How many days would you choose?

[LavenderWings]

Hi all,

We're in the beginning stages of planning our first trip to Universal for January of 2017, probably on the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th. We were thinking that with it being super busy that time of year, that we would need at least 2 days, possibly 3. How many would you go for that time of year? How do the crowds compare to Disney world crowds? (we did Disney the week before Christmas 2014)

Other details:

Family of 7: mom, dad, 19, 16, 14, 12, & 4
Will probably stay off property, resorts are too pricey this time around!

 

[damo]

I would do three. If you stay onsite at one of the deluxe hotels, you can avoid a lot of the crowds by using the unlimited express passes that are included with your hotel stay.

 

[LavenderWings]

That's the thing, it's over 7K, before food, etc. for our family to stay at one of the deluxe hotels and that's a bit out of our price range this year. Would it be worth it to do the express pass upgrade for one of the days?

 

[macraven]

If schools are out for winter break during the time of your vacation, it will be busy in the parks for your dates you listed

The earliest I have been to UO in January was on the 3rd

Second January stay started on the 7th which was still a busy time until after the weekend

Go with the ep for one day during a weekday
But don't make that decision until you are in the parks
If you find you can use the single rider lines with little waits, you can get by for the 3 days you are there

If lines are long, buy the ep after you are there
They are sold in the stores besides guest services

 

[LavenderWings]

Ok, thanks, that sounds like a good idea! I'm hoping it dies down a bit, but since it's still winter break for many people I doubt that it will very much.

 

[SA mom]

One hint I read about here, was to book one night at a deluxe. You can "check-in" at 7am then hit the early entry. They will not assign you a room yet, but they will give you room keys. You can use your room key for express the entire day you check in and check out. That was how we made it through Thanksgiving several years ago. We stayed off site the other nights on points so that lodging cost us nothing and it balanced out. If you are going during a busy time, it might be worth it to do one night on site. By the time you buy express passes for 7 of you, I bet you would be pretty close to paying for the night and you would get two days out of it. Also, on site express pass is unlimited while the purchased express pass is only good on each ride one time.

We enjoyed our stay at Royal Pacific so much that we are now planning to stay three nights on the annual pass rate, which, by the way, is substantially lower than the standard rate.

Hope you have a great trip! And, by the way, I was thrilled to see your oldest still wants to go with you. Ours are almost 15 and I keep thinking our vacations together are numbered.

 

[snoopboop]

One hint I read about here, was to book one night at a deluxe. You can "check-in" at 7am then hit the early entry. They will not assign you a room yet, but they will give you room keys. You can use your room key for express the entire day you check in and check out. That was how we made it through Thanksgiving several years ago. We stayed off site the other nights on points so that lodging cost us nothing and it balanced out. If you are going during a busy time, it might be worth it to do one night on site. By the time you buy express passes for 7 of you, I bet you would be pretty close to paying for the night and you would get two days out of it. Also, on site express pass is unlimited while the purchased express pass is only good on each ride one time.

A couple of things to note here....

For the deluxe onsites, I believe the maximum occupancy is 5... so OP would need to book TWO separate rooms for the one night. That being said, those two rooms for the one night would indeed get unlimited EPs for all 7 people for TWO days.

Also, FYI, your room key no longer functions as your EP, even though that's how it used to work several years ago. You now have to use a kiosk in the hotel lobby to create your EPs after you check in.

 

[SA mom]

Apparently Royal Pacific no longer has a kiosk. They have a ticket center. I called yesterday. I wonder if I will need to go to the ticket center to get the EP after I check in?

 

[snoopboop]

Apparently Royal Pacific no longer has a kiosk. They have a ticket center. I called yesterday. I wonder if I will need to go to the ticket center to get the EP after I check in?

Royal Pacific still has the EP kiosks. No doubt about it.

There seems to be some confusion regarding whether they have the (completely different) kiosk where you could automatically print park tickets, or whether you need to talk to an actual human at the ticket center to have park tickets printed.

 

[SA mom]

I hope you are right. I called yesterday and the front desk said they no longer have an automated kiosk. I hope they do, but I'm not counting on it. The "ticket center" opens at 7 am, according to the recorded message. Another diser reported that the automated kiosk had been removed. That is why I called.

 

[snoopboop]

I think you're confusing two different "kiosks." On another thread, the speculation was that the automated ticket printing kiosk had been removed from the RPR lobby. That may well be the case. That kiosk (actually a touch screen mounted in the front of the ticket desk facade, if I remember correctly) allowed you to insert the credit card that was used to purchase your park tickets, annual passes, Blue Man Group tickets, etc.... and then have those tickets automatically print for you on the spot.

But... the Express Pass kiosks are absolutely still there. They are standalone kiosks in the lobbies of all three of the deluxe hotels. I think there are three of them at RPR. It's possible that the representative with whom you spoke did not understand what you were asking. The ticket center has nothing to do with Express Passes at all.

 

[SA mom]

Ahhhhh, thanks for the clarification!

 

[snoopboop]

No problem!

I love the whole process of getting checked in, getting our EPs..... it's so wonderful not only to finally be on vacation, but also to revel in the fact that it's all just beginning!!!! <3

Have a great time!!!

 

[macraven]

Apparently Royal Pacific no longer has a kiosk. They h rave a ticket center. I called yesterday. I wonder if I will need to go to the ticket center to get the EP after I check in?

Believe snoop has figured it out for you on the kiosk

There are two counters which are across from each other at rpr, which are located at the back of the building at the check in side of the lobby

Attraction center staff on the right side can print some tickets, depends which ones you need
That has stayed the same

SA if you go to rpr and need help, go to the desk on the left side of that area
Those TM's can print out flight boarding passes and assist you in other ways
If they don't know the answer, they will find it

Have fun on your trip and stay at rpr
I call that hotel my home away from home

 

[kohlby]

3 as a minimum. I suggest 3 even when it's not busy. Is Cabana Bay in your budget? That won't get you EP, but will get you hour early entry. That will help quite a bit with the HP areas. Also, it can help with your age range - some can easily go back to the hotel while others stay. We priced our upcoming trip comparing RPR to CB and it would have been more than $1000 more for RPR - we'll need two rooms for that trip. We normally stay at RPR for the five of us (so one room) and love it, but are looking foward to our trip at CB.

 

[SA mom]

As to the question of how many days, we've only been once and we stayed one night for 2 full days. We saw a lot, but we missed a lot. We only saw two shows. I am looking forward to seeing more shows and spending more time looking at the details. On our first trip, our kids were 10 and spent about 2 hours just in the Jurassic visitors center and the play area (they weren't even "into" dinosaurs). We spent a couple of hours looking through Hogsmeade. We pretty much skimmed the rest.

 

[angierae]

We did 3.5 days, and I will say, by the last full day, we kind of felt like we'd done everything in the parks. (Low crowds, express passes.) If I were to go again, I'd probably do 1.5 days, a pool day, and then one full day, and I think I'd probably have my fill.

(Or do multiple partial-days.) But I found that 3.5 days were just too much for us, but we're ride people, not show people, and even riding favorites (I think we rode transformers six times) multiple times, by our last day we only had a few things we wanted to do.

I know there are people who can go for weeks and be entertained, but as someone who wants to stay on property the whole time (Driving in Orlando is my idea of hell, not a vacation), I didn't really think I needed that much time in the parks. I could see going for longer if the weather was nice enough to do a pool day, but that's about it.

 

[LavenderWings]

One hint I read about here, was to book one night at a deluxe. You can "check-in" at 7am then hit the early entry. They will not assign you a room yet, but they will give you room keys. You can use your room key for express the entire day you check in and check out. That was how we made it through Thanksgiving several years ago. We stayed off site the other nights on points so that lodging cost us nothing and it balanced out. If you are going during a busy time, it might be worth it to do one night on site. By the time you buy express passes for 7 of you, I bet you would be pretty close to paying for the night and you would get two days out of it. Also, on site express pass is unlimited while the purchased express pass is only good on each ride one time.

We enjoyed our stay at Royal Pacific so much that we are now planning to stay three nights on the annual pass rate, which, by the way, is substantially lower than the standard rate.

Hope you have a great trip! And, by the way, I was thrilled to see your oldest still wants to go with you. Ours are almost 15 and I keep thinking our vacations together are numbered.

Thank you so much for the tips everyone! We've been looking at all the options and still have a bit of time before we set things in stone. In the mean time we're hoping that my husband gets a good bonus this year, then we'll be able to stay at RPR and won't have to worry about the express passes! I really love the idea of staying one night, checking in early and getting 2 days of express passes, that definitely seems doable. If we can't swing the full 3 nights, we'll probably do that. We're big ride people so it will probably be worth it considering how busy that time of year is.

Sometimes I feel like our family trips are numbered too, but then I start planning another and no matter how grumpy they are when I'm telling them to do their homework and chores, they still start saying things like "Well, when we're older we can still take vacations together, right??" So, hopefully the tradition continues. I have friends who still travel with their adult children so I know it's possible!

We mainly want to see the Harry Potter areas (we even do annual Harry Potter Halloween parties!) and the Simpsons areas. (We're all big Simpsons fans) And, of course, the Dr. Suess area for our 4 year old that loves Cat in the Hat. The rest is stuff that I'm sure we'll enjoy as well (we do Comiccon every year too so I'm sure the Marvel area will be a hit). I'm really excited about it!