There isn't much advantage IMO unless you stay in the elite resorts with the free express pass stuff.
Yeah, we stayed at the Hard Rock and were more than done with the park in a day and a half.
There isn't much advantage IMO unless you stay in the elite resorts with the free express pass stuff.
That's probably a good plan unless you'd rather save your Hilton points and stay on property. The off-property hotels are close enough to Universal that Uber is pretty cheap.I always stay on site for Disney because of the convenience and early access time as well as the whole fun theming aspect, but last time my wife and I went to Universal, granted around 5 years ago, we Ubered pretty easily to the park from our hotel. Is it worth staying on property if I can stay for free relatively close for next to no Hilton points?
We’ve always found that it is a lot cheaper, but not cheap, to stay at a hotel that gives you the express passes instead of buying the express passes separately.
I still haven’t decided. Looking at some different 3 day weekends that we have and seeing which ones correlate with low crowd times. Since it’s just gonna be me and the 8yo and a short time frame we’re going to fly. I’ve been able to do it pretty cheap for just twomako - when did you decide to go?
Still trying to figure it out with my family.
Everybody on here and elsewhere tells me it is cheaper than Disney, but when I dig into the planning it's just as expensive. What am I doing wrong?
Driving down from Atlanta with my family of 5. When I look at park tickets, it is insanely expensive to add the express pass (x5). When I look at hotels, they are expensive... But maybe I'm just looking at stuff that is on property when I don't need to.
I still haven’t decided. Looking at some different 3 day weekends that we have and seeing which ones correlate with low crowd times. Since it’s just gonna be me and the 8yo and a short time frame we’re going to fly. I’ve been able to do it pretty cheap for just two
Checking out different crowd calendars onlineWe're gonna do it this year, but have to take the whole family. 9yo kind of over Harry Potter at this point, but 7yo is in the middle of the books and loves it. So the window is probably closing later this year. Maybe it reopens with my 5yo in a couple of years, but I doubt he'll ever learn to read.
I'd love to just do a long weekend with the girls where we fly in and out, but no way would my wife stay home with the boy while the rest of us went to make memories somewhere fun.
Just gonna have to bite the bullet at some point.
How can you tell which weekends correlate with low crowd times? I've found the price of room + ticket doesn't vary that much (surprisingly).
just avoid major holidays and go during the week instead of a weekend
well what do you want to hear? anything else is a bunch of byzantine bullshit
it's disney in a dynamic pricing era. you're gonna have to bite the crowd bullet
Perception is reality, but the races are approximately the same time every year.My perception is that Disney has mastered the art of scheduling random marathons, cheerleading competitions, mass booking international tours, etc to make up for what used to be dead spots in the calendar. Universal hasn't. Instead, they just close the parks early and schedule private events. So check the Universal hours to make sure one park isn't closing at 6 or something like that which would make that park busier during the day and make the other park really busy at night.