have favourite rides at all the parks, Epcot currently our least favourite (though the new Guardians ride might tip that a bit). If it's your first time, I'd do 3 days at Universal and 5 at Disney if you can.

 

[julie-o]

Most teens will love universal. I still think 2 days there is plenty (we just went in Feb) especially with express pass. I like a rest day but I know not everyone does.

 

[Sue M]

I will be the desenting opinion! For us 2 days is definitely not enough for Universal. check out Orlando Informer web site for good free Universal Touring plans.
For WDW 4 days isn’t enough. We did that the first time and thought 4 days-4 parks were good. We ended up commando touring park open to close. Even my then teenage daughters were exhausted. So better plan would be to pick your must dos for each park realistically you won’t be able to do it all so don’t kill your self trying.
Or just do WDW and save Universal for another trip.

 

[Average Joes]

I agree with Sue. Our worst Disney trip was going near commando for 5 days straight at Disney. We were exhausted.

We did Universal once in Jan 2020 with express passes. 4 days plus Volcano. I think 3 park days with park to park would be fine. I did not feel that 4 was a waste but we left at 6:30 each day.

If you want the 4 days at Disney and 3-4 at universal I would do universal at the end or express pass will spoil you. Try and squeeze a day off during those 4 Disney commando days. Or at least do a half a day to recharge.

Temperature would likely be good for a water park.

 

[AJA]

My advice is to cut HHN. As much as I love HHN if you have never done it, you have no idea the walking involved (it is back lot, in addition to the regular park footprint).

If it were my family I would want 4-5 days at Disney and 2 days with Express at Universal. You can get in most must do’s with Express at Universal in two days.

 

[theXfactor82]

Heading down to Orlando for weeks in October 2022 till Nov, with my husband, mom, and 14 year old. The second week is a business trade show for my husband and I. The first week is family time seeing the parks. So we only have 1 week to explore the parks all day (might check out parks at night depending if we missed anything or Disney springs or such the 2nd week?). So question is we are planning on hitting all 4 Disney Parks and all of Universal from Oct 23 to 30th (4 days for Disney and 4 at Universal), which day of the week is best for Disney vs Universal? We might miss 1 day at Universal to relax and go to HHN in the evening instead, is this a good plan? Defiantly getting express pass at universal, and thinking about Genie+ in Disney. First time with a teenager what is top not to miss for teens? What do they care less about? Also would really love to go to Volcano Bay but not sure how to fit it in!!!! Is it even warm enough still in October for water parks?? any help would be amazing! Thanks!

We did an 8 day trip the last time we were in Orlando (2018) and did the following:

Day 1 - MK
Day 2 - HS
Day 3 - Epcot
Day 4 - Island of Adventure
Day 5 - Universal Studios
Day 6 - AK
Day 7 - HS
Day 8 - MK

We like to begin and finish our trips at MK. We also let the kids decide at the time which park they enjoyed the most and went back their day 7. Mind you this was before the park reservation system was implemented. We found two days at Universal was enough and we even were able to go to MK after IOA to catch the fireworks on Day 4. We are also a rope drop to park close type of family so it was always on the go for us.