How do you split your time between Disney and UA?

[PaulaSue]

Okay we have only done Disney at a Disney hotel with free airline pick up and the meal plan.

Do you switch hotels? (thinking of switching to a UA hotel for the perks)

Rent a car if you flew or is there another budget way to get back and forth (we have a family of 5)?

What worked for your family?

What was a budget buster?

I'm a big planner and it is driving me crazy trying to figure out how to do both on a budget. I have a lot of Disney GCs so we want to hit Disney at least some of the trip.

 

[lisaross]

WE did both last year.

We went to Disney 1st - flew down took Magical Express - stayed in Disney for 7 nights then we took a Cab over to Hard Rock - spent 3 nights their and then took a Cab to the airport.

We loved staying at Universal - definitly recommend it for the 2nd half of ur trip as its so relaxing compared to Disney.

Okay we have only done Disney at a Disney hotel with free airline pick up and the meal plan.

Do you switch hotels? (thinking of switching to a UA hotel for the perks)

Rent a car if you flew or is there another budget way to get back and forth (we have a family of 5)?

What worked for your family?

What was a budget buster?

I'm a big planner and it is driving me crazy trying to figure out how to do both on a budget. I have a lot of Disney GCs so we want to hit Disney at least some of the trip.

 

[ohanaMAMA]

quite honestly? we dont. My DH and I are ... pooh sized folks. There isnt really to much that UA has to offer for us. besides that? we just love the disney atmosphere. I went to UA as a teen and it the absence of "magic" made me want to run back accross town to Disney!

 

[possgroup]

Wouldn't do UA without staying on property. The front of the line access lets us whip through all the rides we want (multiple times!) so the extra hotel cost is more than saved by having a shorter trip and using the on-property boat transportation.

Then we switch hotels to a Disney on property -- again tapping into magic hours and fast disney transit (usually one of the boat accessible properties)

 

[Marionnette]

Okay we have only done Disney at a Disney hotel with free airline pick up and the meal plan.

Do you switch hotels? (thinking of switching to a UA hotel for the perks)

Rent a car if you flew or is there another budget way to get back and forth (we have a family of 5)?

What worked for your family?

What was a budget buster?

I'm a big planner and it is driving me crazy trying to figure out how to do both on a budget. I have a lot of Disney GCs so we want to hit Disney at least some of the trip.

Stayin onsite for fotl is key to doing universal. Join the lowes properties frequent stay program and use hotwire to book one of the onsite hotels. Check the universal forum for clues to see what ammenities to look for that indicate that the hotel is a universal hotel. We took mears from the airport to universal and then a cab to our disney resort when we switched hotels. Then we took magic express back to the airport. You may need to use mears to go bewtween universal and disney instead of a cab in order to accommodate your luggage and all the people. Biggest budget buster was tickets. Its so much cheaper to add three days to a disney pass than it is to buy a three day ticket for universal. Or you could argue that it is so much more expensive to buy a disney multi day pass than it is to get an orlando flex pass that covers universal, wet n wild, busch gardens, aquatica and sea world.

 

[pigletto]

I am going back and forth on this exact same issue. I think I have it narrowed down though. We will stay at Disney and since we have our own car we will drive over to Universal one or two days mid trip. We're getting the quick service dining plan so we'll grab an early morning CS breakfast at our resort, drive to Universal, eat lunch there and head back in the late afternoon and eat a late CS dinner.
I want to see Universal, and the kids want to do the Harry Potter area but I have no interest in going from open until close. We'll see what we see.

If we fall in love with it we'll plan a longer trip and stay at Universal next time.

 

[nashville_minnie]

what does the A in UA stand for? i get that you mean Universal, but i can't come up with what A means!

 

[HM]

We don't do both in the same trip. If we do WDW, we only do WDW. If we decide to to US/IOA we do it and SeaWorld in the same trip.

 

[Darcy03231]

If you have teens/tweens who love thrill rides and have been to WDW multiple times I would recommend you do US/IOA at the end of your WDW trip. We did it at the beginning and all my kids wanted to do was go back to US/IOA. Having had a taste of unlimited express pass (we stayed on-site at US/IOA for the perks) and having a much larger selection of thrill rides, they weren't happy with having to stand in line at WDW (even though we used fast passes and went during a slower time of year so the lines weren't long). I lost count of how many times I heard the rides at WDW were "lame."

 

[hibricc]

I am going back and forth on this exact same issue. I think I have it narrowed down though. We will stay at Disney and since we have our own car we will drive over to Universal one or two days mid trip. We're getting the quick service dining plan so we'll grab an early morning CS breakfast at our resort, drive to Universal, eat lunch there and head back in the late afternoon and eat a late CS dinner.
I want to see Universal, and the kids want to do the Harry Potter area but I have no interest in going from open until close. We'll see what we see.

If we fall in love with it we'll plan a longer trip and stay at Universal next time.

Haven't done this myself... yet. But wanted you to know that our plan is similar to yours. Driving down after Christmas, staying onsite at WDW for 9 nights, will "commute" to UO a couple of times during the first week of January (2-day/2-park discount tix from AAA). Figure the crowds at UO won't be quite as insane as Christmas week, so we'll have a better shot at seeing a bit more after New Years.

We considered staying onsite at UO for a day or two at the beginning or end of our trip to get FOTL, but we didn't relish the idea of adding a sixth hotel to our trip. (Once we get to FL, we want to "decamp" and settle in until we have to go home.) Plus, it was going to add several hundred dollars to the budget, and we're not planning to see everything at UO, just some things.

 

[mindyd]

I am going back and forth on this exact same issue. I think I have it narrowed down though. We will stay at Disney and since we have our own car we will drive over to Universal one or two days mid trip. We're getting the quick service dining plan so we'll grab an early morning CS breakfast at our resort, drive to Universal, eat lunch there and head back in the late afternoon and eat a late CS dinner.
I want to see Universal, and the kids want to do the Harry Potter area but I have no interest in going from open until close. We'll see what we see.

If we fall in love with it we'll plan a longer trip and stay at Universal next time.

We are doing the same thing in January and because Universal closes early are thinking of getting extra Disney tickets to maybe hit EMH once we leave Universal.

 

[iNTeNSeBLue98]

We went during a free dining promo late August to first couple of days in Sept a few years ago. Stayed onsite at Disney and used ME to get from the airport to the resort. I reserved a shuttle ride (large van) with Mears for two days- one for Universal, one for Islands. I think it was $18 pp RT from WDW to other theme parks. There are only three of us, but they also offer taxi and town car service, but I don't know how the rates would compare.