Does anyone know when Universal starts allowing booking of tickets/hotels/packages for the following year (specifically, Jan 2026)?


Dang it. All park entry is for 3 days. I was looking at 2.
Decisions!
In the same boat with booking 2 days. I think we might just do 1 epic day and go back over to studios/IoA for our 2nd day. I'm pretty confident we'll have a good day at IoA/studios, feeling iffy about epic, and 2 iffy days in a row would be frustrating.
 
I was curious to see if weekends would be priced cheaper since I've been reading that Sunday has the lowest crowds...doesn't seem to be the case though
 
Catch 22. If you buy it now, they'll put out a discount next week. If you wait, the price will go up next week.

I will say, you can always upgrade your pass. IE if you buy a 2 park pass and then Epic passes become available, I'm fairly sure you'd be able to upgrade to include Epic - you can do this right now with Volcano Bay, or to upgrade to a more expensive AP.

Since Disney just increased prices, fair chance that Universal could also. The AP isn't active until you use it, so you're not losing out on anything by buying now and hanging onto it until May. That would protect you from any increases that might happen.

The bigger concern would be if they offer a deal on APs (generally this is a free 3 extra months). Normally you can't apply that deal retroactively. However, I believe if you end up activating the AP while the deal is still valid, you could have them add the deal at the time of activation (if price increased in the interim, you would also have to pay the difference). Pretty sure I read people doing that last year. If they release a deal right after you've bought your AP, you can also call and nicely ask if it can be applied - IME they might refund and allow you to repurchase with the deal - this would require you to have bought direct from Universal and get a nice person on the phone. I did that last year when they did the extra 3 months within a week of me purchasing our APs, but we went on an extra trip specifically because of those extra 3mos so Universal made out pretty good on that.

It really depends on which would irritate you more - waiting and having the price go up, or buying now and missing out on a deal later.
Thank you CAPSLOCK for that info. I think I will buy it this week and look for upgrades to show up. That sounds very reasonable to me. It's true, you never know whether you should buy it now or wait. I am opting for the buy now option, lol.
 
I also stuck with 2 days. I liked the idea of flexibility for if rides aren’t working one day, but we’re going to risk it. We are kind of pinched in on either side of our trip for a third day. We arrive late afternoon so that makes no sense as a park day, and the other side at the end is the last day that dinosaur is operating at AK and we want to go do that.

2 days with one all at epic should be okay for us. Just hoping that we don’t have bad breakdown luck.
 
It looks like the 2026 options start with 3 day and up tickets, with a park to park ticket you can go everyday to Epic.
Yeah, that's what I see. But that stinks if you have an AP and only want two days at Epic. I don't understand why they don't have just Epic 2-day tickets, or even 3-day tickets. You're paying more to be able to park hop between the three parks.
 
I have an AP and will be purchasing 2 single day Epic tickets for my upcoming January trip.
That is what I did. I purchased mine back in March for a November 2025 trip that we had to cancel and just today I was able to switch the ticket dates over to January.

I am hoping that once we get there and I activate my annual pass, I will be able to get the discounted annual passholder rate for Epic and be credited the difference.
 
My adult daughter is coming on the trip with me and my husband, but she is paying her own way and getting her own room. I just did the math - if Universal will refund the difference for the Epic tickets after the AP
Is activated, it will cheaper for her to purchase an AP and add 2 1-day Epic tickets than it will be to purchase a vacation package.
Now my husband wants an AP too. He hasn't been to Universal in almost 8 years.
 
Probably even cheaper still to get an AP rate on the room. Take a look for the dates she needs, she doesn't need to have the AP in hand to book the room.
She actually booked the room at the AP rate months ago before she knew if she was going to get the AP or if it would be more cost effective just to book a package. She got Terra Luna for $81 per night.

She doesn't know it, but we're going to buy her a seasonal pass for Christmas. I also just reserved a room for November 2026 for her birthday. I figure if we both have passes we need to use them at least one more time during the year.
 





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