7 nights at Universal

[NewtoOrlando]

We usually do 2/3 nights at Universal (HRH or RPR) but was thinking about booking 7 nights at either Sapphire Falls or Cabana Bay on our next trip, in one of their family suites as have 2 teens so the extra space is needed. Has anyone done this and been fine with no express passes? DH is very much all for express passes, but I think if we did a week then we wouldn't need to rush about getting it all done, we qualify for a DAS pass which we can always use should we need to. Trying to sell it to him, as would like to spend more time at Universal on this next trip!

[Donaldfan]

I haven't done it but have booked 7 nights at Sapphire Falls next September. I'm not bothered about express passes for that length of time.

[elmspenguin]

We did 8 nights at SF on our last trip in August 18 (previously done 3 and 4 night stays), it was the first time we had stayed onsite at Universal without the express pass and wasn't sure how it would go but honestly we hardly missed it. We used early entry every morning and did gringotts and the mummy in that hour and then went off to other parts of the park. We rode most rides as a family early in the day and then when queues got slightly longer we would use single rider instead. We found we could get lots done by 11am even without EP.

Where we did slightly miss the EP was when we went back on an evening if it was busy but like you we had DAS so when DW was riding something with us we got a return time if required, not having the EP we found that we spent more time on an evening walking round and looking at things we had not taken much notice of before due to going from ride to ride with EP maximizing its use and having less time on site in previous visits.

SF is a lovely hotel, we think it is better than RPR as a hotel the only slight downside was the QS options but you can always pop to Aventura which has loads of QS options, fingers crossed we are doing the same again next Aug/Sept.