Your opinion please...

[Our 2 Princesses]

My dh and I are visiting Tampa for a few days in the beginning of Dec without our kiddos. In your opinion, which would be the best park for us to visit for a day - Universal Studios or Busch Gardens? We have never been to either as we just can't seem to pry ourselves away from Disney. Also, would we be able to find a code or a coupon to use to make one of the parks cheaper? Thank you!

 

[sjanus]

Wow, that's a difficult one, as they are both very different. Busch Gardens is more like a themen amusement park, Africa, animals, has a variety of things, a couple of shows. Universal, definitely more festive, also a theme park, nice shops, restaurants, City Walk, in my opinion more to do. I think if I were taking my grandchildren, 4 and 6, and never been to either, I'd probably do Universal this time and Busch Gardens next time. Even though they are young, they do enjoy all the themes that Universal has to offer. Guess it would depend on your children's ages and things they enjoy. We also really enjoyed Sea World, it was a really fun day.

Sandy

 

[sjanus]

Wow, that's a difficult one, as they are both very different. Busch Gardens is more like a theme, amusement park, Africa, animals, has a variety of things, a couple of shows. Universal, definitely more festive, also a theme park, nice shops, restaurants, City Walk, in my opinion more to do. I think if I were taking my grandchildren, 4 and 6, and never been to either, I'd probably do Universal this time and Busch Gardens next time. Even though they are young, they do enjoy all the themes that Universal has to offer. Guess it would depend on your children's ages and things they enjoy. We also really enjoyed Sea World, it was a really fun day.

Sandy

 

[Detailor]

There are some pretty good roller coasters and thrill rides at both Busch Gardens and Universal Studios/Islands of Adventure. And both have lots of other attractions beyond the thrill type rides. I think that the differences are the themes - Busch Gardens is themed as a wonderful animal park [I suspect that Disney created Animal Kingdom as a way to capture the dollars of guests who drove down to Busch Gardens during their vacations] and Universal/Islands is movie themed.

An additional difference is that it's more expensive to go to both Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure (a one-day, two park ticket is $112; one day, one park is $82) than to go to Busch Gardens (74.95 for one day).

Better per day pricing is available if you purchase multi-day tickets. You may be able to find lower cost tickets through AAA or a warehouse club like Costco.

Dick Taylor