Help with Travel Plans - Orlando

Quote from deepudips : Hello Members, We are a family of 4 (2 adults and 2 children 12 and 7 yrs old) travelling to USA from Australia. Apart from other planning, the key one will be the Orlando trip and need your help in planning this. This is our first time to Orlando. The current plan allows me to fly to Orlando from Dallas on June 19 and can stay up to 26th June. I have blocked the rooms in DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel at the Entrance to Universal Orlando for those dates. That is how far we have got, need you help in 1. Planning for the Theme parks, which when where what etc etc 2. What kind of tickets should I buy, is there a way to get them cheaper? 3. When in theme parks, do we need to make a booking for lunch/dinner I am sure this is just the start and looking for advice in tweaking the plans to make it a memorable trip for us and kids. Thank you

Check over at Disboards.com they have a very active community over there. If it was me planning to go to orlando with kids, I would look into renting a timeshare unit for the time you are there. There are plenty of units available for renting. I have stayed in a few, I don't know about every property there though. You can get a 2 bedroom unit with full kitchen for less than a hotel room.

Also AirBnB.com and VRBO.com - just tally up the extra fees before you book. It's nice to have a kitchen and extra space.

Quote from SGHokie : Check over at Disboards.com they have a very active community over there. If it was me planning to go to orlando with kids, I would look into renting a timeshare unit for the time you are there. There are plenty of units available for renting. I have stayed in a few, I don't know about every property there though. You can get a 2 bedroom unit with full kitchen for less than a hotel room.

Thumper1 is correct. Not just quality, but you can even beat the entire cost of stay (including the entire taxes/fees) by attending presentation = $0.00 redeem certificate for one week resort stay Saturday-to-Saturday

Hi deepudips,

With regards to your questions, there are a lot of variants:

Your kids are in the in-between age from what I see. Disney parks tend to be more for the younger audience, whereas Universal is more appealing for the teenage/thrill-seeker audience. Disney has more parks but Universal has more thrill rides. If you plan to see parks for the majority of your days here (not interested in shopping and other activities) I would recommend the Disney 3-day 1-park ticket and the Universal 2-day 1-park ticket. This basically means 5 parks in 5 days without an option to park-hop. It's intense but doable.

Depending on your kids' interests this may vary. Sea World has some roller coasters too and their tickets are not as expensive as Disney or Universal.

Based on the time of year you're coming, water parks are also an option (Universal and Sea World have 1 each and Disney has 2). Those tickets are cheaper, especially when bundled.

If you're trying to do a more conservative plan, my essentials would be: Magic Kingdom, Hollywood Studios (newest attractions) and Universal. Epcot is undergoing major renovations, Animal Kingdom doesn't have enough attractions to justify the ticket and Islands of Adventures has fallen behind.

As far as ticket prices go, there's very little you can do to get discounts, that I know of. The only thing you'll notice is that the more you bundle, the less you pay per day. A 3 day ticket will cost $20 less per day than a single ticket. If you have friends that have access to websites like TicketsAtWork, sometimes they have discounts in tickets (the most you'll get are 10%). I do not recommend using any of the off-brand ticket seller kiosks you see all over Orlando, these guys are generally scammers and end up making you take a 3hr timeshare sales presentation.

If you decide to visit Disney parks, I would highly recommend getting your tickets ASAP so that you can book your FastPasses to the most popular rides. (I believe you can do those 90 days in advance)

When you decide which parks you'll visit, also make sure to check park hours so that you don't get hit by any special event and you're able to take advantage of the park to the fullest.

As far as dining goes, it depends on your dietary needs and the amount and quality of food you're interested in eating. Most quick-serve restaurants at the parks are easy enough to just go and eat at w/o reservations. If you're interested in some of the nicer restaurants located on the theme parks, reservations are highly encouraged. Some, like princess encounters and character dining, are booked months in advance.

Hope that helps

There are a lot of cellphone apps that may make your experience better. It's almost 3 years since we were there and I remember being able to make fast pass reservations.

When last year with a friends and family pass from an employee. Be careful how you choose your fast passes. Used one on Avatar. Got there as recommended right when they opened in the morning. Still had to wait two hours with the fast pass. When we were exiting the ride, the wait was 3 hours. Good luck and have fun!