Egads - How much time?

[gopherit]

I am in a quandry over our August trip!

Currently I have 3 nts booked in a club level room at RPRH, and 7 nts over at WDW @ OKW. I bought tix on-line (2 adult - got 2 kid free) and still need one more adult pass - will either get an AP adult (for the discounts) or aanother adult/kid pair of 2 day / play for five ticket set. Whatever. Planned on arriving on a Wed morning, enjoying the 2 parks Wed/Thur/Fri, then checking out and heading to OKW on Sat.

THought I had it all figured out, Right? NOT.

First of all - how much time is needed at US/IOA for a fam of five w/ FOTL ability in mid-August? Kids are 6,9,and 11. Two days? Three? Five?

What about Sea World? None of us have been - worth tapping off a Disney day to do Sea World? (DS9 has the Sea World Tycoon computer games and would be super-excited at prospect of seeing the "real deal"...)

I have noticed that hotel deals get sweeter with more than 3 nts (as in, doing a 4th night lowers the rate sometimes or makes you elegible for other packages, etc.) THinking about adding one more night at US/IOA, maybe reducing one at WDW... but how big are the US/IOA parks? MGM sized? MK sized? How much time should we allot to "see" it all? Moreover - since out tix are good for 5 days - should we just plan to use all 5 days? Or would we have done it all by day 3? Day 4?

ANd lastly - will we be so exhausted from US that WDW will be too much to handle? SHould we just switch our ressies to Disney's Vero Beach resort and recover on the sand? Or is US/IOA small enough that, given a relaxing first day at OKW, we should be able to takle our usual agenda at Disney (3 park days, one water park day, and a non-park day or two inbetween)?

AUGHH!

Normally by now I would already have my PS for every dining establisment DONE - I haven't made a single ressie, becuase this family can't decide how to handle "the dark side", LOL!

HELP ME!

 

[tinaluis]

First of all, welcome to the dark side! I think you'd do OK with 3 days at the US/IOA parks, especially with FOTL. The parks are about the size of MGM, so you can do 1 day at each park and then a third day to revisit favorite attractions. We've always gone at off-peak times so we've never had to make ADRs -- we've simply gotten into whatever restaurant we wanted to eat at. We love the US/IOA parks and a visit to Orlando wouldn't be complete without a visit to US/IOA.

Haven't been to SW in about ten years, but did want to mention that you can get a 20% discount on SW admission if you're a SWA Rapid Rewards Member.

Not sure if this is possible, but others have said that it's hard to wait in line at WDW after having had FOTL at US/IOA. Is it possible to re-arrange the order of your trip?

Have a great trip. Sounds like a lot of fun.

 

[Meagansmom]

1. You will be okay with 3 days. We usually do the three days and 7 days at WDW. We always do both Universal and WDW. Love both!

2. We bought the 5 day ticket this time for $89.00 (bought awhile ago - then they went up to $99.00, still cheap!) So we are staying 5 nights at HRH. FOTL is great!

3. Out of the 5 days at Universal, we will skip over to Sea World for a part of a day. We only do this 1 out of every 3 visits, love Sea World but there aren't alot of changes there that often. If you decide to do Sea World, check out the website for specials or here under Sea World. We got tickets for $49.40 apiece with a pepsi promotion. Pretty good price.

4. As far as the hotel - daughter always has to stay at HRH. RPR always seems to have better rates. I wish some better rates would come out, not as good as the rates years past.

Have fun! It is great!!!

 

[Sylvester McBean]

3 days onsite is perfect for your first time. a full day at each park and then an extra for hopping to re-hit your favorites.

the gates of US are just a few minutes from hard rock if you walk

the gates of IOA are a few minutes from US walking

no trams, busses, monorails needed. a water taxi is available if you choose

some of the sweetest restaurants in Orlando are the same few minute walk from your resort in Citywalk. others are located in the very same resorts

unlike Disney, Universal encourages pool hopping if you want to see the other resorts

the longest you'll wait in line staying onsite will probably be 10 minutes.

if you want to go to Vero to relax, that's cool. we like Vero. but you'll need to do it after your time at WDW, not Universal. Universal is going to spoil you. Seaworld is definately worth detracting a day from WDW, but that's a different thread.

welcome to the dark side.