Costwise, is Universal really worth about the same as Disney?

[keishashadow]

Resort Accommodations
You are comparing what disney considers a moderate (FWC, basically a trailer) to a true deluxe resort experience. If you are not a resort snob, no matter, however; imo it's comparing apples to oranges

Internal Transportation
Onsite U is fun, we enjoy the boat ride to Portofino and Royal Pacific (i've even managed to walk it once or twice) and you can easily walk to Hard Rock. When navigated to HoopDeeDoo the transportation was a royal pain; along the lines of you can't get there from here. A series of internal buses that really eat up time imo. Following a CMs instructions, we looped thru the campground endlessly (actually 1/2 hour, @ least we had the camper's Xmas lights to entertain us) winding up back @ HDD to pick up more guests on the way back to our resort.Im not sure if the same process applies to guests via an internal bus, then a park bus; might want to check it out.

Universal Tix
Prices haven't changed much lately, assume they'll jump when HP arrives along with the crowds. In the past U tended to offer different sales on tix and my local AAA often had great deals, with a few from ticketmaster online too.

Food
Im not sure which DP you were factoring in @ WDW (2 CS or the CS & TS one), it's a deal & hard to beat (as long as you can get ADRs early enough). Many CSs in the park offer above average food (BBQ chicken & Ribs) and even what i consider to be one of the best amusement park restuarants ever (Mythos) won't break the bank if you order prudently.

SeaWorld
Don't miss it! I had put it off for years & finally decided to break away 1 day during my trip beginning of month. We all loved it!!! IMO nothing better to shake things up and try something new every trip to keep things fresh.

good luck with your planning

 

[Darcy03231]

We're a large family and quite understand how vacation costs can get out of hand very quickly. We travel a lot both inside and outside the US and usually visit the Orlando area at least once a year.

When our whole family is traveling we've found its much less expensive to stay off-site and rent a vacation home. Last trip we rented a 5 bedroom/3 bath private pool home for $700/week including all taxes and fees. We also found we saved a lot of money as we ate some meals in (breakfast everyday and some dinners). We loved having all the room, the game room and the washer and dryer.

We bought the Orlando Flex pass tickets and found them to be a great value (especially since we were there for 16 days).

Driving around the Orlando area is very easy. Everything is well marked. I found the total cost of our rental home, car and parking to be much less than just the hotel would have been (since we would have needed two rooms to).

I did book a room for one night on-site which gave us two days of unlimited express pass use (check in day and check out day).

Hope this helps.

 

[englishteacha]

I second what a PP said. Perhaps you can stay onsite at Universal just a couple nights and offsite for the rest. We stayed in a condo in Kissimmee and drove into Universal for our 2007 trip. We seldom had much of a wait in line at either Universal Studios or IOA. We also had dinner at a comedy club in City Walk and saw a comedian there. It was good.

We ate outside of the parks most of the time. We also did SeaWorld and Busch Gardens. It was a great trip.

 

[Metro West]

Food
Im not sure which DP you were factoring in @ WDW (2 CS or the CS & TS one), it's a deal & hard to beat (as long as you can get ADRs early enough). Many CSs in the park offer above average food (BBQ chicken & Ribs) and even what i consider to be one of the best amusement park restuarants ever (Mythos) won't break the bank if you order prudently.

SeaWorld
Don't miss it! I had put it off for years & finally decided to break away 1 day during my trip beginning of month. We all loved it!!! IMO nothing better to shake things up and try something new every trip to keep things fresh.

Totally agree with your points Janet!