How many days is enough?

[torinsmom]

DS14 and I are planning a trip to Universal in June 2009. I know we can get the 7 day unlimited tickets for under $100 each. We had planned to stay 7 nights/8 days at the Extended Stay Suites in Orlando. We have some leftover plusses on our Disney tickets, so we will be spending one day at Typhoon Lagoon and one at DQ. That leaves 5 days for Universal. Question is, is that too much time? Should I plan on two days in each Universal Park, or is even that too much? We have never been to Universal, so I really have no idea.

Thanks!

Marsha

 

[Metro West]

DS14 and I are planning a trip to Universal in June 2009. I know we can get the 7 day unlimited tickets for under $100 each. We had planned to stay 7 nights/8 days at the Extended Stay Suites in Orlando. We have some leftover plusses on our Disney tickets, so we will be spending one day at Typhoon Lagoon and one at DQ. That leaves 5 days for Universal. Question is, is that too much time? Should I plan on two days in each Universal Park, or is even that too much? We have never been to Universal, so I really have no idea.

Thanks!

Marsha

I think two full days are enough time to see and do everything at Universal...three if you want to go back and do your favorites again. But June is fairly busy so you might want to take your time especially if you buy the seven day tickets...no need to rush then.

 

[torinsmom]

Hmmm.....maybe we should shorten our trip? 3 days total for Universal and then 2 days for the plusses. Guess that would knock some $ off from hotel and rental car costs. I am worried that if we get bored of Universal, I will end up caving and buying Disney tickets, which is really not in the budget.

Marsha

 

[Metro West]

Hmmm.....maybe we should shorten our trip? 3 days total for Universal and then 2 days for the plusses. Guess that would knock some $ off from hotel and rental car costs. I am worried that if we get bored of Universal, I will end up caving and buying Disney tickets, which is really not in the budget.

Marsha

I think three full days would be plenty of time...if you want to cut back and I don't think you would get bored at Universal. Saving some money isn't a bad thing.

 

[torinsmom]

I think three full days would be plenty of time...if you want to cut back and I don't think you would get bored at Universal. Saving some money isn't a bad thing.

LOL, yes saving money is quite a good thing!

Marsha

 

[Metro West]

LOL, yes saving money is quite a good thing!

Marsha

 

[torinsmom]

Or maybe we will spend the money we save on less nights at the hotel and go see Blue Man Group. That would be a surprise for DS; he has been wanting to see them!

Marsha

 

[Metro West]

Or maybe we will spend the money we save on less nights at the hotel and go see Blue Man Group. That would be a surprise for DS; he has been wanting to see them!

Marsha

I understand it's a great show! Also...don't forget about Sea World.

 

[macraven]

since you have never been to universal before, you might find more things to do there besides the parks.

you can cover it all in 3 days but our family always made it 5 full days for our universal trip. we spent 4 days for the parks and a few evenings and one day at international drive area.

we did each ride, coasters and all shows and took our time to sit and listen to the music at each island portion. we stayed on site and spent an afternoon at the pool after being in the park just for the morning.

for evenings, we took in one night at the cinema, hung out in city walk for the outdoor entertainment and did the water rides in the parks over and over. we also went to international drive and spent an afternoon and evening there.
don't laugh but we really got a kick out of "ripleys believe it or not" place...
if you haven't been to Old Town, you could spend an afternoon there browsing if that is your thing to do.

the rides we really enjoyed we did many repeats on them.

since you will be staying off site, and might have crowds at the time of year you go, play it by ear if you feel you need more than 3 days at the parks.

it all depends on what you want to do on your vacation.

some people only want the parks and that activities.
some like to shop or have down time for a show or the pool.

i have read trip reports where a family uses the vacation as a time to relax in their room instead of predominately being in a park.

like metro west said, it kind of depends on how crowded the parks are if you can do it all in 2 or 3 days.

Blue Man Group is another nice alternative to the parks for an evening.

 

[torinsmom]

At Disney, we went to the parks first thing, then went back to the room around 12:30 for lunch and to rest, swim, etc. Then we went back to the parks around 6. I imagine we will do the same thing for Universal. We can check out some other places during our breaks, since neither of us naps.

Marsha

 

[macraven]

is your hotel near major blvd? i saw an extended stay in that area before.
if it is, that is close enough to have the same touring plans at universal like you do at disney.

 

[torinsmom]

If I remember correctly, we are less than 2 miles from Universal. We should be able to go back to the room during the day.

Marsha

 

[lisareneeo]

We just returned and was there for 7 days. We did spend one day at Sea World and one day at Aqutica. I thought it was a little too much time. At Disney it would barely be enough but we had express pass (stayed at Hard Rock) and did almost everything at US the day we got there from 1:00pm-5:00pm Finished IOA in a day, plus had a nice sit down lunch at Mythos

The amount of days we had did allow us to sleep in and not rush to get to the parks which is quite different for us (usually go to Disney) and this was very nice.my son and I came back one day after two hours so he could go to the pool. Which was nice as well.

If you cut back to save $$$ I think you would be fine, although I do not know the crowd difference. We were there 10/29-11/4 Crowds did not exist when we were there

 

[Darcy03231]

In August 2007 we were in Orlando for 16 days. We spent 7 of them between US/IOA and had a wonderful time there. We got to see/do everything at least once and all of the favorites more than once! I loved being able to tour at a more relaxed pace and didn't feel as though I needed a vacation from my vacation when I got home. I don't think you'll be bored at all with 5 days at US/IOA.

 

[d4est]

Depends on who you are asking! For us, 2 or 3 days would never cut it...unless we had no choice (cause we would take 2/3 if it was our only option, a little is better than none!).

5 days is perfect. You can do 1 park each day and have time to relax in between. You have time to go back and do your favs. Considering that you are staying off site, and some of your time will be eaten up with just getting there and back, with driving, parking, walking from the garage to the parks and back again etc...we'll I'd want more than 2/3. Personally, I could take even more than 5, but...

Like I said, it depends on who you are asking. I would be very sad if I only had 2 or 3 days...