Disney vs Universal resorts

[michyi]

My family is heading to Orlando in February for a soccer tournament (president's day weekend). We are planning to extend our stay (feb.19-23). Our plan is to spend 2-3 days at the universal parks. We will probably do a day or 2 at Disney parks as well. I've only stayed on Disney property and Disney parks. We've never been to universal resorts or parks. Have you found it to be cheaper to stay at Disney or universal? We have a car and I plan on getting unlimited express passes. I appreciate you thoughts and ideas. Disney resort ideas... POR, ASMu family suites, AoA...

We've previously stayed at Polynesian (2011)and Beach Club(2014)



Michyi 40
Dh 40
DS 13
DS 11
DD 9

 

[TheSouthernBelle]

Disney and/or Universal can be cheaper than one another, it just depends on where you stay. If you do a value at disney, it will be less than Hard Rock and vice versa (universal does Premier level down to Prime value. Neither is cheap when it comes to resort hotels. If you don't want to switch hotels, I would recommend off property and just stay at an Orlando area hotel. If you would like the benefits of staying on disney property, I would recommend POR of your above choices. I have not ever stayed on site at Universal so I have no recommendations there. But we've priced them out and they can be just as pricey as poly at disney or Boardwalk. Really, if you want the on property benefits, I say go for it, all the resorts at universal look great and have some nice perks for staying on site. POR has beautiful grounds, IMO it's the nicest of the moderate range resorts and we loved the royal guest rooms. That was a hit for my girls ages 8 & 10 at the time. Even my DH liked the princess room. The only negative I have heard about POR is the size, it's a larger resort. It never affected our stay. We never had bus issues as many have commented. I would def stay there again. Your trip sounds great, hope yall have a blast!!!

 

[TheSouthernBelle]

Oh and I'll add, I love Disney in February, you will enjoy the weather. We went earlier this year at that time and the weather was perfect. A little chilly in the morning but by midday, low 80s and little to no humidity, heaven.

 

[GeorgiaHoo]

My family is heading to Orlando in February for a soccer tournament (president's day weekend). We are planning to extend our stay (feb.19-23). Our plan is to spend 2-3 days at the universal parks. We will probably do a day or 2 at Disney parks as well. I've only stayed on Disney property and Disney parks. We've never been to universal resorts or parks. Have you found it to be cheaper to stay at Disney or universal? We have a car and I plan on getting unlimited express passes. I appreciate you thoughts and ideas. Disney resort ideas... POR, ASMu family suites, AoA...

We've previously stayed at Polynesian (2011)and Beach Club(2014)



Michyi 40
Dh 40
DS 13
DS 11
DD 9

We are going to Disney in November for 9 nights but are spending 1 night in the middle at Hard Rock. The cost for Hard Rock for 4 adults (me, wife and 2 adult-aged kids) is around $380, while the cost for Yacht Club is over $425 a night (couldn't get a discounted room during our stay). But by staying at Hard Rock we get the free (well, you pay for the hotel but otherwise free) unlimited express pass, and it would cost me about $250 just to buy the express pass. So I'd recommend staying at one of the Universal hotels that offer the unlimited express pass even if it costs a bit more than the one's that do not. For a hotel I'd probably go with perhaps the suite - we've stayed at POR in past years when our kids were about the same ages as yours and it felt really crowded.

 

[JustCallMeMommy]

If you are planning to buy the unlimited express pass, you'll probably find that it is cheaper to stay onsite at Portofino Bay, Hard Rock, or Royal Pacific where the unlimited express pass is included in the price of the hotel. It is worth every cent, IMO. If I were to do a 50/50 stay between Universal and Disney, the price breakdown between the two would be pretty similar.

I usually find the Royal Pacific is the cheapest of the three Universal hotels with the express pass. Its theming is beautiful, the rooms are large, and the boats (or walking path) to City Walk are very convenient. You won't have any regrets. It sounds like Universal is the main focus, so I'd probably stay there the whole time, though we have done split stay between Disney and Universal.

 

[hedberg1661]

For the express pass savings alone it may be worth it to stay at Universal.

 

[bumbershoot]

Have you found it to be cheaper to stay at Disney or universal? We have a car and I plan on getting unlimited express passes. I appreciate you thoughts and ideas.

I haven't compared them.

But Loews resorts are VERY worth it.

Royal Pacific, Hard Rock, and Portofino are terrific hotels. They include early entrance to one of the Wizarding Worlds every morning, and they also include Unlimited Express Pass for everyone on your reservation, which is usable from checkin to park-closing on checkout day. They are great hotels with great perks.

Sapphire Falls and Cabana Bay have early entrance to wizarding world.


I book through loews directly: https://uo.loewshotels.com/en/booking/uo?hotel=UEPBH,UEHRH,UERPR

Oh and I'll add, I love Disney in February, you will enjoy the weather. We went earlier this year at that time and the weather was perfect. A little chilly in the morning but by midday, low 80s and little to no humidity, heaven.

It's not necessarily like that, though. For the Princess 5K 2015 it was below 30 degrees. It can be quite cold!

If you are planning to buy the unlimited express pass, you'll probably find that it is cheaper to stay onsite at Portofino Bay, Hard Rock, or Royal Pacific where the unlimited express pass is included in the price of the hotel. It is worth every cent, IMO.

Definitely.

 

[PlainJane]

I've only walked around the 3 main Universal Resorts. I have stayed at a lot of the Disney resorts. We normally have an Annual Pass to Disney, so it's just never made sense to tack on a Universal leg for us. I'm the only thrill seeker, so Disney is a better fit.

Anyway, before touring the properties I always assumed I would like Portofino the best. This might sound silly, but I was turned off by Portofino's "fake" architectural detailing. A lot of the details were painted on and from far away look real, but look kind of cheap up close.

Hard Rock was a cool hotel. Definitely looked like a nice place to stay. Royal Pacific was my favorite. The theming was great and just looked like a beautiful hotel.

I would personally stay at a Universal Hotel for the days you will be touring their parks because you want the Unlimited Express Pass and switch to Disney when you are touring their parks, so you can benefit from 60 fastpass+, EMH, etc. My only concern is that it might be a shock to the system to stay at the resorts you are considering after Poly and BC. POR is a very nice resort, but the rooms are a lot smaller. The Values are just a very different experience from a deluxe stay, they are more geared toward delighting small children. I've stayed at both BC and Poly, and I still enjoyed my stay at ASMu, but not everyone hops happily between the categories.

 

[PixieT78]

I definitely prefer to stay on site at Universal if at all possible. We were looking at not staying on site this time and even just doing one day of express passes made it only slightly less expensive to stay at Pop the whole time so we went with the Hard Rock Hotel. We loved it the first time we stayed there. The walking access to the parks really can't be beat. And Early Entry to the HP areas is a huge bonus since that's the biggest reason we are there.

 

[Long Beach Mike]

I would definitely recommend a split stay. The benefit of getting free express passes at the PB, HR and RP. Our family loves Portofino Bay, which has an amazing pool with a slide, great dining options, and in our opinion amazing theming. The boats to and from the parks are also very efficient and beautiful.

 

[Kimberle]

I have stayed at a ton of WDW resorts, and the Hard Rock and Royal Pacific at US. I would highly recommend staying at a US resort hotel for at least 2 nights. You get an express pass (deluxe resorts) that gives you unlimited rides. The one you purchase only gives you 1 ride per ride per day. You don't need to worry about making ADR's, just eat when you're hungry! We LOVE the Kitchen at HR. The express feature works at many of the restaurants in their market area. The pools are so beautiful, if you've a nice day, be sure to spend time at the pools. You only go through security once. You can walk between the parks and shopping area freely. We love WDW, but we love the US resorts too.

 

[izzylovesmickey]

We tend to stay at a Universal resort if we are going to the parks there. The unlimited express pass is great and since it's a perk of the 3 hotels it is well worth it. We've stayed at RPR and HR. Of the two, we prefer HR. We found the staff more pleasant and helpful at HR and prefer the decor (although we haven't stayed at RPR since the reno). Will probably try Portofino the next time. Hope you have a great time wherever you stay!

 

[ExpatDisneyLover]

I have stayed at Cabana Bay for two weeks - visiting both Disney World and Universal. I thought the Loews resorts were well worth the price and would definitely book again. Even the "value" Cabana Bay was more along the lines of a moderate resort at WDW. The beds were super comfortable - fairly large sized room and bathroom. I loved the convenient transportation to Universal and driving to Disney was pretty quick all things considered. Next trip I want to book the Portofino Bay club level - think it is well worth the price. In general I think you get more for your money at Universal regarding hotels.

 

[Princess Minnie321]

We are doing a split stay with universal and Disney. I booked to stay at the royal pacific so we would get the express pass. I have stayed at the portifino and have walked through the hard rock and royal pacific. They are all nice so I chose the royal pacific because it was a lower price. We decided to fly down a day earlier and I could not get the sale price I got when I booked a few months ago so we decided to save $100 for the night and stay at sapphire falls since we are not doing parks the first day and the pool has a water slide.

 

[Pipkin]

We stayed for 4 nights st Sapphire Falls for a meeting. We found the room rather small, slightly larger than a moderate at WDW. The resort was beautiful with a very nice lobby and pool area. The restaurant was awful. Costco chicken was better. Generally speaking we found meal prices higher and only had one or two good meals. Emerils was disappointing. We had a four day park hopper pass and only used two days. Two days was enough for us. Early entry was by showing a room key. I could have shown anything. The staff doesn't really seem to pay attention.

 

[bumbershoot]

I was turned off by Portofino's "fake" architectural detailing. A lot of the details were painted on and from far away look real, but look kind of cheap up close.

Fwiw it's a total copy of the area in Italy. Trompe l'oeil involves the painting-on of such details.

The one you purchase only gives you 1 ride per ride per day

You can buy the unlimited now. It's just more expensive.

 

[Imamom2]

We have stayed at Hard Rock and Royal Pacific and both are lovely. Big rooms and great amenities. 2 nights/3 days at Universal in February will let you see everything with Express Pass. I have not stayed at any value resorts at WDW but many here rave about AoA and family suites. I really like POR and I think they do have the trundle bed. Beautiful resort with great food choices and a really nice pool. The suite for a family of 5 might work better for you tho' so it might come down to availability. Have fun!

 

[goofy4tink]

Well.....I'm heading down to WDW for Food and Wine Race weekend. We arrive on Monday, the 30th. On the 31st, we drive over to US/IoA, check into Portofino Bay for the day/night. Then, back to Music on the 1st. Yes, I'll have two rooms for one night, but it's cheaper to stay at PB, and get Express included and then get a decent night sleep after HHN!
The resorts over at US are so nice. Yes, they can be more expensive than WDW resorts, but they are nicer!
I always recommend staying at a resort at the parks you are going to....go to WDW, stay in one of their resorts. Go to US/IoA? Stay in one of their resorts, especially to get Express Pass, but that's only at the top three resorts, not the less expensive ones.

 

[PlainJane]

Fwiw it's a total copy of the area in Italy. Trompe l'oeil involves the painting-on of such details.

I had wondered if that was the case. I still don't find it visually appealing, but at least there was a reason for it.

 

[michyi]

Thank you so much for all of the good advice. I am going to book Royal Pacific.