Disneyland AND Universal...Can it/should it be done?

[asfarrell]

So we are Disney World people but our daughter is a huge Walking Dead fan and has decided she wants to go to Universal Studios California for her birthday. Great! My issue...I am not going to California and NOT going to Disneyland....or do I?

Questions:
Is it a huge hassle to visit both parks?
Do we stay in one location and commute?
OR go to one park for 2 days and then switch hotels?
Which then means, possibly fly out of a different airport?

Disney World just makes it so easy and I am going to have to work for this trip...lol

Thank you!

 

[SMD]

Which park do you want to go to for 2 days? For USH you can fly into BUR or LAX. There are 2 hotels on the hill near the park (Hilton and Sheraton), there are also several others in the area with free shuttles (Sportsmens Lodge and The Garland). There is also a red line stop if you wanted to stay in Hollywood, but I wouldn't recommend that. For DLR most people fly into LAX or SNA, there is also LGB but not as many flights. For all of these options, most nonstops will go to LAX unless you're within an hour or so flight. LAX may also be a little bit cheaper a lot of the time, but if you're going to just DLR ground transpo can be more. If you do both, I'd recommend a rental car for at least the USH portion of the trip. Many people stay at DLR and do USH as a day trip, but if you want 2 days at USH or to add anything in LA I wouldn't recommend that either.

 

[haileymarie92]

You can easily do universal studios in one day. I personally wouldn't waste two days there as DL/DCA are much better parks, IMO.

If you're only doing 1 day at US, I would suggest just staying near Disneyland. There are shuttle companies that will take you to universal if you want, or you could rent a car.

 

[DLgal]

Stay near Disneyland. Rent a car. Go to Universal Hollywood for one day. You don't need more than that at all. It's a tiny park. Spend 2 days at Disneyland.

Fly into Orange County airport.

 

[sr1972]

I just made this exact trip for exactly the same reason I am a huge Walking Dead fan.

We flew into LAX on Friday evening, stayed one night at the Hilton across the street from Universal. I spent 1 day at Universal which I thought was plenty of time (I also had the front of the line tickets). That evening I had a car pick us up and we spent 3 nights at the Disneyland Hotel using a 3 day Park Hopper at Disneyland and California Adventure. I had a car pick us up from the hotel and bring us to LAX, we just got home last night.

Questions:
Is it a huge hassle to visit both parks? It wasn't a hassle at all, very easy.
Do we stay in one location and commute? I personally wouldn't, traffic was terrible, I prefer as little time on the road as possible.
OR go to one park for 2 days and then switch hotels? Yes, this is what I did and it was very easy.
Which then means, possibly fly out of a different airport? I flew into and out of LAX

 

[Geemo]

I VERY MUCH DISLIKE the road trip from DLR to UHS. The traffic in SoCal moves but it takes a long time for the drive.

One of my DGD wanted to see WWOHP at USH on our trip last October. Dreading the drive, either with a rental car or shuttle of some kind, I arranged for two trips. Having free airfare makes it possible.
In June right after school was out, she and I flew in to Burbank airport, for a day at UHS. The one day trip was fantastic! We both had such a nice time.

It made October's trip so much nicer for me.

I have decided if we plan to go to UHS during a DLR trip, we'll start there and stay in a hotel near UHS.
It makes the whole trip so much nicer. We have also learned to finish a SoCal trip at DLR.

 

[Leopardstars]

Doing both parks in one trip is totally doable. For our 2010 trip, we stayed across from Disneyland and then rented a car for two and drove to both Universal Studios and Sea World. I don't remember the traffic being that bad, but that can be subjective. If you do the rental car, try and stay at a hotel where the parking is either free or lower cost.

We flew out of LAX as that was only option for us based on where we were travelling from.

 

[DLgal]

The traffic isn't bad at all on weekends. If you can, go to USH on a Saturday or Sunday. I made the drive in about 35 min on a Saturday in August. Super easy.

 

[staceylacey1]

We did both last year and we will be doing both next month. It's very doable. We stayed at DLR and drove USH on a holiday Monday. The drive was very easy and not much traffic. I would recommend doing USH on a weekend if you are going to drive. Like others have said USH is a one day park.

 

[basketballmom]

We went to Disneyland over Christmas. My middle daughter really wanted to USH to see the Harry Potter stuff. I bought tickets online to receive the early entry. Since she and my husband went on Christmas Eve, I bought the tickets that were day specific.(I wasn't sure about crowds) They left the hotel about the same time we were leaving for early entry at Disneyland. They did everything they wanted to do at USH and we're back at Disneyland by around 8:00. We stayed at the disneyland hotel.

 

[illinidp]

I'd buy early entry tickets online and get there for early entry. The traffic won't be bad and you can get a lot done before noon at USH without much of a wait.

 

[Gillbob316]

I just want to say, I'm eyeballing a similar trip to that of the original poster, and this thread has been very helpful for me, kudos.

I'm likely traveling solo for a long weekend trip. I haven't chosen a weekend yet. But I know I'd verymuch like to do 1 day at Universal. Right now I heavily lean toward renting a car for the duration of my trip and driving there (not to mention driving to/from the airport and any other minor stops in and about the area).

I'm not certain I'd NEED a car... seems there's a shuttle to get you anywhere you need to go, and most Disneyland hotels are within walking distance to boot... but I prefer the convenience of making my own schedule, so I'd probably spring for one all the same. And from what I hear shuttles to Universal arrive at the park late and leave the park early, and that I know I don't want. I'd rather get myself up at the crack of dawn to drive out early for a full day. I'm a young man in my 30s with all the park stamina I'll need, haha.

 

[StormyCA]

We drive, which makes the 'logistics' quite different but we did both parks in three days over Xmas. We stayed in Lebec (on the Grapevine) and our drive into USH was a bit over an hour the next day

USH, to me, really isn't a 'whole day' park, if you do it right. We basically went to see WWoHP and spent most of our time there. We were there from around 9am - 7pm (ish) IIRC. It can be done in less time than that if you have a 'game plan' and pay attention to the map. We did quite a bit of aimless wandering around because other than WWoHP we really didn't care much what we did.

I'm not a fan of Walking Dead, but we did the 'experience'. Very underwhelming IMO. Nothing better than some of the good 'haunted houses' that pop up around Halloween.

The drive from USH to DLR is about 1/2 hr (34 mi) with no traffic. It took us about 50 mins since we were at the 'tail end' of rush hour.

 

[Michael Carpentiere]

Thanks to everyone posting tips and ideas on this thread, it has been very helpful. I will be going to DLR the end of March and we were planning to go to USH on Saturday 3/25/17. We were thinking of getting a front of line pass to make sure we can see everything we want in one day (mostly WWOHP). Right now we are scheduled to take a shuttle but after reading the posts here I am starting to question this decision. I will be keeping my eye on this thread.

 

[Michael Carpentiere]

We went to Disneyland over Christmas. My middle daughter really wanted to USH to see the Harry Potter stuff. I bought tickets online to receive the early entry. Since she and my husband went on Christmas Eve, I bought the tickets that were day specific.(I wasn't sure about crowds) They left the hotel about the same time we were leaving for early entry at Disneyland. They did everything they wanted to do at USH and we're back at Disneyland by around 8:00. We stayed at the disneyland hotel.

Hi, did they take a shuttle or rental car?

 

[jcarwash]

Last year we flew in and out of LAX and rented a car. The first, longer part of our trip was staying in Anaheim with 5 day tickets for Disneyland. The last, shorter part of our trip was relocating up to stay at the Hilton Universal (two night stay) and do a 1 day visit to Universal Hollywood. It was a great trip.

 

[MIChessGuy]

I will be doing this in late August. My understanding is that the only reasonable flights for me, due to distance, are in/out of LAX. I plan to rent a car and use a ticket deal that I got just before this month's price increase that includes 3-day PH at Disney and 1 day at USH. Although I've heard bad things about the drive to USH, since it is just for 1 day, I suppose I'll just suck it up and drive for however long it takes to get over there. (I've been visiting WDW and UO for years now; this will be my first visit to DLR since 1984.) I was surprised to find that USH is generally considered a 1-day park, but that's based on my many visits to UO which now has two Potter districts, the train connecting them, Simpsons land, Kong, Jimmy Fallon's ride about to open, etc. Apparently USH doesn't really compare.

 

[disneymum58]

My son and DIL wanted to see Universal Studios on our last trip, mostly for Harry Potter. Rather than rent a car and deal with the hassle of parking etc.(hotel and Universal), they decided to use Uber. It was around $50 (a bit less)each way from The Tropicana Inn and Suites and was super easy. I think they even got a discount for signing up of $15 off because it was their first trip.

 

[l4dyj8]

Your plan on going to universal on a weekend is great in terms of traffic. If you are able to fly out of Burbank, I would recommend that. It's just a few minutes from Universal.

 

[sharona]

Great thread.

We are considering a one day visit to USH in April. I understand the idea of a Saturday to avoid traffic but doesn't that 1/2 hour saved in getting there get eaten up by larger weekend crowds while you're in the park? I've been to USH once before and it was a Saturday in June and it was jammed. Not just long waits jammed -we had express pass thankfully- but it was so jammed you could barely get around. Worse than I've ever seen at USO or WDW. Lots of the guests we spoke with in lines were locals using APs.

Was this just a fluke? Is Saturday not a busier day than midweek? Not sure if SoCal schools were out for the summer when we went that year in late June or if they'll be in session this trip when we go - it's the week after Easter.

Thanks for your input on this.