Ticket prices seem insane?

We stayed three nights and had two full and two partial days at Uni the first time and left wanting MORE! :)

Only the fact that we had a hotel and dining reservation over at wdw made us leave.

That's what we did. I hadn't been to a universal park since I was in high school in California (almost 30 years ago). I only remembered the crazy roller coasters. We were all shocked at how great the parks were. It's unlikely I could take enough time off work to spend as much time as I'd like at both parks, so I'd just as soon do Disney one summer and then universal the next. It would be more expensive as a total cost, but split over two years is a lot more palatable.
 
Thanks for the info, normally we wouldn't do Universal during a Disney trip as we always stay on property with no car however this trip my brother and his family are over from England and staying offsite with both Disney and Universal tickets so we thought we'd join them for a few days at Universal. It's our 20th anniversary and after 15+ trips all staying at Value resorts we're blowing our budget and staying at AKL Jambo w/Savanna view. That doesn't leave much left over for Universal tix, which is why I was quite shocked at the cost. As you've pointed out though, Disney does the same thing I've just never had to deal with it. Still got 6 weeks, what organ can I sell between now and then to cover the cost of Universal tickets? ;)
 


That's why I either make it a Disney trip OR Universal trip... doesn't make sense for me to do both resorts on the same vacation.

This! Our last combo vacation in Orlando was in 2005. Since then, we pick one or the other and try to stay and buy tix for a minimum of 7-days. And yes, we love doing Universal for 7+ days. It allows you time to do so much more than just theme park rides. It is a destination in itself as much as WDW ever was.
 
This! Our last combo vacation in Orlando was in 2005. Since then, we pick one or the other and try to stay and buy tix for a minimum of 7-days. And yes, we love doing Universal for 7+ days. It allows you time to do so much more than just theme park rides. It is a destination in itself as much as WDW ever was.

We are doing 4 nights/5 days at Universal next week. You can do Universal much faster than Disney, partially due to fewer parks but also simply because of so much less travel between the parks. Park hopping takes 10-15 minutes as opposed to 60-90 minutes. City Walk is right there, instead of Disney Springs being a 40 minute bus ride.
I expect 4 nights/5 days will let us do everything we wanted, as a leisurely pace, with plenty of time for just relaxing by the pool. (and we are giving 1 day to Volcano bay).
 


It's not cheap if you are only looking to go for a day or two - but neither is Disney as others pointed out.
I'd like to do two days at Epcot F&W, but its $200 for the privilege of overpaying for food and tiny drinks.
If I wanted park to park that's another $60 No thanks.
I'm done with Disney for a few years.

Universal has improved a lot since the days of the $99 annual power pass or 2nd day free deals of the mid 2000s- adding HP changed that.
The cost of licensing that property and building it did not come cheap - but it changed the landscape dramatically.
But someone has to pay for it and it's going to be the consumer of course


In then end for $284 I can get a Universal seasonal pass and if I time it correctly I can get two trips out of it. So this year the last day of my trip is the last day of my seasonal pass from last year.
The same thing at Disney is about 780 - that's up from the 350 I used to pay for that - and I cant justify that personally
 
This! Our last combo vacation in Orlando was in 2005. Since then, we pick one or the other and try to stay and buy tix for a minimum of 7-days. And yes, we love doing Universal for 7+ days. It allows you time to do so much more than just theme park rides. It is a destination in itself as much as WDW ever was.

We are doing 4 nights/5 days at Universal next week. You can do Universal much faster than Disney, partially due to fewer parks but also simply because of so much less travel between the parks. Park hopping takes 10-15 minutes as opposed to 60-90 minutes. City Walk is right there, instead of Disney Springs being a 40 minute bus ride.
I expect 4 nights/5 days will let us do everything we wanted, as a leisurely pace, with plenty of time for just relaxing by the pool. (and we are giving 1 day to Volcano bay).

It's definitely become a destination for us. Several 4-5 night trips a year is perfect and with VB opening I can see us spending a full week in the warmer months no question. I find we are spending more time at the resort on our Universal trips because it's so easy to hop back and forth. Suddenly the resort pools and amenities have more appeal than ever. Get unlimited EP if you want and it just gets better and better. I love that we can just book our room and show up, park the car and never see it again until we checkout. We take our time and do everything we want usually multiple times and still come home feeling like we had a relaxing vacation.

As far as ticket prices, front loaded tickets kept us away from Universal for many years. Now we are taking Universal trips and front loaded tickets are part of the reason we haven't been adding on Disney days. 1 day at MK for the 4 of us is around $500 unless you can go during "Value" season. Add on park hoppers and it's a $700 day. I can maybe justify a day at MK but $400+ and a day of vacation for DHS currently? No way. I don't think Epcot is worth $400 a day since the kids only care about a few rides and they aren't big fans of walking around world showcase. Maybe now that Pandora is open DAK is worth a day. So 2 days worth of tickets for MK and DAK = $800+. Add on PH so you can spend 1/2 day at Epcot on your DAK day and it's $1000+. Factor in the planning and FP stalking, locking in my days 30 days out and thinking about how hectic those days may end up being, especially if we are hopping, suddenly the desire starts to fade... rapidly.
 
It's definitely become a destination for us. Several 4-5 night trips a year is perfect and with VB opening I can see us spending a full week in the warmer months no question. I find we are spending more time at the resort on our Universal trips because it's so easy to hop back and forth. Suddenly the resort pools and amenities have more appeal than ever. Get unlimited EP if you want and it just gets better and better. I love that we can just book our room and show up, park the car and never see it again until we checkout. We take our time and do everything we want usually multiple times and still come home feeling like we had a relaxing vacation.

As far as ticket prices, front loaded tickets kept us away from Universal for many years. Now we are taking Universal trips and front loaded tickets are part of the reason we haven't been adding on Disney days. 1 day at MK for the 4 of us is around $500 unless you can go during "Value" season. Add on park hoppers and it's a $700 day. I can maybe justify a day at MK but $400+ and a day of vacation for DHS currently? No way. I don't think Epcot is worth $400 a day since the kids only care about a few rides and they aren't big fans of walking around world showcase. Maybe now that Pandora is open DAK is worth a day. So 2 days worth of tickets for MK and DAK = $800+. Add on PH so you can spend 1/2 day at Epcot on your DAK day and it's $1000+. Factor in the planning and FP stalking, locking in my days 30 days out and thinking about how hectic those days may end up being, especially if we are hopping, suddenly the desire starts to fade... rapidly.

FP planning, dining reservations, etc.... Are a big factor in making Universal easier and more relaxing than Disney. I love Disney World. In the long term, I'll visit Disney more often than Universal. I'm excited to eventually see Pandora (but probably not for at least a couple years) and eventually Star Wars Land.
But yes... overall, in some ways, 4-5 days at Universal can get more in, than 6-7 days at Disney World, especially if you are staying in one of the deluxe onsite hotels.
Compare staying at Portofino Bay to staying at a Disney monorail deluxe resort:
-Good pools at both, but it seems to me that the Royal Pacific and Portofino Bay pools may be a step up from the Disney pools.
-From Disney monorail, quick and easy access to 1 park. The other 3 parks, plus Disney Springs, plus 2 water parks, are easily 30-45 minute "commutes." At Universal, quick and easy access to both regular parks, plus City Walk, and I believe Volcano Bay is a very short bus ride, but I haven't done that yet.
-To get between parks at Universal, or get from park to City Walk -- just minutes to hop. "Hopping" anyplace at Disney can easily be 30-60+ minutes.
-Volcano Bay is closer to the hotels, than the Disney Water Parks are to Disney.
-Disney, 3 fastpasses per day, that need to be selected 30-60 days in advance. Can with "tiers," can't necessarily get FPs for the attractions you want. Universal, unlimited express pass for most attractions, with no need to pre-plan.
-Disney dining reservations needed months out. And at times even with a reservation, I've waited 30-60 minutes for a table. Universal, most restaurants are walk-in, most of the time.

The Tapu Tapu system at VB looks like a planning disaster according to reports so far. But other than that, for all these reasons, you can get more done, at a more casual pace, at Universal.

Overall, in terms of parks, I find Magic Kingdom has more things to do than either main Universal Park. But I'd say that both Universal Parks have more than DHS (that one is easy!), probably more than Animal Kingdom (though Pandora may put AK ahead of Islands of Adventure). Epcot is a bit different -- they both have more rides and thrills than Epcot, but International Showcase can swallow a lot of time if you enjoy just touring.

For a 1 day trip, I'd take Magic Kingdom most of the time. If you really want to spend a whole week, I might still say Disney is the clearly superior option. You're there long enough to do everything without being rushed.
But for 3-5 days, I actually think Universal is better -- 3-5 days at Disney, I'd feel rushed to get everything in. Not necessarily because there is more to do than at Universal, but because it takes longer to do it all. Meanwhile, 3-5 days at Universal, I can get everything in, without aggravation.
 
Chim, you can look at Undercovertourist or look at other threads that have used a good reseller of tickets. Make sure you price with tax included, as Undercover does show it's prices as taxed included, and has free shipping in the US. Otherwise, I think the cheapest is to get an advanced ticket from Universal's website. And the price you see on Unversal's website does not include tax, it includes tax when you checkout. Also, Tickets to Work sells tickets if you are a member, as well as military tickets, if you are military.

Yeah, unfortunately, parks now want to make you stay longer, so one or two day tickets rarely have much or no discount. It is what it is.

I hope you enjoy Universal enough you'll be back. Then upgrade to an AP. Just like Disney, but if you do upgrade, do it inside a park, the inside park team members are better with upgrades.
 
I am with OP, planning my first on site stay at the end of a Disney trip and was expecting to pay about $200 for 2 days...but when I saw ticket prices vs annual pass, could not believe it was that close! I think I am purchasing annual pass since I travel to Orlando for work a few times a year and can probably tack on a visit. But that is not true for the rest of my party...
 
I grew up going to Disney regularly.

When my daughter was old enough we started to plan trips to Orlando (we live in Scandinavia, so it's quite a trip). She is a HUGE Hermoine Granger fan and hates princesses. So she chose Universal, even though I had anticipated an expensive Disney trip.

I started doing research and eventually decided to buy five 2 week passes (available before Wet n wild closes). We brought my in laws with us and stayed off site. We didn't want to limit our possibilities, to jump to the park, so we didn't want a fixed number of days on our 2 week trip, we wanted to go when we felt like it.

Everyone just loved it. Relaxing, still fun, so much to do. We probably went 10 days out of the 14 and did a few hours.

We loved it so much we decided to visit Universal Hollywood as well. And we are going back to Universal Orlando this coming fall, staying for 2 weeks again. So we will have taken three long trips to the states, because we love Universal.

Now, I didn't know as much then as I do now about the parks. Now we are staying on-site, so it will be even more relaxed. I don't think it's expensive to pay around 2000 to 3000 dollars for a resort and three park explorer tickets for a family of three. Our in laws are even considering joining us again.

Having grown up on Disney I certainly miss it, so we will to the MNSSHP this year, just to give me daughter the feel for Disney.

But, after doing research I think it's not expensive to stay at Universal. They converted me, it's a great place to visit. They have also made me a huge Harry Potter fan (something I never thought would happen).
 
I felt the same way when I looked at upgrading my 4 day WDW park hoppers for my boys and I to AP's. The cost was $1062 more :sad: Last year I upgraded my 3 day park to park tickets at UO to AP's for $30 for the three of us! So we are spending 2 days at UO during our WDW stay this year for $30 :love:
 
Yep - that's how my 3 day trip to Uni turned into an annual pass extravaganza. It was so cheap to upgrade that I couldn't resist. We went 2x more over the next 12 months.

On the 3rd trip, we finally missed Disney so much we added on a couple of Disney days.
 
For those suggesting the AP for discounts, could you tell me what a typical discount on a room would be in February? We are looking at Royal Pacific or any of the others that gives the free Express Pass.
Thank you!
 
Thanks Damo! I don't see any of my dates there so I'm assuming they don't offer a discount on those days. Sigh.

Or nobody on the boards stayed at that time. Check out the AP thread on the Universal Hotels forum too.
 
We upgraded our tickets to annual passes in February and they gave us BACK $30 and change. We are going back in December!
 

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