Universal?

[Alysa]

Hi everyone,
Just wondering if anyone has visited Universal while staying at Vero or Disney (VWL), and if so which is better? Would it make more sense to get a room for a day at a Universal resort to do the new Harry Potter park? If so, which resort? We've never done Universal before and we have a 4 and 7 year old so ANY advice would be much appreciated. Thanks in advance!

 

[bumbershoot]

I am absolutely NOT an expert in this, but I've been roaming the Universal forums here. And what I learned is that staying at a Universal resort for one night actually gives you the Express Pass benefit for both check in and check out days. This won't work for the HP rides, at least not yet, but it lets you have *basically* front of the line access for all the other rides at the parks. That's hard to beat! (of course you need park admission for those days)

So on our trip this December, we do plan on staying *at least* one night at a Universal resort, rather than "commuting". And since VB is something like 1.5 hours away from Orlando, you'd definitely want to come from WDW instead of VB, if you'll be commuting there.

 

[Crystal_27]

We are actually tackling this issue for our December trip. We are staying at BLT but wanted to visit Universal for 2 days so I have been researching this. As I understand it, Universal has 2 "FastPass" systems, one that you can purchase and one that comes free when you stay at one of Universal's hotels. The one you can purchase (called an Express Pass) is ridiculously expensive and will allow you to bypass the lines once per attraction per day. The one that comes free when staying at Universal hotels (called Front of the Line ("FOTL")) allows you to bypass the lines to almost all attractions all day long (except the new Harry Potter attraction and Rip N Rocket - you will get one bypass for these attractions only). We priced it both ways but, because the Express Pass is sooooo expensive, we opted to just stay at Universal for one night, and just let our room at BLT sit empty for the night. Note that the FOTL is available for both your check-in and check-out days so you essentially get 2 FOTL days for one hotel night. Staying on site at Universal also gives you priority in ADR booking and (reportedly) will allow you access to the Harry Potter stuff an hour earlier than non-Universal hotel guests. I believe that the Lowes hotel is the cheapest, and you can usually get a pretty sweet AAA discount on the rack rate. It's worth noting that I am by no means an expert, but the information above is what I've been able to glean from the Universal DIS forums. If anyone has better advice or needs to correct me about anything, please do so since I'm banking on what I've stated for my own Universal vacation.

 

[Cathy66]

We have stayed at the Universal hotels to access the FLP. It is great we are at the hotel as early as 8am. You get your room key and off you go. They will store your luggage for you. We then clean the room out the next morning and drop our luggage off and park till we drop and head back to Disney. We have done this with just an overnight because we kept our Disney room or have gone to Universal on our way home with all the luggage both work the first option is less work. Given the age of your family you may want to check height requirements. My kids are 14 and 11 and love everything but I find the rides much more intense and not as enjoyable. The first time we went my youngest was 8 and small for some rides.

You can easily do it with an overnight stay. If you decide to stay longer look into one adult buying an annual pass the savings on the room rate was well worth the extra cost.

We have stayed at hard rock and loved it. Followed by the Portifino and it was nice but we didn't enjoy it as much.

Hope that helps.

Cathy

 

[KAT4DISNEY]

I just had a conference at Universal in Nov. It was the second time it's been held at the Royal Pacific which is the least expensive of the 3 onsite (all which are operated by Loews). This time b/c of having more family along we stayed at VWL and I drove over every day. It's approx. a 20 minute drive.

We also did go to Universal for a day and every single ride was walk on except Dueling Dragons - and that was a 10-15 minute wait so we were fine without the express pass. Early November is a slow time so not too surprising. We only went to the Islands of Adventure but it was empty. When you are going will make a difference whether you need the advantage of the express pass or not.

Harry Potter will change things up a bit but I wonder how much it will spread out to all the attractions. Maybe a lot or maybe everyone will congregate around HP.

 

[bumbershoot]

My understanding....

Just to make sure we're speaking the same language, from the FAQs on the Universal forum, they say that officially it's all called the same thing, Express Pass. You can pay for it if you stay offsite (but it's more limited), or you get it if you stay onsite.

The Universal forum people *call* the hotel perk FOTL to make it easier to talk about, but it's not really front of the line (there might be a line of people using the perk, after all), and it's not called that by Universal. The main difference is that with the purchased EP option, you get the perk once per participating ride, while with the hotel version, you get it multiple times on each participating ride if you wish.

 

[Muushka]

We have stayed at all 3 USF resorts. Our favorite is Hard Rock due to it's proximity to the parks and it's coolness .

Second favorite is Portofino Bay. A beautiful resort. Large rooms, lots of amenities. Least favorite is Royal Pacific, but this is still a beautiful resort!

We used to arrive on a Sat and stay at USF hotel that night and then go check in at VWL Sunday evening.

I don't know if someone else posted this, but staying 1 night will get you 2 days of FOTL benefits. I love staying at these resorts.

 

[CarolMN]

Moved from DVC Boards

 

[Metro West]

My understanding....

Just to make sure we're speaking the same language, from the FAQs on the Universal forum, they say that officially it's all called the same thing, Express Pass. You can pay for it if you stay offsite (but it's more limited), or you get it if you stay onsite.

The Universal forum people *call* the hotel perk FOTL to make it easier to talk about, but it's not really front of the line (there might be a line of people using the perk, after all), and it's not called that by Universal. The main difference is that with the purchased EP option, you get the perk once per participating ride, while with the hotel version, you get it multiple times on each participating ride if you wish.