Jeremy Nolen
Earning My Ears
- Joined
- Dec 4, 2017
- Messages
- 41
Hi all - long time lurker on the forum but I've never felt compelled to chime in on the WDW boards. However, my family just finished a quick 4-day trip to Universal and I have a lot of random thoughts about it. In the interest of threading I will break this up into 3 posts - this one, one on the parks, and one on dining and general experience thoughts.
First, a little background and context. My family are big Disney fans and have been to WDW several times in the last couple of years. We had considered splitting our time between WDW and Universal our last week-long trip, but decided against it mostly because of Disney's clever marginal pricing strategy, which makes it very cost-inefficient to do a couple of days at USF instead of a 5th or 6th day at WDW.
In the last couple of years my kids have gotten to the age and maturity that more frequent travel (and traveling to new places) is a lot more fun, and they both read and enjoyed the Harry Potter books. So over the summer, we decided to surprise them with a quick trip to Universal, largely to do the Wizarding World, but my daughter and I also greatly enjoy roller coasters and we all love wandering around theme parks (who doesn't?) We planned this out back in July (which would have been late planning for a WDW trip!) but since there aren't Advance Reservations or FastPasses to deal with, the whole trip had a much more ad hoc feel to it.
In terms of pricing, we paid about $2,100 for 3 nights @ Cabana Bay in a suite, 4 day 'park to park' passes for 3 adults and 1 child, and the 'super star shuttle' to and from the airport. Interestingly, that is almost EXACTLY how much we paid for our last 4 night, 5 day trip to WDW, with the main difference being that we didn't spring for Park Hopper passes that trip, and we stayed at an All-Star resort on promotional pricing (something like $110 a night, if I remember correctly.) I arranged our air travel separately but it was about $800 for the 4 of us, round trip, which is about what we paid for our last trip flying to WDW.
We stayed at Cabana Bay (more on that later) for 3 nights, and arrived early enough Thursday (and left late enough Sunday) that we basically got 2 full days and 2 half days. We flew into MCO via JetBlue and used the 'superstar shuttle' to get to and from the resort.
The travel experience was painless and efficient. We got off the plane at about 11:45 and were checking in at the resort at 12:45 or so. For the return to the airport, the hotel held our baggage (since we had about 5 hrs between checkout and when we needed to leave the parks.) The shuttle was exactly on time and deposited us at MCO 2 hrs and 50 min before our flight time. Interestingly, security lines were not nearly as bad as expected and it only took us about 30 min to reach our gate after being dropped off.
Cabana Bay was a very good experience. The retro-futurism theme is very well executed, and comes off as charming rather than tacky. For the price, it absolutely blows a Disney Value resort out of the water. We paid about $175 a night for a 'suite' (really just a small screened off living room with a hide-a-bed sofa) which was nicely decorated and themed, 1st floor, and about 30 yards from the access to the garden path leading to Citiwalk (on the other hand, the hike back to the bus pickup/dropoff was a fair distance IF you are trying to minimize walking, which we weren't.) The zero entry salt water pool was fantastic, and the 'diner' food court was actually reasonably priced and the food was better than I expected, if not anything special. Beds were comfortable and the resort was much quieter than the times I have stayed at a WDW value resort, although that may have been a reflection of the relatively low attendance the resort seemed to be having while we were there.
The resort staff (front desk, baggage handlers, and food service/bartenders) were all EXTREMELY friendly and helpful, and very professional. This was one area where I expected Universal to lag behind Disney, but that was not the case.
My #1 favorite thing about USF vs. WDW is that you can WALK EVERYWHERE. I hate hate hate waiting around for buses at Disney, but driving is an inefficient way to go to the Magic Kingdom, and there is no way to walk to ANY park staying at the value resorts at WDW. At USF, it is an easy 15 min walk from Cabana Bay to Citiwalk (and you get your own private security checkpoint, which we seemed to be the only people who used during our stay) and even from the furthest point in either park, you can walk back to the middle of Citiwalk in about 10 minutes (maybe 15 if moving against crowds.) That being said, you will walk a lot. We averaged 26K steps per day over our 4 day visit, and hit just over 32K steps our 2nd full day. That's similar to what we were doing per day on our last 'park-hopping' visit to WDW, but in slightly fewer hours, at the Universal parks have earlier close than their WDW equivalents.
In the interest of science, we actually timed door-to-park time using the bus vs. walking, and walking was 7 minutes faster than the bus, on a bus trip where we didn't have to wait for a bus and it left within 2 minutes of our boarding. I suspect on average walking would be 10+ minutes faster, not even counting the potential time savings of having a separate, under-used security checkpoint.
If (when?) we come back, I would probably keep the same options (no rental car, stay at Cabana Bay with a suite) but might add one more day to the trip.
Coming up next - the PARKS!
First, a little background and context. My family are big Disney fans and have been to WDW several times in the last couple of years. We had considered splitting our time between WDW and Universal our last week-long trip, but decided against it mostly because of Disney's clever marginal pricing strategy, which makes it very cost-inefficient to do a couple of days at USF instead of a 5th or 6th day at WDW.
In the last couple of years my kids have gotten to the age and maturity that more frequent travel (and traveling to new places) is a lot more fun, and they both read and enjoyed the Harry Potter books. So over the summer, we decided to surprise them with a quick trip to Universal, largely to do the Wizarding World, but my daughter and I also greatly enjoy roller coasters and we all love wandering around theme parks (who doesn't?) We planned this out back in July (which would have been late planning for a WDW trip!) but since there aren't Advance Reservations or FastPasses to deal with, the whole trip had a much more ad hoc feel to it.
In terms of pricing, we paid about $2,100 for 3 nights @ Cabana Bay in a suite, 4 day 'park to park' passes for 3 adults and 1 child, and the 'super star shuttle' to and from the airport. Interestingly, that is almost EXACTLY how much we paid for our last 4 night, 5 day trip to WDW, with the main difference being that we didn't spring for Park Hopper passes that trip, and we stayed at an All-Star resort on promotional pricing (something like $110 a night, if I remember correctly.) I arranged our air travel separately but it was about $800 for the 4 of us, round trip, which is about what we paid for our last trip flying to WDW.
We stayed at Cabana Bay (more on that later) for 3 nights, and arrived early enough Thursday (and left late enough Sunday) that we basically got 2 full days and 2 half days. We flew into MCO via JetBlue and used the 'superstar shuttle' to get to and from the resort.
The travel experience was painless and efficient. We got off the plane at about 11:45 and were checking in at the resort at 12:45 or so. For the return to the airport, the hotel held our baggage (since we had about 5 hrs between checkout and when we needed to leave the parks.) The shuttle was exactly on time and deposited us at MCO 2 hrs and 50 min before our flight time. Interestingly, security lines were not nearly as bad as expected and it only took us about 30 min to reach our gate after being dropped off.
Cabana Bay was a very good experience. The retro-futurism theme is very well executed, and comes off as charming rather than tacky. For the price, it absolutely blows a Disney Value resort out of the water. We paid about $175 a night for a 'suite' (really just a small screened off living room with a hide-a-bed sofa) which was nicely decorated and themed, 1st floor, and about 30 yards from the access to the garden path leading to Citiwalk (on the other hand, the hike back to the bus pickup/dropoff was a fair distance IF you are trying to minimize walking, which we weren't.) The zero entry salt water pool was fantastic, and the 'diner' food court was actually reasonably priced and the food was better than I expected, if not anything special. Beds were comfortable and the resort was much quieter than the times I have stayed at a WDW value resort, although that may have been a reflection of the relatively low attendance the resort seemed to be having while we were there.
The resort staff (front desk, baggage handlers, and food service/bartenders) were all EXTREMELY friendly and helpful, and very professional. This was one area where I expected Universal to lag behind Disney, but that was not the case.
My #1 favorite thing about USF vs. WDW is that you can WALK EVERYWHERE. I hate hate hate waiting around for buses at Disney, but driving is an inefficient way to go to the Magic Kingdom, and there is no way to walk to ANY park staying at the value resorts at WDW. At USF, it is an easy 15 min walk from Cabana Bay to Citiwalk (and you get your own private security checkpoint, which we seemed to be the only people who used during our stay) and even from the furthest point in either park, you can walk back to the middle of Citiwalk in about 10 minutes (maybe 15 if moving against crowds.) That being said, you will walk a lot. We averaged 26K steps per day over our 4 day visit, and hit just over 32K steps our 2nd full day. That's similar to what we were doing per day on our last 'park-hopping' visit to WDW, but in slightly fewer hours, at the Universal parks have earlier close than their WDW equivalents.
In the interest of science, we actually timed door-to-park time using the bus vs. walking, and walking was 7 minutes faster than the bus, on a bus trip where we didn't have to wait for a bus and it left within 2 minutes of our boarding. I suspect on average walking would be 10+ minutes faster, not even counting the potential time savings of having a separate, under-used security checkpoint.
If (when?) we come back, I would probably keep the same options (no rental car, stay at Cabana Bay with a suite) but might add one more day to the trip.
Coming up next - the PARKS!
or do one night at HRH so you get 2 days worth of EPs then switch to a cheaper hotel. Price Royal Pacific too. None of the hotels are far!!
