promotions are so confusing

[hannymom]

We want to go to Universal the first week of April. Has anyone priced out which promo is better? Looks like we have 30% off hotel, or buy two one park tickets get two free, or $1000 food credit but pay regular prices on everything else.. including you have to buy hoppers. We want to stay at Hard Rock. any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Jessem1133]

We want to go to Universal the first week of April. Has anyone priced out which promo is better? Looks like we have 30% off hotel, or buy two one park tickets get two free, or $1000 food credit but pay regular prices on everything else.. including you have to buy hoppers. We want to stay at Hard Rock. any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Book out each option, and see which is cheaper

 

[CAPSLOCK]

Also price it out with 1 AP and the AP hotel rate (and the other tickets the promo 2 days free). Just to throw another option at you.

 

[liamthompson]

Agree with other comments, you really need to price out each package to make a good comparison!

Throwing some other options out there: if you have a Costco membership, they also sell universal packages. I priced one that was cheaper than the dining card promo. I also priced flight + on site hotel package through Expedia.

I was tracking prices for my dates before the dining card promo came out and I think it really just added the cost of the dining card to the base package cost. In other words, there's no discount on the dining card. If you have $1k dining card, then you are paying an extra $1k for it. But those packages already include discounted hotel rooms.

For the buy 2 days, get 2 days promo...if you check the cost difference between a 2 day ticket and a 3, 4, 5, etc day ticket, you'll see that the cost difference is really not that significant either.

And 30% off hotel stay may or may not win out against AP discounts depending on the type of room you book. AP discounts put suites and club level rooms into my budget but only because I could choose the most heavily d

 

[liamthompson]

Urk I keep hitting post too soon.

If your dates are flexible, you may be able to choose dates with heavily discounted AP rates. Without AP rate, we would have stuck with a standard room which would have also been fine for us.

 

[hannymom]

Also price it out with 1 AP and the AP hotel rate (and the other tickets the promo 2 days free). Just to throw another option at you.

How does that work? Do I just buy one AP ticket ? I reserve the room under the AP person and we all get to stay? the AP buys his own ticket and we get the good deal? thank you for your help

 

[CAPSLOCK]

You'd book a room with the AP rate (which can be a pretty significant discount). At least one person in the room needs to have an AP when you stay - you don't need to have the AP to look at rates or book the room, but you do need to have one by the time you check out of the hotel. Then everyone else buys whatever ticket works best.

Be sure to check out the blockout dates, the two lower tier APs are blocked out for at least a week starting April 7th.
https://www.universalorlando.com/web/en/us/tickets-packages/annual-passes/blockout-dates