First-timer needing help with accommodation options

[JCP]

We're a family of 4 from New Zealand with two daughters aged 13 & 16. We'll be doing our first ever WDW & Universal trip from 5-10 Jan 2020. This is a once in a life-time trip for us, and while the exchange rate isn't great and we have to make every cent count, we still want to have a great experience.

We want to do Walt Disney World and Universal that week, but are unsure which hotel to stay in. We definitely want to take advantage of the extra magic hours, so the 13yr old can do the Harry Potter area and ride the hogwart's express. I'm guessing that means staying in a Disney Resort Hotel of some kind and getting park to park passes. Can you get extra magic hours if you stay at a non disney resort?

Should we change hotels when we go to Universal?

What hotels would you recommend as the best option for us? While we'd love to have a suite where the adults have a separate bedroom from the kids, that will obviously depend on the price. If we use a value hotel, do we still get early access to the parks? Really not sure where to start here, and would appreciate any advice.

Thanks

 

[plutofan15]

We're a family of 4 from New Zealand with two daughters aged 13 & 16. We'll be doing our first ever WDW & Universal trip from 5-10 Jan 2020. This is a once in a life-time trip for us, and while the exchange rate isn't great and we have to make every cent count, we still want to have a great experience.

We want to do Walt Disney World and Universal that week, but are unsure which hotel to stay in. We definitely want to take advantage of the extra magic hours, so the 13yr old can do the Harry Potter area and ride the hogwart's express. I'm guessing that means staying in a Disney Resort Hotel of some kind and getting park to park passes. Can you get extra magic hours if you stay at a non disney resort?

Should we change hotels when we go to Universal?

What hotels would you recommend as the best option for us? While we'd love to have a suite where the adults have a separate bedroom from the kids, that will obviously depend on the price. If we use a value hotel, do we still get early access to the parks? Really not sure where to start here, and would appreciate any advice.

Thanks

First of all, welcome and I hope you enjoy your trip.
Seeing as Harry Potter & Hogwarts are in the Universal parks, they are not part of Disney's extra magic hours. You will need to purchase separate tickets for the Universal parks. If you are planning on visiting both Universal & Disney I would recommend staying at a Disney hotel if your budget allows and then moving to a Universal hotel for visiting those parks if you plan on spending more than one day there. Also, with only five days, doing all four Disney parks and both Universal parks is going to be a challenge.

 

[JCP]

Ahh, see how new I am to this? Thanks for your advice. We may be able to add a couple of days to the start of the week, but again, it comes down to cost.

 

[Monty]

Cost is the biggest deterrent to going to both Disney and Universal. Both companies front-load their ticket pricing to make the first 3 or four days the most expensive, then the price drops significantly per day. Basically, they're trying to force you to choose one or the other.

Staying on-site at either has advantages, EMH at Disney and early entry and Unlimited Express Pass at Universal.

I'd be hard-pressed to recommend one over the other, but as has been said 5 days isn't really enough time to do both.

I'm going at the end of the month for a two-week visit. We'll be at POFQ 22-28 June, then 28 June - 2 July at Royal Pacific, then back to POFQ until 7 July.

 

[cosmicgirl]

Ahh, see how new I am to this? Thanks for your advice. We may be able to add a couple of days to the start of the week, but again, it comes down to cost.

If at all possible I would recommend you add a couple of nights and save on the room if you need to. With Disney and Universal in one week you won't spend much time in the room anyway and a few days more could save you a lot of stress, especially if it's a once in a lifetime trip. The thing with tickets is that you pay a lot for the first few days but after that adding another day is much cheaper so it's worth it to give you a bit more time to work with. Disney has 4 different theme parks, 2 water parks, and a shopping and dining district. Universal has two parks, a water park, and a shoppping and dining area. Just the 4 main Disney parks will easily take up 5-6 days.

 

[DisAl]

I agree with the previous posters... You will have a tough time just doing Disney World in five days. (Full disclosure - I have never been to Universal and am admittedly biased towards WDW.) If it is a once in a lifetime trip you may want to try to do both but you will probably find it very rushed to do so, just hitting a few high points on both parks. Our last full family trip to WDW (8 people ages 3 1/2 to 89) was five days long and it was a full five days.
As for motels the only one I can think of that would meet your preference for separate bedrooms would be the Art of Animation, a villa at one of the deluxe resorts ($$$) or two rooms at a value or moderate resort. The least expensive of all of the options is probably two connecting rooms at Pop Century. The Pop Century rooms have been recently refurbished and are very nice.
You can go to this web page: https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/resorts/
and look at all the different WDW resorts and see photos of the rooms. Once you click on a particular resort you can click on "view rate calendar" under the price and see the cost of the room for every day of the year.
Good luck and I hope you and your family have a wonderful trip. Visit this WDWMAGIC site often with your questions. Most likely somebody here will have an answer for you.

 

[JCP]

I really appreciate the info that's been shared. I didn't realise it would take so long to see the parks. We have ONE theme park in New Zealand and it's so small you can do all the rides and be finished in a handful of hours.

We can extend our theme park days to 3-10 Jan, but may have to look at staying off site for the WDW part. Does anyone have a hotel to recommend in that case? Do off site hotels have free shuttles to the parks?

 

[Thingamabob]

JCP, you seem to have 5 days for your vacation of a lifetime and let me tell you both Disney and Universal are experiences you and your daughters will never forget. Now you said in your post your 13 year old daughter likes Harry Potter so I would suggest you make Universal and the Harry Potter experience a priority. That meaning I would use 2 days of your vacation for Universal. Now Disney World is huge and leaving only 3 days for 4 Parks is pretty much impossible to see everything. So the Magic Kingdom and seeing Cinderella's Castle and the nighttime firework show Happily Ever After is a must. There are also a lot of attractions and rides at the Magic Kingdom which would make for a great day for teenagers. Take it from me as I am a teenager myself. So I would give 1 day to the Magic Kingdom for sure at Disney. Now that leaves Epcot, Animal Kingdom, and Hollywood Studios. If your family is big into Star Wars then Hollywood Studios would be for you. It also has some new things and is growing so that would be fun. So if you are into that give that a day. Now that leaves just one day left. Epcot center is more for the educational, but also is loads of fun. If your family wants to learn about different countries, science, history this would be the place for you or the Animal Kingdom is basically a giant zoo with so much more. If it was me and I am currently an 18 year old girl so sort of near the age of your daughters. I also love Harry Potter so 2 days at Universal would be a must. Then the Magic Kingdom, Hollywood Studios, and then the Animal Kingdom. Whatever you decide you will have a blast. Enjoy.

 

[DisAl]

I really appreciate the info that's been shared. I didn't realise it would take so long to see the parks. We have ONE theme park in New Zealand and it's so small you can do all the rides and be finished in a handful of hours.

We can extend our theme park days to 3-10 Jan, but may have to look at staying off site for the WDW part. Does anyone have a hotel to recommend in that case? Do off site hotels have free shuttles to the parks?

There are a number of "Disney Springs" area hotels that are off site but still have the ability to make dining reservations and fastpass choices at the same time that on site motels do. The downside of staying off site though is that you will spend much more time getting to and from the parks. Most of them do have a shuttle service, but rather than a shuttle to every park every 20 minutes or so they may run only every hour or two and then to multiple parks. You could easily loose a couple of hours per day compared to being on site. One of the reasons we always stay on site just for the transportation convenience and flexibility.
If you want to explore the off site options you may want to take a look at www.Mousesavers.com . They usually have a number of discounts listed on their site. I'm sure others here may have some suggestions too.

 

[JCP]

There are a number of "Disney Springs" area hotels that are off site but still have the ability to make dining reservations and fastpass choices at the same time that on site motels do. The downside of staying off site though is that you will spend much more time getting to and from the parks. Most of them do have a shuttle service, but rather than a shuttle to every park every 20 minutes or so they may run only every hour or two and then to multiple parks. You could easily loose a couple of hours per day compared to being on site. One of the reasons we always stay on site just for the transportation convenience and flexibility.
If you want to explore the off site options you may want to take a look at www.Mousesavers.com . They usually have a number of discounts listed on their site. I'm sure others here may have some suggestions too.

See, that's why I love these boards. As a foreigner to the area, I hadn't considered how much travel time I'd lose. I can see the worth of staying on-site for travel alone. Thanks for the feedback.

 

[JCP]

JCP, you seem to have 5 days for your vacation of a lifetime and let me tell you both Disney and Universal are experiences you and your daughters will never forget. Now you said in your post your 13 year old daughter likes Harry Potter so I would suggest you make Universal and the Harry Potter experience a priority. That meaning I would use 2 days of your vacation for Universal. Now Disney World is huge and leaving only 3 days for 4 Parks is pretty much impossible to see everything. So the Magic Kingdom and seeing Cinderella's Castle and the nighttime firework show Happily Ever After is a must. There are also a lot of attractions and rides at the Magic Kingdom which would make for a great day for teenagers. Take it from me as I am a teenager myself. So I would give 1 day to the Magic Kingdom for sure at Disney. Now that leaves Epcot, Animal Kingdom, and Hollywood Studios. If your family is big into Star Wars then Hollywood Studios would be for you. It also has some new things and is growing so that would be fun. So if you are into that give that a day. Now that leaves just one day left. Epcot center is more for the educational, but also is loads of fun. If your family wants to learn about different countries, science, history this would be the place for you or the Animal Kingdom is basically a giant zoo with so much more. If it was me and I am currently an 18 year old girl so sort of near the age of your daughters. I also love Harry Potter so 2 days at Universal would be a must. Then the Magic Kingdom, Hollywood Studios, and then the Animal Kingdom. Whatever you decide you will have a blast. Enjoy.

I can see we're going to have to stretch our days to spend more time at the parks. Harry Potter is definitely our focus, so that's a must. She also desperately wants to do Magic Kingdom. Your advice is great and gives me a better idea of areas to focus on. I think our teenager would like Hollywood Studios too. I had no idea how complicated a trip to the theme parks would be. Between accommodation, travel, tickets, fast passes and magic hours, it's quite overwhelming. I so appreciated you all kindly offering your thoughts and recommendations.

 

[Marianne75]

Disney World is massive. My husband and I were just laughing last night about his reaction to the size of it when I took him for his first visit. He kept asking on the bus if we were still on Disney property. He was blown away by just how big it is. If you're going to skip anything, I'd skip Epcot. Yes it's a classic, but it's also in most need of (and currently undergoing) a major overhaul. It's going to be under some form of construction for a while. Of course more time would be better, but if you can only do 5 days I would do two days at Universal, then one day each at Magic Kingdom, Animal Kingdom, and Hollywood Studios. MK because it's an obvious must do for your first time. Animal Kingdom is one of my favorite parks. I love the atmosphere. Flight of Passage in Pandora at Animal Kingdom is extremely popular with two hour waits common. DHS will have Galaxy's Edge and has more thrill rides. It was very popular with my son when he was 13. Just go into it knowing you won't have time to do everything and you'll be fine. Our next trip is 10 days long and we know there will still be things we wanted to do but never quite got around to.

 

[disneyfireman]

Personally, Id stay at POFQ and only do WDW... You WILL need that time. To see it properly,
MK is a 2 day park.
If you must do universal...youll HAVE to stay 10 days, With 5 being Disney parks...MK 2 the rest one each. Then you'll have time for Universal one or two days...

 

[DisAl]

I can see we're going to have to stretch our days to spend more time at the parks. Harry Potter is definitely our focus, so that's a must. She also desperately wants to do Magic Kingdom. Your advice is great and gives me a better idea of areas to focus on. I think our teenager would like Hollywood Studios too. I had no idea how complicated a trip to the theme parks would be. Between accommodation, travel, tickets, fast passes and magic hours, it's quite overwhelming. I so appreciated you all kindly offering your thoughts and recommendations.

Add one more thing to your planning list. If you are using a dining plan you need to make your dining reservations 180 days out from your arrival at Disney to make sure you get what you want. Even if you don't do a dining plan if there are any particular restaurants you want to go to you need to go ahead and make those reservations. If you change your mind later you can always cancel but some of the more popular restaurants will book up within hours of availability. I don't remember if it is 6:00 a.m. or 7:00 a.m. Eastern (U.S. time zone) that the online reservation system opens. Since you are going in January you will most likely be able to get what you want but you still need to do it early.
Oh, and don't forget it is likely to be COLD in January here. I have seen the weather anywhere from below freezing to 70 degrees F in January in Orlando.

 

[KaliSplash]

btw, Magic hours are only available at Disney if you are staying in a Disney hotel. (To make life harder as you try to do all this.). As has been well-said, it will be impossible to see everything at Universal and Disney in a week. But you Can have a Very Good Time in a week, regardless of how far you get through the parks. Good luck!

 

[JCP]

I don't know anything about restaurants at this stage. Haven't heard about any of them, but I'll do some reading in the forums and we might book in to a couple for a treat. Food is one area where we'll need to take the cheap option where possible.

 

[DisAl]

I don't know anything about restaurants at this stage. Haven't heard about any of them, but I'll do some reading in the forums and we might book in to a couple for a treat. Food is one area where we'll need to take the cheap option where possible.

As you continue with your planning you will probably want to make use of both the "Trip Planning" and the "WDW Restaurants Dining and Snacks" sections of the forums. Just like this forum you can get just about any question answered. As for the restaurants you can go to https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/dining/ and look at the menu and prices for every restaurant at WDW. That way you can plan for restaurants where there are items you family likes and know in advance what the cost is. There are a number of quick service meals that are large enough to split. For example my wife and I split the hotdogs at Casey's Corner in the Magic Kingdom. If for one of your meals you want to "blow it out" you might consider the Cinderella's Royal Table character meal (lunch or dinner) at the castle in the Magic Kingdom.

 

[Zé_Carioca]

I don't know anything about restaurants at this stage. Haven't heard about any of them, but I'll do some reading in the forums and we might book in to a couple for a treat. Food is one area where we'll need to take the cheap option where possible.

If saving money is a top priority I recommend stopping by walmart/target and getting lots of snacks and breakfast items to save money on those! You can also have those delivered, but there is now a handling fee at disney resorts, I believe.

Disney food is delicious, but it does get pricey. If you guys rent a car, it might be easier to eat outside the park areas for cheaper meals, however everything is spread out and without a car or ride-share it is hard to leave the park areas.

I do recommend taking a look at the Disney restaurants and seeing if there are any must-dos and plan those ahead. For example, is there any character that your kids would love to have a meal with? Keep in mind that character dining has an upcharge as well. That being said, for quick service meals, as DisAl said, you can share meals and snacks to save on the price and some of the portions are definitely generous.

 

[Rsj88]

I would suggest staying at Pop Century or another value resort. You probably won’t be in your resort much anyway except to sleep. That’s the way we are. We want to spend every moment we can in the parks. I would try to do one day at every park and maybe two at Magic Kingdom. I’m guessing you’d need two days at Universal but we have not been so I’m not sure if you could get all of Harry Potter done in a day. Also, check out videos on YouTube. There are tons about the hotels and parks so you can get a better Idea about what you might like.

 

[larryz]

What hotels would you recommend as the best option for us? While we'd love to have a suite where the adults have a separate bedroom from the kids, that will obviously depend on the price. If we use a value hotel, do we still get early access to the parks? Really not sure where to start here, and would appreciate any advice.

Disney suites are ridiculously expensive. My family of 4 finds two connected rooms serve our needs, and usually at a great savings over a suite.