Bonnet Creek or Royal Pacific???

[tripplanner2]

So I am a huge Disney fan but my girls want to hit Harry Potter. We are planning on spending 1 week in Orlando but have decisions to make. We always stay onsite at Disney and love the freedom of being close to the parks and having transportation. When planning this week offsite, I originally chose Bonnet Creek. But then I starting thinking about traveling to Universal I decided to price out a week at Royal Pacific. Cost is a factor this year. So the price drops at RP when you stay for a week but we will only have one room, one bathroom, no washer and dryer...etc. And can't cook so our food cost will be more. My thoughts...do we stay one night at RP and pay the higher cost ($300 for one night instead of $195) but go to Universal for 2 days and get front of the line access and then move to Bonnet Creek or do we just stay for the entire week at RP and park our car and never look back? I am having a hard time with being that close to Disney and not going to Disney but part of me is saying that I need to deal with it this year and look ahead to next year when we will have another Disney trip planned. We have never been to Universal and are not even sure our 7 year old will like it. She rode Space Mountain last summer and loved it but would not even walk near Haunted Mansion...too scary! If we did any Disney days I would look into the YES tickets. My other girls are 11 and 13, the 13 year old loves roller coasters, as do I but the rest of the party is not into them.

 

[Senator Tressel]

If you are not doing Disney at all and this is strictly Universal, I would stay at Royal Pacific and save the drive back and forth every day. It's great to be able to walk or boat to the parks and you get free unlimited express. If the space aspect is a deal breaker, I would look at similar places to Bonnet Creek that are closer to Universal.

Edit: Forgot to mention that I have stayed at Royal Pacific several times and it is one of the best hotels I have ever stayed at. The only reason not to stay there is if the room is too small for you.

 

[bz8bls]

We had the same dilemma this year. We are DVC vacation owners (low on points); we decided to stay at RP for one night for the Universal experience and then move over to Bonnet Creek; however, since we are going to drive this time, I added two rooms for two nights before moving to RP at a Disney value resort...Pop Century.
We had a pin code that saved us 30%. Never stayed at Pop, but this option gets me my onsite fix. Also, we purchased tickets through the YES program.

This might be too much moving for some, but I am trying something new, plus we don't go commando at DW anymore.

Have fun planning.

 

[tripplanner2]

Well, I finally made a decision...but it was not easy. We are staying at BC for all 10 nights. We were going to do RP for 7 nights, booked it and all but that parking fee pushed me over the edge. Plus, I felt that 7 days were too many there. One of my kids would have had to sleep on an air mattress too. So BC for 10 nights in a 2 bedroom with no parking fees and free transportation to Disney. My girls only want to hit HP so I think a full day to accomplish that will be more than enough. Anything else we do will be a bonus. I will still get 2 days worth of passes though and then 4 days YES tickets. Still leaving enough time to relax.

 

[MomtoGKC]

Good plan - we could never fill up 7 days at Universal. My kids loved it, but we were done with both parks by the late afternoon since they wouldn't do the biggest rides (Hulk, Dr Doom, Rip Ride...) We did do HP, Dr, Seuss, Spiderman (skipped water rides only because it was cold outside), had a sit down lunch then did a bunch of things at Universal (Shrek, MIB, Simpsons...)

Bonnet Creek is wonderful - so great to have all that room. My kids would have loved to have spent more time at the resort.

 

[tripplanner2]

I started reading trip reports and realized that was the case. Maybe 4 days max and that is with taking breaks and really taking it slow. But the cost of the hotel made it not worthwhile. The price to stay only a couple of nights was so much more. So BC and Disney got the bulk of our money instead.