Any way to make this work?

[garywitt]

We are booked for a WDW trip 6/4 - 6/12...8 nights...staying at POFQ.

We have 7 full park days - planning on 5 days in the WDW parks, one off day for pool, downtown disney, etc. and one day at Universal.

We are WDW fanatics but have never seen Universal or IOA so trying to do both in one day - open to close.

Researching tickets - 3 adults and 1 kid is $486 for a park to park ticket. Adding unlimited express pass goes to $789 (yikes)

Given that staying in a Universal on-site hotel gets you free unlimited express pass I am considering staying at Royal Pacific one night...checking in late evening after a WDW park day, enjoying the different hotel/pool, then getting up in the morning and spending the whole day at Universal...driving back to WDW that night. One night is $304...slightly less than the price of the unlimited express pass...

Problem is...our scheduled Universal day is in the middle of the trip, we don't really want to do it the first or last day. So this means we would be abandoning our room at POFQ one night in the middle of the stay. Is there any way to a split stay at the same resort, with one night in the middle, to save the $250/night that we wouldn't be using anyway?

 

[bumbershoot]

Staying just one night at one of the 3 current onsite resorts gets you onsite privileges for two days, FYI. Early Entrance to Wizarding World, unlimited Express Pass, for both check in and check out days.

Of course that means one less day at WDW and one more day at Universal.


Are you doing a package at WDW? If yes, then do the package for the first part of your stay, leave, then when you come back, do a room only. Buy the tickets with your package that will get you through all the WDW days.

If you're doing room only, there's no issue at all. Book the rooms you need first, then the next rooms once you're back from Universal.


Be sure to check here for hotel prices, because it shows you all 3 current resorts at once.

 

[jw50]

What we did two years ago was our first two nights at Royal Pacific but it would have worked almost as well if we had only stayed one night as we left for Disney at 7am the morning after the second night.

If you can get an early fight into MCO one night would give you a day and a half at Universal which was enough for us. We lost out on ME going down but a towncar from MCO to Universal and then from Universal to Disney ran us about $125 with tip. Staying at Universal was cheaper for us as we were staying at the Poly but if we go back to Universal we will probably only do one night there before going to Disney.

 

[GaSleepingBeautyFan]

We are booked for a WDW trip 6/4 - 6/12...8 nights...staying at POFQ.

We have 7 full park days - planning on 5 days in the WDW parks, one off day for pool, downtown disney, etc. and one day at Universal.

We are WDW fanatics but have never seen Universal or IOA so trying to do both in one day - open to close.

Researching tickets - 3 adults and 1 kid is $486 for a park to park ticket. Adding unlimited express pass goes to $789 (yikes)

Given that staying in a Universal on-site hotel gets you free unlimited express pass I am considering staying at Royal Pacific one night...checking in late evening after a WDW park day, enjoying the different hotel/pool, then getting up in the morning and spending the whole day at Universal...driving back to WDW that night. One night is $304...slightly less than the price of the unlimited express pass...

Problem is...our scheduled Universal day is in the middle of the trip, we don't really want to do it the first or last day. So this means we would be abandoning our room at POFQ one night in the middle of the stay. Is there any way to a split stay at the same resort, with one night in the middle, to save the $250/night that we wouldn't be using anyway?

Normally I would say rent a car and stay at Universal your first night. That way you would have the free express pass the next day.

But since you don't want to do Universal the first or last day, that complicates things.

You didn't mention if you have a package booked with Disney. Room, tickets and dining. Because that will also complicate things.

If you have a room only booked with Disney that makes it easy.

Just book Disney for the nights you need and since you'd be staying at Universal one night, you would have to take your luggage with you and then after your Universal stay, check back in to Disney. You would basically have 2 different Disney reservations.
That would be a good chance to even check out a different resort the 2nd half of your stay.

Now if you have a package I'm not sure how it would work. Because I think you have to have tickets and dining on both stays for them to be a package. Or maybe you can do the first part of your stay with the minimum amount of tickets and once checked in add to your tickets.

Then after the Universal stay, could you still just having a room and dining without having to add tickets to that part of your package?

Aaack. Too confusing to me. I'd just stay at Universal first and then everything else will be easy.

 

[bumbershoot]

The problem with staying onsite at Universal first is that when you have to deal with fastpass instead of Express Pass, you truly see how bleah FP is. We like to do Universal at the end just so we can end on a high note instead of being annoyed at FP.

 

[garywitt]

Thanks for the input. We have a package of room and tickets but no dining plan...so I think I can keep the tickets linked to the first reservation and then do a room only for the second one. That would work...but now I have to decide if I want to pack and unpack three separate times...

 

[MinnieLovesMickey12]

I wouldn't want to pack and unpack three sep times. I would just do the Universal day and get the express passes and stay at Disney the whole time.

 

[emilyltd]

What we are doing is coming in Sunday and spending the night at an onsite Universal hotel and well have the express pass Sun. and Monday. We plan on checking in at POR late Monday afternoon. I think with the express passes, you have a good chance of getting a lot of Universal in. The last time we were at WDW, we drove over to Universal and just had one day at IOA, and it was great - no express pass involved. I don't know about the split stay, and that is really why we are doing Universal first - it was easier logistically.

We found the same thing. Staying in a cheap hotel and buying an express pass was more expensive than just staying onsite and getting the passes.