wen8jr
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Mar 22, 2007
- Messages
- 817
Just back from our first split stay doing a Universal/Disney trip for 10 days. We were at Universal over the holiday weekend.
For the Universal portion of our trip we stayed at Royal Pacific for the first time. It is a very beautiful hotel...I messed up though and forgot which tower to request at check in and got tower 2; which was a long walk to everything on tired feet. I must say this resort is very comparable to Portofino Bay for less money. The attention to detail is very nice.
Perfect weather - 80's the whole trip and sunny! Couldn't ask for better.
Universal was awesome during Christmas Eve & Christmas Day - all decorated up, Macy's parade and the Grinch. Great holiday music piped in all around the parks. Snow blowing at US. Universal IMO was more festive and decorated than Disney outside of Disney's HS which had the Osborne lights (those were so cool). I had not expected this as I thought I had read where someone said that US doesn't do much in the way of decorations but really everything was decorated for the holidays.
Express Pass made the trip awesome as we had hoped. We rode FJ twice one day during the early hour for resort guests. We felt like VIP guests for all the rides. By 9:30 am, the Harry Potter section was wall to wall and it was at least a 60 min. to a 90 min. wait all day, so we were very glad we got to ride FJ twice that morning. FJ is like no other ride we've ever been on and the castle was awesome. The rest of the time, outside of Potter, the park crowds were very easy to deal with.
Spiderman, The Mummy, The Simpsons and FJ are all awesome rides and not to be missed. The 3D/4D rides were great as well. I really feel like overall Universal has better rides than Disney. You have to visit ALL of Disney's parks to get comparable experiences which means racing around from one end of the park to another to get a Fast Pass. At Universal, everything is right there one after another. However, that all being said EPCOT remains my favorite..not for the rides but for the atmosphere and Illuminations.
Emeril's at City Walk got a big A+++ from my son and his girlfriend who ate there, they said it was awesome. Blue Man Group was as cool as the first time we seen it. Both are recommended experiences.
Overall, after this visit with a split stay visiting the parks at the same time... we've firmly decided that Universal is more our speed for parks and characters than Disney. We love Disney, but Uni is just more adult and less walking between rides, from the resort and with Express Pass it can't be beat. Plus City Walk is right there and you can chill and feel like an adult for a while. We just feel like we are treated better as resort guests at Universal than as guests at Disney and the resorts are nicer.
We won't be back for a few years as we are going to do non park vacations for a bit, but it was a blast.
For the Universal portion of our trip we stayed at Royal Pacific for the first time. It is a very beautiful hotel...I messed up though and forgot which tower to request at check in and got tower 2; which was a long walk to everything on tired feet. I must say this resort is very comparable to Portofino Bay for less money. The attention to detail is very nice.
Perfect weather - 80's the whole trip and sunny! Couldn't ask for better.
Universal was awesome during Christmas Eve & Christmas Day - all decorated up, Macy's parade and the Grinch. Great holiday music piped in all around the parks. Snow blowing at US. Universal IMO was more festive and decorated than Disney outside of Disney's HS which had the Osborne lights (those were so cool). I had not expected this as I thought I had read where someone said that US doesn't do much in the way of decorations but really everything was decorated for the holidays.
Express Pass made the trip awesome as we had hoped. We rode FJ twice one day during the early hour for resort guests. We felt like VIP guests for all the rides. By 9:30 am, the Harry Potter section was wall to wall and it was at least a 60 min. to a 90 min. wait all day, so we were very glad we got to ride FJ twice that morning. FJ is like no other ride we've ever been on and the castle was awesome. The rest of the time, outside of Potter, the park crowds were very easy to deal with.
Spiderman, The Mummy, The Simpsons and FJ are all awesome rides and not to be missed. The 3D/4D rides were great as well. I really feel like overall Universal has better rides than Disney. You have to visit ALL of Disney's parks to get comparable experiences which means racing around from one end of the park to another to get a Fast Pass. At Universal, everything is right there one after another. However, that all being said EPCOT remains my favorite..not for the rides but for the atmosphere and Illuminations.
Emeril's at City Walk got a big A+++ from my son and his girlfriend who ate there, they said it was awesome. Blue Man Group was as cool as the first time we seen it. Both are recommended experiences.
Overall, after this visit with a split stay visiting the parks at the same time... we've firmly decided that Universal is more our speed for parks and characters than Disney. We love Disney, but Uni is just more adult and less walking between rides, from the resort and with Express Pass it can't be beat. Plus City Walk is right there and you can chill and feel like an adult for a while. We just feel like we are treated better as resort guests at Universal than as guests at Disney and the resorts are nicer.
We won't be back for a few years as we are going to do non park vacations for a bit, but it was a blast.
