Planning the perfect vacation at Universal Orlando Resort

I whole-heartedly agree. It's worth spending a little bit of extra cash to get one of the original 3 hotels, because of the Express Pass. Plus, their location is so convenient.

Knowing that Universal will eventually build a true third gate down the road, I'm curious what your thoughts are Robert, regarding whether they'll construct a Deluxe hotel with Express Pass perks on THAT property. Four might seem like overkill, but I also think they need that option to cover their bases. It could be just one, and it could be smaller, but I really think they should be adding a deluxe option to their upcoming park.

I love staying at one of the 3 original Universal hotels and using the Express to easily get on all the good rides, but it's still at the most a 2 day visit. Once the 3rd gate is opened (the waterpark should not be considered a gate, sorry) it can surely be a three day park. That'll make for a nice 10 day Florida visit, 7 WDW and 3 US.

As a couple, we always preferred Universal, but our young kids got more out of Disney. Now that they are both beyond 10 years old, their interests have changed and we traded our Disney APs for Universal APs a few years back.

These kids (and their parents!) are bigger fans of the IP for Harry Potter, Jurassic World, ET, The Simpsons, Despicable Me, King Kong than anything on a Disney property. Beyond that, they enjoy the thrills of RRR, Hulk, The Mummy -- IPs that they don't really know but they like the rides.

So, we traded our 1-week Disney stay for annual 1-week Universal stays. We may or may not add a couple of days to visit Seawold or Disney. We find Universal delightfully walkable compared, the food is generally better, the hotels are better and closer, and the new waterpark is the icing on the cake. The kids love Volcano Bay and we find it very relaxing.

What do we do for a week at Universal when some are calling it a "2-day park"?! We vacation!!! Between the shopping and dining at Citywalk, the amazing hotel pools, the spa, and the 3 parks, we could really spend more than a week here. We re-do our favorites each time and notice new details every time. Sometimes we are there for special events like Mardi Gras which can add some extra fun and something different.

For my family, and I suspect a growing number of others, Universal Orlando is the Happiest Place On Earth.

I will say that we are now officially spoiled having visited UO the last 2 times by staying at their on-site hotels (PB and RPR - we stayed at HRH over a decade ago), but doing so kind of negates the need for the B2G3 ticket offer since the Unlimited Universal Express makes it very easy to tour both theme parks in 2 days or less.

If you have UE, I can totally understand how people can grow bored with UO and only really need 2 days at the parks (with maybe a 3rd for Volcano Bay). That means you're either lounging around or trying to find something else to do with your week's vacation in Orlando.

@ Russell,
So lounging around isn't a vacation? We've have spent multiple 10 night trips at UO and the kids still never want to leave and always want to go back.
I much prefer a slower pace, no planning and LOTS of lounging by the pool/hot tub or Volcano Bay wave pool to the hectic constant planing of WDW.

Have to agree with you Mr Torrance much preferred Universal to Disney on our last vacation in Florida.
More relaxed atmosphere and I could easily of stayed for more than two weeks.

@MrTorrance - Personally that's not how we vacation, and when you're paying $250+ per night for a hotel and upwards of $100/day for theme park tickets, it's hard to justify sitting around like a bump on a log all day, which is something I can do at home or at my community pool. When I go on a vacation to a theme park, I'm there to visit the theme parks, and if I'm spending extra $$ to stay in a hotel to get Universal Express, you better believe I'm going to be in the parks, because I can stay across the street at the Hilton or another hotel comparable to Loews' quality for half the price.

I can see the desire of some guests that just want to sit around and relax, but I'm just not wired that way. A few years ago, we joined some friends to rent a beach-front condo at Myrtle Beach for a week. We about drove ourselves crazy because there was so little to do. It was nice not having to deal with the crowds and lines of a theme park or other major tourist destination, but laying out on the beach or by the pool just doesn't interest us and gets old really fast. On our upcoming 15-day trip to Southern California, we've got activities planned just about every single day including 3 baseball games, 8 theme park days, and a half-dozen other points of interest (movie studios, Magic Castle, Queen Mary, SD Zoo, and many others). We don't have time to sit around and lounge by the pool (though we're hoping the squeeze in some time at the beach), and aren't flying all the way across the country to sleep in and chill out. I do joke with my wife whenever we get home exhausted from our vacations that we need a "vacation from our vacation", but relaxing and letting time roll by is the LAST thing we do on vacation.

Theme park vacations (and most vacations in general) are getting far too expensive to just sit around and watch the world go by. I don't spend thousands of dollars of hard-earned money to do something I can do at home. I'm definitely not hanging out at my hotel pool when there are world class theme parks and water parks steps away that I've already paid serious money to visit, even if they're giving me extra "free" days.

A "week" at Universal... almost.

Now that Universal has grown, a week is becoming an option. There is something to be said about having extra time so that you don't feel like you HAVE to be inside the park from open to close. With a week long ticket, you can afford to sleep in a little bit longer instead of getting up at the crack of dawn like a normal work/school day back home. It is supposed to be a vacation.

While I'm not a "pool" person, my kids are. A quick trip to the on-site hotel for a little bit of resort pool time in the middle of a day reduces the stress for everybody.

After my last jaunt to Florida earlier this summer, I again BEG and BEG Universal to stay on the present track of allowing me to vacation and not force me to plan every ride and meal months in advance. If Universal would build a few more "family" rides, my entire family would totally give up Disney (my wife's thrill ride days are over).

@Russell,
That's is why we do a week at Deluxe and the rest at Cabana Bay to save money and be closer to the volcano. Also, the cheapest AP used to be under $300, so for 2 weeks that is pretty cheap per day and I never feel like I'm wasting money not being at the park. Now I never thought that way when I went to Disney with the much higher per day costs. I've also spread out 1 AP over 2 summers and really got my money's worth. So we can use UO as a home base and do many different things in Florida while popping into the parks at will and do almost anything we want.

I hear you @MrTorrance, though we rarely visit Orlando multiple times in a 12-month span unless we're getting a comp trip/tickets, so purchasing APs has never been an option for us for either WDW or UO since we could never break even on the costs versus multi-day tickets.

Since we're relegated to multi-day tickets, we've always tried to maximize our time in the parks (open to close with optimal park hopping and line avoidance techniques), because we're paying for each and every day we're there. If we're staying at RPR, HRH, or PBR for the explicit reason to have Universal Express, we will ONLY stay there on the days that we're visiting the theme parks, and will not spend the extra money for nights at those hotels where we won't be visiting IOA or USF.

However, when we've taken comp trips (we've twice won multi-day trips to UO and just recently won a bunch of WDW tickets that we'll be using next January/February), we tend to take things a bit slower knowing that we're not burning our own money if we sleep in or leave the parks a few hours early to hang out at the pool. In other words, we have no problem sleeping in on someone else's dime (within reason of course), but when it's our money paying for a trip, we're going to extract every penny of value (park time).

When we visit Six Flags, Cedar Fair, and Sea World parks (all chains where we have nationwide APs), we also tend to not mind if we miss rope drop or leave early because we know those days have long been paid for through multiple visits to our local parks (though certain parks necessitate early arrival and staying through closing to avoid massive lines like SFMM, SFGAdv, and Cedar Point).

The Universal Resorts are a little different than those at WDW, because the price differential between UO's and comparable off-site hotels is not quite as large as the WDW Resorts. That's especially true with the Endless Summer Resorts, and we could definitely see ourselves staying full time there instead of splitting our stay between multiple hotels near the different parks.

We go once a year to Universal during HHN and usually spend about 1 week or 10 days on Universal property. We have never run out of things to do since we do visit other things in the Orlando area. We typically only buy 3 days worth of park tickets at either Hard Rock or Royal Pacific then move to one of the cheaper hotels for the rest of trip. We like the Universal hotels since they have amazing pools and are within walking distance to the parks and City Walk. We haven't gone to Disney in over 10 years simply due to the fact that you can't buy real express passes. We hate the fact you need to book everything in advance. That to us is not a vacation and its much more enjoyable to be able to walk around and do what you want when you want at Universal. Even though some of the newer rides at Disney look amazing I don't think will ever go back for those reasons.

Hard Rock Hotel itself wasn't mind blowing to me but in my mind it's kind of the ultimate stay at Universal because you can just walk over to the parks with your Unlimited Express. My wife and our friends loved how nothing felt rushed because we never had to wait on a transportation to the parks and the Express meant we didn't care about waits. (This was back before Volcano Bay)

Cabana Bay though... oh man. They have suites and you can get 2 that are connected. My wife and kids also wanted to bring my parents so we got 2 suites and just opened the connecting doors in the morning. Made a wonderful area for all of us. Plus the Cabana Bay has great pools, a lazy river, a splash pad, and really easy access to Volcano Bay.

Can I also add the food at Universal Orlando and Walt Disney World is really solid. There are so many restaurants with multiple things we wanted to try! Staying on property for a week let try more of those restaurants meant every day in the parks was more relaxed and fun.

Russel said "That means you're either lounging around or trying to find something else to do with your week's vacation in Orlando."

To be clear, we spend a partial day in the middle of the week recharging -- that means pool for the kids and possible spa for the parents. But other than that, we're in the parks at early entry and closing down the park at night, with a short break at midday for the sanity of the kiddos. Between shows, dining, character meets, a bit of HP costuming and savoring details we could easily spend more than a week. We do enjoy re-rides -- our trip isn't ruined if we don't have something new to entertain us every hour.

I feel like part of the reason Disney takes more time is because is because it is forced upon you. The hotels are mostly further away, you have to book rides with the fastpass system, anything you don't book is a pretty long wait most days. They do have more parks and more rides, but it's a bit more of a slog to get through it all, mostly by design.