confused about booking Universal vacation...

[acarsme123]

So I'm just trying to get an idea of how booking a Universal Florida vacation works, and I'm getting a little confused. If I select say an arrival day of Monday and having us leave on Thursday, it comes up with a 3 park-to-park, 4 day "promo" park ticket option. But say I want to tack on a 5th day....It seems like the website just doesn't show any options for a 5 day ticket....would I have to go with the 4-day promo ticket, and then add on an additional 1 day ticket for all of us? Universal's way of booking things seems to want to confuse you compared to what I'm used to with Disney.

 

[acarsme123]

It's really bizarre, if I want to go change how many days I want for park tickets, instead of just updating the amount of days, it tacks on an additional set of tickets, as if I'm buying two sets. This is highly annoying!

 

[skylock]

Buy everything separate. There is no advantage to buying a package.

 

[acarsme123]

do you all think it's worth buying a ticket for the day you arrive if you're driving and would be getting there in the early afternoon? Typically when we do Disney, we don't even bother going to the parks on arrival day and just go to Disney Springs instead. But with Universal having the unlimited front of the line pass thing and being a smaller park, I wonder if it would be worth going into the park on arrival day.

 

[DisneyMom93]

When booking a package, once you get to where it lists the ticket options you need to use the “drop down” to choose which ticket options you want.
Then you scroll down to the ones they automatically chose for you and hit the Remove button.

But as someone else said, there doesn’t seem to be any advantage to buying a package instead of buying hotel and tickets separately. You will see the ticket cost stays the same.

I did mine separately because I got a better deal booking the hotel directly and am waiting for a ticket deal for later in the year (hopefully).

If I had waited to book together as a package the hotel price went up $600 after I booked it.

Also, check the cancellation and refund policy of package vs hotel only.

I THINK with a package you can cancel the tickets too. “Tickets only,” or tickets purchased separately, can’t be canceled. So if your trip isn’t definite you might want to book it as a package.

 

[damo]

It's really bizarre, if I want to go change how many days I want for park tickets, instead of just updating the amount of days, it tacks on an additional set of tickets, as if I'm buying two sets. This is highly annoying!

Just unclick the boxes for the tickets you don't want. The site automatically gives you one set of tickets but allows you to customize.

 

[Travelgrrl]

Four days is plenty. After arriving in the afternoon, I would hit the hotel pool, wander Citywalk, have a nice dinner, then back to the hotel / pool.

Or you could go to the park that first day and the next, have a rest day, then two more park days. Generally, I like to reserve park days for those I have a full day, or almost a full day.

 

[gotomu212]

Take a second to compare the cost of your 4 day tickets with the cost of the annual pass that fits your travel time (blockout dates). In the past an AP was cheaper or less than $15 more than an AP. Then we’d get the AP and not worry if we only popped into the park for a couple of hours.

Another vote for booking separately. No cost disadvantage and you have better cancellation terms.

 

[Sue M]

Most people book separately. No real benefit of package. I booked Royal Pacific months ago. But I’ll be there 10 days. So I’ll get annual pass closer to vacay.
And as poster said, sometimes AP can be cheaper than multi day ticket.