New to Universal - So Many Questions...

[TwinMom7]

When it comes to Disney, people ask ME for advice - but this time we want to try Universal and I'm at a LOSS!!!

The travelers will be myself, my best friend and our two 21-year old daughters. None of us have done Universal.

First of all - where do we stay? Would you recommend one of the Universal hotels and if so, which one? Where is the best place to call for a reservation, and what kind of a price am I looking at?

I know I can't pick up the phone and dial 407-WDISNEY.

Which park is favored by most - Universal or Islands of Adventure?

We only have three days here, before spending four more days at the beach. To be honest, we probably will only spend one day at a park, our evenings exploring City Walk and our other days enjoying our resort and the pool.

Any recommendations and advice will be greatly appreciated!!!!!

 

[wicket2005]

I love both the parks, but IoA has the edge because its rides/attractions are so state of the art and be warned go on any water rides and you will get soaked.

I think you do need a day in each park to enable you to see and do everything. It does very much depend on when you go, as to how crowded it will be. We have been in February before and the rides were relatively easy to get on to. If I were you I would spend two days here, it sounds like you will have plenty of time to relax on the rest of your holiday.

I cannot recommend any where to stay because we have stayed in private villas and Comfort Inn Lake Buena Vista; the latter I cannot recommend because of I4 traffic noise.

If you have the cash staying in the Universal Hotels would be lovely. Both Universal and Disney hotels, as well as other hotels, are expensive for us English, we are charged by our operators a price per person, then if it is only two adults in the room, we are then charged for low occupancy (costing us $800 extra just because there are not 4 adults staying). We live in a terribly uncivilised country!

 

[damo]

Stay onsite and then you can do a lot more since you won't have to wait in line. Use the link www.loewshotels.com to check out the hotels and their prices. Use AAA as the code to give you some nice discounts. You can get a hotel for quite cheap if you go in the off season.

I like Universal Studios better than IOA.

 

[Motherfletcher]

Damo's right. Stay on-site and experience FOTL. For the party you described I'd recommend Portofino.

 

[cbdmhgp]

i would recommend the Royal Pacific Hotel. my kids LOVE it. its got a great atmosphere if you just want to feel relaxed.

 

[bjakmom]

My teen and 20-something kids all LOVE the HRH - they love the atmosphere, the music, the pool !! The RPR is also very nice (my little nephew loves it there) but the 'coolness' at HRH is just their thing. If you want to try a nice meal and get tired of 'park' food, my older kids also loved Tchoup-chop and Mythos. We like to spend part of each day at the parks, afternoons at the pool(renting a cabana at HR is fun), evenings maybe back into a park briefly (gotta ride Hulk after dark!) and then hang out on Citywalk - if you had a 2 day/3rd day free ticket you could easily see all the best of both parks (and the kids could go in/out when they wanted- our kids love to jump back into the parks on their last morning) with FOTL - of course we never go high-season, so I don't know about touring when it's really crowded - USF is a great vacation with kids in their 20's !