Universal and Disney in eleven days?

[tink111]

We’re going for two weeks but by choice will only be doing 2.5 days at universal and 7 at Disney! Don’t feel like you have to do everything in all the parks , just Prioritise and make time for breaks and down time ! It’s not my first time but it is for my partner, I know he’d rather do a bit of everything at our own pace than miss out tho!

[mummyroo1]

Can you do it, yes. You will read tonnes of stories of hard core folks who managed to do it all, so it's obviously doable. Should you? probably not. It certainly wouldn't constitute good value for money and relaxing it definitely wouldn't be. Theme park tickets are a massive outlay, it feels wrong to spend so much money on tickets that overlap. We learnt the hard way on our second trip that if you try to ram too much in it can get to be too much for little ones. Both of ours were sick and it spoiled the last few days of our holiday. Realistically you will go again, get good value from your Disney tickets and enjoy your down time. Save Universal for next time would be my advice.

[LouBull]

The first time I went we did Disney and Universal, it was a packed holiday and managed 2 days at Universal! Which is enough for me as I’m more a Disney fan! And we did it in 10 days thinking it was our only time... booked to go again for our third visit in July! 🙈😂
I would check on the heights to make sure what rides your son can go on at Universal though!

[njc97]

We had 12 days, but one of which we moved between accomodation and lost part of a day to sickness, and did Disney, KSC, 3 days at universal, 1 day at volcano bay (didnt manage Disney water parks) and 1 day "off" (well half a day off, afternoon at Gatorland). That was reasonably intense but not stupidly so, our 7 yo coped fine. And included a few trips to the hotel pool. So I think it's very doable.

[Mortimer Mouse]

Originally Posted by mummyroo1

Can you do it, yes. You will read tonnes of stories of hard core folks who managed to do it all, so it's obviously doable. Should you? probably not. It certainly wouldn't constitute good value for money and relaxing it definitely wouldn't be. Theme park tickets are a massive outlay, it feels wrong to spend so much money on tickets that overlap. We learnt the hard way on our second trip that if you try to ram too much in it can get to be too much for little ones. Both of ours were sick and it spoiled the last few days of our holiday. Realistically you will go again, get good value from your Disney tickets and enjoy your down time. Save Universal for next time would be my advice.

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I agree wholeheartedly with mummyroo1 above. It would cost over £600 pp for all those tickets with only time to scratch the surface of each park, let alone any relaxing time. Kids can get abit fed up having to go out to the parks everyday and would prefer to have more time just to hang out by the pool.

[SuckingDiesel]

Thank you all for your comments they have been really really helpful.

Our initial plan was to do just Disney (hence staying on site) and KSC this trip and return in 3/4 years and do the other attractions in and around the area.

After reading your replies and some blogs by those who have done everything in a fortnight, it sounds exhausting.

We are going to stick to the original plan. We are staying on site, have a "free" ddp, makes sense to enjoy and make the most of everything that Disney has to offer. 😀

[mummyroo1]

Plus the money you save on tickets this time gets you closer to your next trip :-) Hands up if you, like me think 3/4 years might become less :-) you will have an awesome time and probably still feel like you haven't scratched the surface of Disney even just concentrating on that.

[Evil queen]

It’s doable if exhausting! Out first visit was 11 days off site in Nov/Dec time.
We visited all the Disney parks plus one water park, MMVCP, US and IOA, sea world, bush gardens, went fruit picking, did shopping, played plenty of mini golf and went to watch ice hockey in Tampa. We played in the villa pool and games room.We also had a couple of days written off with stomach bug so had to tweak plans, leave people in the villa etc. We had our 2 young children with us (2&5) and they had an absolute ball! It was a really brilliant holiday and definitely gave us the Orlando bug! We were probably helped by cooler weather (cold actually on a couple of days) and lowish crowds levels. We probably achieved more on that holiday in terms of variety than any longer ones we’ve had since.
I think with some good planning it can definitely be done.

[Nimbus]

Anything is doable. Assuming you have 11 full days (not 11 nights) then you could spend 8 days at Disney, 1 day at KSC and 2 days at Universal. That's doable but it won't be as restful as it could be.

Eight days at Disney might include 2 days at MK, 1 day at Epcot, 1 day at HS, 1 day at AK, 1 day (perhaps split over 2 half days) at a waterpark, 1 day meandering around DS and Boardwalk (again, perhaps split over two half days) and 1 day downtime. You could argue the waterpark time is "downtime" but my experience is that waterpark days can be almost as tiring as theme park days.

Two days at Universal is the minimum I'd suggest. That's one day at US and one day at IOA (although if you have a park hopper you can mix that up over the two days). It excludes Volcano Bay. Three days at Universal would be better, if you don't mind sacrificing a day at Disney.

One suggestion would be to book a room at one of the deluxe Universal hotels. That would save travelling between Universal and Disney for one evening and morning and would also mean you'd get Express passes. That would help cut down the queues at Universal and make visiting the two parks over 2 days much more manageable. We've done that in the past when staying only at Disney. Obviously this does increase the cost of the holiday though.

Personally, I'd probably suggest just sticking with Disney and KSC with only an 11 day holiday. But doing Universal as well is doable.