Just Disney or Disney/Universal????

[DisneyHereWeCome!]

We are staying at Orange Lake Country Club from 1/18 - 1/25 and we were planning to do Disney the whole time.

It will be me, my husband, our 1 year old, our 5 year old, 11 year old step son and mother and father in law.

We're trying to decide whether or not it would be worth the time and money to split our trip between Disney and Universal or to just stick with Disney for the whole week. There are pros and cons to each. I thought it would be nice to do a leisurely Disney week with plenty of time to do everything we want to do. Now I'm wondering if we should go to Universal for part of the week since they are offering the 7 day tickets for around $100 each. Is it worth the money for Universal? I haven't been there for about 15 years...

Any thoughts???

 

[greenclan67]

We were at Universal in January 2008. We bought there 7 day passes, and to be honest we loved it. We ended up spending more time there, then Disney. The crowds weren't as bad as Disney, and we loved, loved there rides. Especially Shrek 4-D, Jaws, Spiderman, MIB, Twister. We, as a family, don't do rollar costers,that is why we enjoyed Universal so much. The younger ones would enjoy Seuss Landing. I have 2 girls, that were 6 & 7 at them time, and they really enjoyed Universal.
That being said, our favourite park was Sea World. It was a smaller park, and again being the non-riders, we are, we loved the shows. It is to each their own I think though. We love Disney as well, when we go in Feb we are planning on spending more time at Disney, as we feel we did all there was to do at Universal, as we did 3 days last time. Even though my hubby would love to do the new Simpsons ride! Good luck.

 

[Cdn Friends of Pooh]

We are staying at Orange Lake Country Club from 1/18 - 1/25 and we were planning to do Disney the whole time.

It will be me, my husband, our 1 year old, our 5 year old, 11 year old step son and mother and father in law.

We're trying to decide whether or not it would be worth the time and money to split our trip between Disney and Universal or to just stick with Disney for the whole week. There are pros and cons to each. I thought it would be nice to do a leisurely Disney week with plenty of time to do everything we want to do. Now I'm wondering if we should go to Universal for part of the week since they are offering the 7 day tickets for around $100 each. Is it worth the money for Universal? I haven't been there for about 15 years...

Any thoughts???

It all depends on what your definition of worth it is.

For every person that replies yes it is worth it, you'll get at least one who says it's not. Sit down with your family and read all about Universal and what it offers - things have definitely changed in 15 years (here's the website - http://www.universalorlando.com/). There is definitely lots to do for all age groups. Ask your family if they'd enjoy spending a day or two there ... if they think they will then go for it.

Bonny

 

[ADisneyQueen]

If this is your first trip to Disney, I wouldn't try to do any other parks. There is so much to do there and you will leave wishing you had more time. Also, why spend more on park tickets at Universal? Adding on more disney days is so cheap.
I don't know much about Universal, nobody in my family wants to go there. But, we do like Sea World. We went there in 2003 and will go for 2 days this June along with 4 days in Disney, 1 at Typhoon Lagoon and a day at Kennedy Space Center. This is our 6th trip and we want to go do some other things. So, if you have been to Disney recently, I would say spend a day or two at Universal.

 

[pixeegrl]

I say go to Universal too. Head on over to the Universal side of the boards and post your question there too. http://www.disboards.com/forumdisplay.php?f=8 There are lots of Uni veterans over there who can answer any question you may have. What ever you decide, have fun!!!

 

[FayeW]

. Also, why spend more on park tickets at Universal? Adding on more disney days is so cheap.
I don't know much about Universal, nobody in my family wants to go there. .

Because Universal and Islands of Adventure are phenomenal parks! The same could be said about WDW parks...why spend so much on tickets to WDW when for 1/3 of the price you could have 7 days at Universal?

I actually had the "how can we justify spending at extra $400 to go to Universal when we can add 3 more days to our WDW tickets for the entire family for $13.00???" conversation with my husband. He said "very easily, because I'm going to Universal!" We had already been to US/IOA and knew how great they were. I was just trying to be thrifty.

OP, as CDN Friend of Pooh said, the best thing to do is to check out the Universal website and see if there are enough things your family would enjoy to justify the price. They have a great child swap system so 2 or 3 of the adults could ride the bigger rides while the other adults wait with the kids in the child swap area. As soon as the ride ends, the other adults get on the ride without waiting in line. Your stepson will absolutely love the parks, and most adults will, too. Spiderman is rated as one of the Top Ten themeparks attractions in the WORLD, and the Hulk may be as well.

Universal/IOA are actually our favourite parks. We spend more time there, and really enjoy the more relaxed pace. Twister and the Mummy are my favourite rides/attractions, and the Horror Make-Up Show and Beetlejuice Revue are excellent shows.

 

[dawnbu40]

IMO Universal is best suited to older teens. DH,DD17 and I took a day away from Disney on our last trip and visited IOA and part of Universal. While DD loved the rides, our family loves WDW and feels Universal lacks the magic. Whatever you decide to do I hope you have a great vacation!

 

[horseshowmom]

I enjoy Disney and Universal equally, but here's my opinion. I wouldn't try to do both parks in one trip. There's plenty to do at Disney for the week (plus, we always liked to schedule some time to relax when the kids were younger). Disney is huge and can take a lot out of you. If you try to do too much, you may not enjoy yourself as much.

If I were you, I'd go ahead and buy the Universal tickets now and safe them for a later trip. If you have AAA, you can get them cheaper from them sometimes (I just bought two for my DD's honeymoon next June and got them for about $85 each).

 

[DisneyHereWeCome!]

"I actually had the "how can we justify spending at extra $400 to go to Universal when we can add 3 more days to our WDW tickets for the entire family for $13.00???"

That is exactly my dilemma.......

This is my 5 year old's 3rd Disney trip, so we have been several times in the last few years. I expect him to have a lot more fun this year because he now likes roller coasters and is tall enough to ride a lot of things he couldn't before. I know that there is plenty of stuff to do in Disney and we could definately be busy for the entire week. But I know the kids woudl love Universal too. Too bad we cant' do 2 weeks!

Decisions, decisions!!!!!

 

[mareed]

We're frequent Disney visitors and love it (DS's are 9 & 12 now) and we visited Universal last March for the first time and loved it too. But, we didn't do Disney on our Universal trip - we just did Universal and Sea World for 8 days.

In your situation with only a week long trip, which is really just long enough to scratch the surface at Disney IMO, I would not add in Universal too. The additional expense is pretty large compared to just staying at WDW. Also, with kids as young as yours, I just don't think Universal is the best place to be. I loved Universal and will definitely go back sometime, but we'll make another non-Disney trip sometime (already have our 7 day Universal tickets purchased even!) and our kids will be old enough so that we all ride the big rides.

 

[Eeyorerocks!]

Our kids (DS and DD - 9) have been to Disney World four times - we have never ventured off Disney property during those visits - never felt the need to do so. This past time we were also traveling with DS2 (10 months!).

Now that we purchased DVC, and we will go more often, we are considering a visit to Universal but ONLY if we are staying a longer time. As others have said, a week is not even enough to see Disney!

Good luck - you will do whatever is right for your family

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

We love Universal and even bought AP's last year. Our kids are 8 & 11. What I love the most is their onsite hotels. Honestly they just blow away Disney hotels. They are all deluxe 4* and modern. The service is top notch. Our favorite is the Hard Rock Hotel. We've stayed at Royal Pacific and Portofino Bay too and they were both beautiful but somehow the HRH just stole my heart.

The very best part of all is that you can simply show your room key and it allows you to bypass the lines. It's like having an unlimited fast pass. This has spoiled us rotten and even my kids are starting to prefer USO b/c of this perk. They think a 20 min. wait is a really long line! It's changed the whole flavor of our park touring which is now much more relaxed and we don't have to try to cram everything in. We go on our favorites several times and still get to ride everything.

Also the hotels are only a 5-10 min walk to the parks or you can take a relaxing water taxi. No cramming on a bus.

You can get front of line privileges for 2 days with just 1 night's hotel stay The day you check in, go early, and then it's still valid the day you check out until park closing. We did this our first onsite visit and our stays keep getting longer and longer.

Of course there's no Disney magic there. They're not trying to be Disney. It's great to try it when you've done Disney many times and are looking for something different. There are lots of fun things to do in Florida besides Disney but if you never venture off WDW property, you'll never know.