For those who did a split vaca between Disney and Universal

[sydneysmom]

All of these Harry Potter / Daigon Alley threads have me kind of considering doing a 4 day at Universal and then 4 day at Disney, instead of the whole trip at Disney. I absolutely LOVE Harry Potter and seeing the pictures is just making me want to go so bad! Now, I'm not looking to open the "who is better" debate.... I already got slammed on another one of those threads! Just a simple conversation about doing BOTH in one trip. Because I think that BOTH have their value and BOTH are great parks....

For those of you that have done split vacations to each, did you find that you didn't have enough time to give each one? Was it too rushed? Would you start at Universal / finish at Disney? (not because Disney is better... I'm thinking because of ME) We've always just gone to Disney, so I don't know..... Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. Clearly, we have some time to nail this down, but I have started pricing it out to see how it looks....

 

[sethschroeder]

We added Universal to the end for the following reasons:

Supposedly less planning needed
Supposed to be a little more relaxed
Staying on site means we get through lines quickly with their "Fast Lane" or whatever its called

I would have a longer stay at Disney because I PERSONALLY believe:
Disney is 4 parks, 2 water parks, and a lot of places we love to do table service meals at
Universal is also a park where the primary reason we are doing HP so we can always decide more time in the future

Our trip:
September 3-14 at WDW Boardwalk Onsite
September 14-15 at Universal Royal Pacific Onsite

 

[BrianL]

Kinda depends on when you go, but 4 days at Uni is too much if it's the off-season, unless you just really want to repeat several attractions. We did 2 days at Uni on top of a 7 day WDW trip and we had as much time as we needed. It was not very crowded (except for the Halloween Horror Night whcih we also did). We left IoA before it even closed. In fact, on a subsequent trip, we did IoA on arrival day, getting there about noon, and we still got to do everything (this was in February 2013) and leave before closing.

Your mileage may vary, but I find I can get through Uni pretty quickly. Now, you might have to budget half a day just for the lines at Diagon Alley if you are going relatively soon.

 

[agavegirl1]

My last trip to Orlando was a split trip with US/IOA and WDW. We stayed 6 nights at BC at WDW and 4 nights at Royal Pacific at US/IOA. We went during a lower crowd level time and we able to do everything we wanted, multiple times. We enjoyed our time at both parks immensely. I think I would agree that doing US/IOA second with an onsite stay is the best option since it requires less planning/adhering to a plan and is a relaxing way to end your vacation.

I have also done US/IOA and WDW only vacations. For Universal, I stayed 4 nights. I would not stay fewer than that.

 

[Music City Mama]

We did a split stay in 2012 (6 nights at WDW first and then 3 nights at Universal).

We drive so ME wasn't a consideration. What I did consider was:

1. Thought I'd be too spoiled from the Universal express pass that I'd hate standing in lines at WDW.

2. Thought that by doing Universal second, it would be more relaxing since there's less planning.

3. Thought it would be easier to go home from vacation leaving Universal than WDW (from a sad to leave standpoint).

We are doing another split stay next June and will do Universal first this time around for a few reasons:

1. Universal has a lot of rides that nauseate me, so I'd rather get them over with. I really enjoy them, but I'd rather have the tamer rides at WDW for the second part of the trip.

2. Our WDW annual passes will last us from a June 2015 trip to a June 2016 trip so I need the 2015 one later in the month so I can take an earlier trip for the 2016 trip (while the APs are still valid). In other words, I need to push the WDW portion out farther in the month (hence, Universal first).

3. We've been to WDW so much that we don't really have to do everything so I actually think it will be the more relaxing part of our vacation (with 4 nights at Universal and 6 nights at WDW).

 

[stormer]

We do both every August. We spend three days in Universal, always staying at one of their hotels so we have a Express Pass, and then a week in Disney. We like to end with Disney. I would definitely do both, but I think three days is more than enough time to do Universal. If you have EP you can easily finish each park in less than a full day and still have pool time. That still leaves you one day to go back and redo your favorite things. We are not planning on sleeping late this trip. I think we are going to need early entry to get into all things Harry Potter because of the craziness. Normally at Universal we take our time and sleep in more than at Disney.

 

[momto3pirates]

We have done several split trips. We usually do 4 and 4, but we go into it knowing we will not get everything done at WDW. We go in November, so no water parks for us. We end with US/IOA because of the express pass. It will totally spoil you. We take magical express to WDW from MCO and then hire a car service to take us from Disney to the Universal hotel and then back to MCO.

 

[mefordis]

Those split vacations have always been the most expensive vacations. I guess it's because of transportation to the other resort, then the fact that tickets are front loaded so you spend less on a WDW vacation the longer you stay.

That said, I'd spend 3 nights at UA and 5 nights at WDW.

All of these Harry Potter / Daigon Alley threads have me kind of considering doing a 4 day at Universal and then 4 day at Disney, instead of the whole trip at Disney. I absolutely LOVE Harry Potter and seeing the pictures is just making me want to go so bad! Now, I'm not looking to open the "who is better" debate.... I already got slammed on another one of those threads! Just a simple conversation about doing BOTH in one trip. Because I think that BOTH have their value and BOTH are great parks....

For those of you that have done split vacations to each, did you find that you didn't have enough time to give each one? Was it too rushed? Would you start at Universal / finish at Disney? (not because Disney is better... I'm thinking because of ME) We've always just gone to Disney, so I don't know..... Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. Clearly, we have some time to nail this down, but I have started pricing it out to see how it looks....

 

[NavyDad]

We did 7 days at WDW and 3 days at USO in that order.

Both places are great and IMO a split vacation is the way to go. I would split my time at a 2 to 1 ratio in favor of Disney just due to the size and scope of each place.

If you are doing a total of 8 days 5 and 3 might be a better split.

We did not feel rushed at all. We did 4 Disney Park days, 2 water park days and the last day there did a Disney water park in the morning and visited IoA that evening. We were easily able to see and do everything in the IoA WWoHP side in one evening including FJ twice and getting wands. The rest of IoA was easily done from rope drop to early afternoon.

Overall a great trip and we will probably do split trips each visit to Orlando in the future....

 

[BurleyGirl]

We have done a split stay, and are doing one for our upcoming November trip. I love doing both, and highly recommend it!! Especially since you are HP fans. The first time we did Universal first for three nights, then moved over to Disney for five nights, staying onsite at both. I really liked having Disney to look forward to, and it worked out superbly. You just can't top Wishes as the last thing you do on your trip!!

This time we are reversing our strategy, simply because we are going over Thanksgiving week, and Universal's Express Pass (staying onsite at Portofino Bay, which is so reminiscent of being in an Italian village...loved it!) will be more beneficial to us on the busier part of that week (Thanksgiving Day and Friday) than I feel Disney's FP+ will be. I'm sad to know that Disney/Wishes will not be the last thing I see, but the hype of the new Diagon Alley (and we've not been there since HP was opened, either) is something to also look forward to. We will have six nights at Disney (Yacht Club) and three at Universal (Portofino Bay). We will do four park days and one resort/Disney Quest day (my guys love DQ), then have the one day of transferring over to Universal. We'll spend the morning at DQ again and then move over late afternoon, and depending upon if we get a two or three day ticket (cost will be the deciding factor...hoping for a buy two, get one day free deal), we'll either go to a park that evening or have dinner at Citiwalk (lots of things to choose from, not to mention the resorts have good options, too.)

We will use a car service to take us from Disney to Universal and then to the airport, which is going to cost about $100 for both trips. That's the downside...you only get to use ME for one way.

Anyway, this was a long way of saying that I think you should go for it

 

[Karbase8]

I am doing this for the first time August 16th-24th we are staying at the Royal Pacific 1st for 3 nights and doing a US two day pass and the remainder at Pop. It will be interesting as I haven't been to Universal since 1996. I am even thinking since we go to WDW with the exception of our FP an dining reservations not doing big plans and just going more relaxed. Will see how it goes

 

[FutureDis]

Those split vacations have always been the most expensive vacations. I guess it's because of transportation to the other resort, then the fact that tickets are front loaded so you spend less on a WDW vacation the longer you stay.

That said, I'd spend 3 nights at UA and 5 nights at WDW.

Split stays are always painful to me because of the front loaded ticket prices. It is so much cheaper to add a few more days to disney, than it is to add a few days of Universal. Personally, we just plan alternate vacations at one or the other. I'm a huge HP fan too, but I just couldn't bring myself to pay the extra for our upcoming Disney vacation, and instead will wait until next year to do Universal (plus give it a bit of time to die down there... not that I expect it to die down much. LOL)

 

[Kat913]

We are doing a split stay for the first time this august. I prefer to end with disney because for me there is nothing like that disney magic feeling. We are doing 3 nights at royal pacific with the 1st day a resort day off the plane. The 2nd & 3d day will be our park days. With the express pass I really don't feel I need more time there honestly (except for the new HP section). Last time we went to IOA we were done with the whole park by mid afternoon including waiting for 2 rides that were broken to reopen & we took our time! The fourth morning we will travel to disney.
Really looking foward to seeing diagon alley! Know we will not be sleeping in at universal this trip!
We will then be heading to disney for a week at AKL & plan on having a more relaxing trip then we usually do there. It will be hot & we plan on taking breaks & swimming so think I will enjoy ending there
Happy planning

 

[ThinkTink09]

We're doing a split stay for the first time also. I ended up deciding to do Disney first, then head over to Universal and have the trip split right in the middle - 6 days/6 days.

For us, the deciding factor was that going to Universal last allows for more time at Halloween Horror Nights. It's a great deal to get the rush of fear pass (multiple nights for less than 1 night's admission) so we'll get 3 nights in and not have to worry about purchasing an express pass to see all the houses.

We're staying at Cabana Bay, so no front of the line, but I've done 1 day trips to the darkside around the same time (oct) and did not find that it was needed. I'm looking forward to see HP expansion, and am super psyched to stay on site. CityWalk seems like so much fun after park closing!!

We'll use the ME to get to Disney, and than cab it to Universal and then back to MCO. My total trip cost isn't that much more than staying the same length of time at Disney. Cabana Bay is really what made the trip affordable for me.

Good luck planning

 

[vleeth]

We did both sets of parks on our last trip but stayed at Disney and drove to Universal. We had free dining and I didn't like the idea of packing and moving. We did one day at each Universal park and were done before the park closed. My dd and I are big HP fans so I figured we'd spend the entire day at IOA but it just wasn't needed. We spent plenty of time in WWOHP but there wasn't a whole bunch more for us to do. While Diagon Alley wasn't open (and that may make a difference) we were done with Universal Studios in half a day.

 

[Planogirl]

We have done split stays where we stayed onsite at both resorts or offsite for the whole trip. We always have a car so it's easy.

I would suggest 3 days minimum at Universal and the rest at WDW. If you like pools, pool hopping is allowed at Universal which is a nice extra.

 

[tinkerbellmagic]

We are doing a split stay between SeaWorld, Universal, and Disney. Two nights at each. Whew! This will be our first time ever at Universal. There are two Potter fans in our party.

I haven't been to SeaWorld since the 80s and am really looking forward to it, especially for nostalgic reasons and my grandson has been begging to go for quite some time.

I would have liked more time at Disney, four nights would have been much better than two, but two people in our party can't stay take any more time off (boo hoo). Yep, I didn't like the price of the front loaded tix, ouch. I even thought about talking the Potter fans into waiting next year to go to Universal, but they really want to go now and with the FP+ mess at Disney, I thought we may as well do it this way. I won't be too thrilled with moving 3x, but what the heck, it will be a fun trip.

I chose Disney for last because of ME and I thought maybe I just couldn't bear leaving Disney to go somewhere else. We are using a car service from mco to SW and a car service from Uni to Disney. Not sure about what to do about SW to Uni since it's a shorter distance. Then it's ME from Disney to MCO.

I am looking forward to exploring two new destinations in Orlando and will probably have to make other non-Disney destinations part of our trips from now on, but I know that my heart will always belong to Jiminy Cricket.

 

[harbin]

We are buying universal tickets with express pass and going in the middle of our WDW trip. So staying at POR and driving to universal for two days (back to POR every night). Does no one do this? It's a 20 min drive to universal right, we will have a car. Just wondering why everyone elects to stay at a universal resort? I know you get express pass as a hotel guest, but we are buying express pass, and it still works out to be cheaper staying at POR and having a rental car for two days.

 

[johde]

I've done several split trips including trips involving Busch Gardens, Seaworld, Universal and Disney World. On most of my trips I've had enough time. I'm a DVC member and used to do the weekends for Universal and Busch Gardens/Seaworld with Disney World in the Middle. Before point rebalancing week days were quite a bit cheaper than weekends.

My last trip was right after New Years and I didn't feel like I had enough time at either place.

You didn't ask about it. But in general, I've found counter service meals, except for Hamburgers, pizza and Chicken strips to be cheaper at Disney while I can find a good table service meal for less money at Universal. I don't eat many table service meals but I tend to save them for the Universal portion of the trip.

 

[louis11]

All of these Harry Potter / Daigon Alley threads have me kind of considering doing a 4 day at Universal and then 4 day at Disney, instead of the whole trip at Disney. I absolutely LOVE Harry Potter and seeing the pictures is just making me want to go so bad! Now, I'm not looking to open the "who is better" debate.... I already got slammed on another one of those threads! Just a simple conversation about doing BOTH in one trip. Because I think that BOTH have their value and BOTH are great parks....

For those of you that have done split vacations to each, did you find that you didn't have enough time to give each one? Was it too rushed? Would you start at Universal / finish at Disney? (not because Disney is better... I'm thinking because of ME) We've always just gone to Disney, so I don't know..... Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. Clearly, we have some time to nail this down, but I have started pricing it out to see how it looks....

We did a split vacation when the first half of Harry Potter opened. The crowds were absolutely insane . . . We had plenty of time for everything though!