Disney & universal

[RandallFlagg]

Thank you so much. It definitely seemed to good to be true. Again, thanks for the clarification.

 

[cruisingkat]

If you're driving that probably changes things, but my preference has been to avoid driving when in Orlando, and I'm sure Universal charges for parking just like all the other parks do. I didn't realize Universal hotel guests got the express pass, which would have been nice.

Yes, Universal charges for parking at the park. The express pass perk is only available at Hard Rock, Portofino Bay, and Royal Pacific. It does not come with a Cabana Bay or the new Sapphire Falls stay.

I'm looking at November also. I was surprised the resort charges for parking.

The hotels are Loews hotels and do charge for parking just as the Swan and Dolphin (Starwood Hotels not Disney owned) at Disney charge for parking.

 

[ruthies12]

Which Holiday Inn will you be staying at? The way they name the hotels is so crazy. The Holiday Inn ACROSS Universal is the closest. We walked over to pick up a rental car one trip and another couple of trips, we have stayed at the Doubletree Suites right across the road. That one is about a 10 minute walk. Longish, but doable along a nice sidewalk. We usually stay there after staying one or two nights onsite.

Our last trip, I accidentally booked Holiday Inn Express nearest Universal. Well, this one is about 15+ mins walk away. Still manageable, but definitely further. There is a shorter cut that takes you to the Orlando Ale House and I suspect it is a shorter walk if you cut through that way. The street was a little odd though and it didn't entirely feel like we were walking the right direction the first time we tried it. On the good side, this hotel has free breakfast. My kids were super intrigued by the pancake maker - they hadn't seen a conveyer belt-style one before (and neither have I!).



Depends on what kind of person you are. I could see a week's vacay at Universal quite easily. It would be a more relaxing pace than Disney though since you are right - there isn't quite as much to do at Uni. But then, we are the kind of people that can spend 3-4 days straight at Cedar Point and still have fun

Still, you have a very valid point. After 3 trips (each staying 3-4 park days) to Universal with our Power Passes, we are just about done. We started feeling like we were running out of things to do on our last park day. That's partly because we aren't big Potter fans though and we have by and large skipped Forbidden Journey since our first trip.

Yeah I noticed that craziness when I was researching hotels! We are at the holiday Inn across the street from Universal, right by that doubletree. When I was ready to book I actually went on google maps, found the hotel and clicked on the name to link to their website that way to make sure I was booking the right one.

BTW thank you for the message though, if I had not known about that already it would have been very helpful!

 

[elaine amj]

Yeah I noticed that craziness when I was researching hotels! We are at the holiday Inn across the street from Universal, right by that doubletree. When I was ready to book I actually went on google maps, found the hotel and clicked on the name to link to their website that way to make sure I was booking the right one.

BTW thank you for the message though, if I had not known about that already it would have been very helpful!

Glad you are at the closer hotel! The walk is very manageable and overall a pleasant one. The path goes by the lake and is nicely landscaped. The only little frustration is sometimes seeing the resort boats go by! We always joke about swimming out and jumping on. We have stayed at the Doubletree several times. Walking is actually not that much longer than driving as the light takes forever. And if you drive, you have to park in the garage anyway so you only save a little bit of distance.

 

[ruthies12]

Glad you are at the closer hotel! The walk is very manageable and overall a pleasant one. The path goes by the lake and is nicely landscaped. The only little frustration is sometimes seeing the resort boats go by! We always joke about swimming out and jumping on. We have stayed at the Doubletree several times. Walking is actually not that much longer than driving as the light takes forever. And if you drive, you have to park in the garage anyway so you only save a little bit of distance.

Thank you for the reassurance about the walk! I was a little hesitant about it but we are only doing that walk once. We are saving a ton of money by doing the arrival night and the following night at that Holiday Inn, and aren't going to the park until our first full day the day after check in. Then the next full day we are checking out and driving over to royal pacific to check in and get our expresses passes, then will hop on the boat to the park.

I figure the walk over in the morning while sipping my coffee will be quite nice, the walk back at the end of the day will probably feel like forever lol!

 

[elaine amj]

If you absolutely need to, you can take an uber back. It's about $5 or so But you would still have to walk all the way to Hard Rock Hotel or RPR to request the uber, so only about 5-10 min savings on the walking part.

Most of the time, we used it as an after-checkout hotel. We'd leave our stuff at bell check, play in the parks all day, then go back to the hotel, grab our luggage, and call an uber to get across the street.

 

[2neverland]

Believe we will use timeshare exchange and stay off property. Disney has a lot of construction going on. Will hit that for one day at mk or do party there. Do universal and maybe sea world. Gets a little pricey trying to stay on property at both u.s. and disney.

 

[2neverland]

Well grabbed a deal at disney with their 4day/3night package. Now to figure a deal with universal that works. Trying to fit in and budget. We are ending the trip on our first cruise on the disney dream 4night cruise.Will be skipping florida for a few years after this trip to spread our wings

 

[crazy_for_the_dis]

We just did a 3 way split stay and it worked great.

2 nights at Ressidence in for Sea World
4 nights in a cabin at Fort Wilderness
2 nights at Royal Pacific

I would do the split stay every time. The location of the UO resorts, early entry to WWoHP and the unlimited Express Pass are almost priceless.

FYI - we did not get the same value staying on site at Sea World. Would not do that again.

This is 100% what we normally do and are doing this summer. I used hotel points for the 2 night Sea World portion, and going to Discovery Cove, so we think it is a good value. Then Universal for 3 nights, then Disney for 4 nights. We always do a split stay. And usually recommend doing the Disney part first Universal last,since the unlimited express passes will spoil you! And Universal Resort just seems more relaxing. Also planning Universal on the busier weekend days, since with the express passes, the lines will have little impact on your stay. This trip we couldn't plan it that way since the magical deal we got with our Disney days impacted our dates.

 

[rsagusti]

We added on 3 nights + 3 day park-park passes for Universal for our next Trip, we do 6 nights 5 park days at Disney annually so this was adding on to the front. No Car, staying at Holiday Inn Across for Universal (in a suite) for only $1000 (2 adults, 2 kids).