Moving hotels from Disney- advice please

Ash Derek

Earning My Ears
Joined
Mar 17, 2019
Hi all,

I will be coming to Orlando for 7 nights in September with my twin 14 year old boys.

Plan is first 5 nights at POP Century and doing the 4 parks (we have the 4 park magic ticket). Sept 21-25

We just booked for Sat Sept 26 Universal Loews so we can do the 2 Universal parks on Sat 26 and Sun 27 and have express passes. (Kids are MAD Harry Potter fans)

We fly out midday on Monday 28th so my question is:

Is it worth booking POP Century for the whole 7 nights and leaving bags there and just taking a small backpack to Universal for the 1 night and just Uber there early Sat morning and back Sunday night. Use Disney MDE to and from airport.
OR
Booking a cheap hotel in Universal area for the Sunday night.

Trying to get advice whether it is worth burning a night at POP (and paying extra to stay there Sunday night over a cheap Universal area hotel) versus moving hotels each night for our last 3 nights.

If we do Option 2- moving hotels- is it easy to transfer luggage within Universal hotels? i.e check out Sunday morning and get our bags transferred.

Thanks in advance for all your help!

Ash
 
We had our bags transferred from Cabana Bay to Royal Pacific.
 
Hi all,

I will be coming to Orlando for 7 nights in September with my twin 14 year old boys.

Plan is first 5 nights at POP Century and doing the 4 parks (we have the 4 park magic ticket). Sept 21-25

We just booked for Sat Sept 26 Universal Loews so we can do the 2 Universal parks on Sat 26 and Sun 27 and have express passes. (Kids are MAD Harry Potter fans)

We fly out midday on Monday 28th so my question is:

Is it worth booking POP Century for the whole 7 nights and leaving bags there and just taking a small backpack to Universal for the 1 night and just Uber there early Sat morning and back Sunday night. Use Disney MDE to and from airport.
OR
Booking a cheap hotel in Universal area for the Sunday night.

Trying to get advice whether it is worth burning a night at POP (and paying extra to stay there Sunday night over a cheap Universal area hotel) versus moving hotels each night for our last 3 nights.

If we do Option 2- moving hotels- is it easy to transfer luggage within Universal hotels? i.e check out Sunday morning and get our bags transferred.

Thanks in advance for all your help!

Ash
So, option 2 is 5 nights Pop, 1 night deluxe hotel, then 1 night somewhere else vs 7 nights Pop? To me that might be more practical, considering you would be saving 2 nights' cost at Pop. Endless summer resort is the least expensive Universal hotel but I don't know if they transfer luggage to that one. If not, it still might be worth leaving your luggage with bell services and Ubering over with your luggage Sunday night versus going back to Pop.

Just checking, are you aware that Halloween Horror nights will be going on at Universal Studios on the weekends so that park will close early (I think 5 PM)? IOA will be open later.
 
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Option 1 doesn't sound too bad, but I have an alternative below. Option 2 would a non-starter for me. One hotel change is reasonable, but two starts to impact the trip.

I would do 5 nights at Pop and 2 nights at RPR. I think this would be cheaper than option 1. And opens up some other considerations:

- If you upgrade one ticket to annual pass, you might be able to book an APH rate and save around 20% per night at RPR. You'll likely save more money than you spend on the upgrade.
- If you are considering going to the parks on Monday (we usually go for a couple hours in the morning of our travel day), annual passes are a little cheaper than a 3-day park-to-park adult ticket. You can always upgrade tickets, so you don't have to decide on this until you are at the parks. But it does give you the ability to come back again within 12 months...
 


OP, if you decide to do UO during the hhn period, book your onsite hotel before end of July

Hotel prices tend to increase in August as hhn begins in September
 
Thanks all for the great advice.

I am aware of the HHN- closing US early on the Saturday- hence the Express Pass hotel option so we can still hopefully the 2 parks across the 2 days even with the HHN. We thought about doing HHN but the costs are quite high and it seems the waits would be long on a Saturday night.

The Monday we werent planning on going to the parks but just relaxing before going to the airport. After 6 parks in 6 days we will definitely need it!

@cfoxga - I will look into your suggestions and see if we can make it work

Thanks again- we cant wait to get there in September
 
When we did a split stay, we did 5 nights at CSR then moved over to Hard Rock for 2 or 3 nights. We liked HR because it was the closest to US, it was REALLY easy to walk to the parks and City Walk. It was a totally different vibe than Disney. It felt more "grown-up" which your teenagers might like. I was able to find a killer deal on Orbitz or CheapTickets. Staying at HR got Express Passes on our tickets. Bought our actual Theme park tickets on Undercover Tourist for a small discount (could also get through AAA for their discount). Enjoyed the Express Passes all 3 days.

Does that make sense? It was a little more leg-work pricing it all out to figure out the best deal, but it was great to be on property and have a "2nd vacation" on the same trip. Keep in mind, this was 4 years ago, but I'd be happy to answer any more questions to help out, if I can.

Oh, and totally take advantage of the extra early morning hours in the HP section. Make sure you have the 2 park ticket and take the train from the "open" park to the not yet opened park as soon as they start running. Then you'll be first in that back area and get on the rides first.
 


If you want to take HE from the early entry park to the other, get in that line for HE about 8:20 if you want to catch the first train over

Ran into long waits for HE during a busy season
 
I am aware of the HHN- closing US early on the Saturday- hence the Express Pass hotel option so we can still hopefully the 2 parks across the 2 days even with the HHN. We thought about doing HHN but the costs are quite high and it seems the waits would be long on a Saturday night.

The Studios is fine if you start early Saturday.
Crowds don’t start until the afternoon
Last year I noticed ride line waits around 2:30

Many want to do some rides before hhn so come early for that
Also, peeps like to avoid the large crowds that line up outside the park gates to enter for hhn

There are only ( based on past years) 6 rides open during hhn
 
When we did a split stay, we did 5 nights at CSR then moved over to Hard Rock for 2 or 3 nights. We liked HR because it was the closest to US, it was REALLY easy to walk to the parks and City Walk. It was a totally different vibe than Disney. It felt more "grown-up" which your teenagers might like. I was able to find a killer deal on Orbitz or CheapTickets. Staying at HR got Express Passes on our tickets. Bought our actual Theme park tickets on Undercover Tourist for a small discount (could also get through AAA for their discount). Enjoyed the Express Passes all 3 days.

Does that make sense? It was a little more leg-work pricing it all out to figure out the best deal, but it was great to be on property and have a "2nd vacation" on the same trip. Keep in mind, this was 4 years ago, but I'd be happy to answer any more questions to help out, if I can.

Oh, and totally take advantage of the extra early morning hours in the HP section. Make sure you have the 2 park ticket and take the train from the "open" park to the not yet opened park as soon as they start running. Then you'll be first in that back area and get on the rides first.
How far out did you book the room on Orbitz?
 
Just back, and they have closed that ‘trick’ of going into EE at one park and trying to take the train to to the other park, to beat the crowds at Wizarding Worlds, We were told last week that it won’t work now- the first train doesnt leave until 9:30.
 

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