Disney & Universal on one trip?

[BellsFam]

Is it realistic to think that we could fly down to Florida for a week, use a rental car, stay off property and do both Disney (couple days not all parks) and Universal on the same trip?

Just curious as it seems these are "two separate trips" to most people...

 

[MrWonderful]

Sure - we are doing 5 days Disney, 2 days US over period of June 14-22nd... pricey, but do-able.

 

[tobikaye]

I have done this a few times, driving down and flying. Usually for this, it is mostly a USO/IOA trip with just 1 day at WDW. It might be 2-3 days at USO/IOA and then 1 day at a WDW park. There is usually 1 additional day that is spent going to St. Augustine. The other day, if available, is usually unplanned with sleeping in, swimming, shopping, or doing something new that only takes 2-4 hours.

 

[nkereina]

We always do a split stay between Disney and Universal, usually over 7 days. We arrive at a WDW hotel on a Saturday, leave Wednesday night for a Universal hotel and fly home Saturday. We just take a cab on Wednesday to move over to our Universal hotel whenever we're done with our day at WDW. Works out well!

 

[BellsFam]

Ok thanks! It seemed like people treated this as two trips and I'd like to try it in one... Glad it's not so tough!!!

 

[SYDCOLEMOM]

We have a vacation booked for May 18 to May 27. We are doing Universal & WDW AND Discovery Cove, Seaworld , Busch Garden & the waterparks we can rest when we get home !! We do this every summer. Last year we hit 11 different parks in 10 days ! its might not be every families idea of a relaxing vacation but we have a blast !

 

[Mmk1997]

We are doing 8 days Disney - non park hoppers, 1 day SeaWorld, 1 day Kennedy Space Centre, 2-3 days universal, and then 1 day coast beach and 1 day gulf beach. We are flying from Vancouver with our 3 kids, and 2 sets of in laws, so 9 of us in total. We've never been to Orlando before and with the ages of our kids (16, 14, 12) we'll never be back. Got to do it all in this one trip. Yes some of you might think we are crazy, but this is the way we vacation.

"If you're not tired when you get home, you didn't do enough".

 

[nacho113]

Is it realistic to think that we could fly down to Florida for a week, use a rental car, stay off property and do both Disney (couple days not all parks) and Universal on the same trip?

Just curious as it seems these are "two separate trips" to most people...

We do this all the time and if done right, it can be either very relaxing or a marathon (depending on your preference)

We have been visiting Florida 2-3 times per year for the past 5-6 years.
Lately we have been staying offsite and spending 1 or 2 days with hoppers at both Disney and Universal and then head down to Miami for a 3-5 day cruise or down to the Keys for a couple of beach days.

On a recent trip with my son in Sept 2015, we stayed offsite but near Universal (we like the I-Drive area).

1 day Disney Park Hopper with Waterparks and more option (rope drop at DHS, hopped to MK for the afternoon then to Epcot for supper at the Food and Wine festival, closed out the evening with Illuminations and a beer in Britain) Hit all our faves, more than once in some cases.
1 day Typhoon Lagoon
1 day Blizzard Beach
2 days out at Daytona Beach
2 days at Universal
Had a rain day in the middle so we went to the Florida Mall for some shopping, then did some indoor skydiving at iFly on International Drive and ended our day at Senor Frogs on i-drive
****we needed a vacation from the vacation when we got back home but it was an awesome guys vacation.


Just an FYI: if you are visiting the area more than once in the next year, Universals PowerPass (annual pass) is very reasonable (only about $20 upgrade from a 2 day park to park ticket)

 

[HopperFan]

Yup. I've never done Universal and not done Disney since that is "home".

 

[Bellhop97]

We are planning on visiting Both Disney and Universal in Sept... it is possible

 

[ngm]

We're attempting both in June.

Day 1 - EPCOT
Day 2 - MK
Day 3 - water park + HS
Day 4 - US
Day 5 - US
Day 6 - AK
Day 7 - MK

 

[webcreatrix]

We've done this before and it was the best trip ever. Doing it again this summer with 7 full park days:

Day 1 - Arrival, AK since it's open until 11
Day 2 - MK
Day 3 - EP
Day 4 - HS
Day 5 - AK through noon, then over to IOA/US
Day 6 - IOA/US
Day 7 - MK
Day 8 - EP

 

[JaxDad]

The board is loaded with trip reports that include both parks. I'm sure you could find some very useful information...

 

[kohlby]

We used to do both until we got priced out of it. However, we bought annual passes for Universal for this year so we will have one Disney/Universal trip after all.

We did 4 days at Disney and 2 at Universal when we combined both and had limited time.

 

[MSPeeler]

We will be staying off-site (Wibdsor Hills) and doing 1 day Universal, 3 days Disney, a beach day and Disney Spring. We will be there Saturday to Saturday (being "driving days"), so really on Sunday-Friday.

Totally do-able IMO
Tentative plans:

Day 1: Universal
Day 2: Beach
Day 3: AK
Day 4: HS
Day 5: Disney Springs
Day 6: Epcot

 

[rapunzel3]

Yes! We stayed off site, had our own car. We did 4 days Disney and only 1 day Universal. Totally doable.

 

[dsnycrzy]

Yes We have done it multiple times and doing it again this August. We take the auto train down so we have cars with us. Last 2 years we went straight to Universal property first. Royal Pacific (2014) and the new Cabana Bay (2015) we had 3-4 night stay and did 2 or 3 days of US/IOA. Then went to WDW Resort for that part of the trip. We also rent a vacation home to do the relaxing and school shopping leg of the trip before heading home. This year we are not staying onsite at Universal, just WDW and during our vacation home stay we will go to Universal. Its nice to do both and get both experiences.