Trip of a lifetime to Disney, Seaworld, etc - Best Ticket to buy?
Walt Disney World: Would ge grateful for advise on the best ticket to purchase for entrance into WDW, Universal, Seaworld & Epcot
Hi there
I am new to this site and wondered if there is anyone that can help me? My parents are taking our two boys (13 & 11) to Florida for 9 days. They have 5 days free for theme parks - They have been looking at WDW, Universal Studios, Island of Adventure, SeaWorld & Epcot. Is it possible to fit all these in, in the 5 days available and if so how many days would you allocate to each - and what is the best ticket to purchase in advance? They have hired a car so they will probably need to park at the theme parks (unless the hotel does shuttle runs? they are staying at the Marriot Grande Lakes - does anyone know how far the theme parks are from here). Any advice would be helpful as they are coming from the UK and the last time we went to Disney was back in 1992 and i'm guessing its changed an awful lot since then!!! They are travelling out on 1st June 2012 - does anyone know if the schools in Florida have their holidays this week?
Where in WDW do your parents want to go? It's near impossible to do all 4 in 2 days, so is there a specific WDW park that you want to visit? If you want to go to multiple WDW parks, a parkhopper ticket is recommended.
First of all welcome to TPI! Now getting into trying to plan your days you have in Orlando. First thing is that WDW is all 4 disney parks in orlando (Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Hollywood Studios, and Animal Kingdom), so if you are wanting to do all 4 disney parks and both universal parks and also go to sea world it will be pretty much impossible to take in all 7 parks in five days. You can do it but you would be so worn out and would not get to see everything at each park. Now if by WDW you meant Magic Kingdom (the one with the big castle) then yes you can do all 5 parks in 5 days. I would buy my tickets straight from the parks website you are wanting to go to. You can buy them for a few dollars cheaper on some other sites but it is usually not worth the risk involved in hoping that the web-site is legitimate or not. It cost about $12 to $15 to park at a theme park these days but I like to park instead of a shuttle so that I feel I have more control on when I want to leave the park etc. June 1st will probably be a good time to go. Most U.S. school are either not out for summer vacation yet or have just got out the week before so I would say the parks would not be to terribly crowded. Hope your parents and boys have a great time!
Also for what it is worth and I am sure other people would disagree with me but for the age your boys are I think they would enjoy Hollywood Studios or Animal Kingom more than Epcot. But thats just my opinion.
From Kelly Bean
Posted February 15, 2012 at 1:17 AM
If I had 5 days, I would hit Universal Studios and IOA first, take a relaxing day at Discovery Cove (which will give you free admission to Sea World), Sea World on day 4 and then end at the Magic Kingdom. It is true, your kids may be a little bored at Epcot.
Grande Lakes is just up the road from Sea World and Discovery Cove. Disney and Universal are about 15 - 20 minutes away. They will be really centrally located. The first week of June is the last week of school so the crowds will be manageable.
Hi Gemma
Last year I bought a ticket for Seaworld and Busch Gardens that was unlimited for 2 weeks (even though I was there for 11 days) and cost $5 more than a one day pass. This may be in their interest to get, $5 is a small price for flexibility and also if they feel like going back to the room for an afternoon and back the next day, they can. There is a telephone number on the Seaworld website, it goes to a UK helpdesk.
Not entirely sure the Orlando Flexpass is still sold these days (23 years of going there and never bought one myself) but they used to be a good deal for Unversal/Seaworld.
Agree with the EPCOT comment. Young boys would get so much more of the Disney 'magic' from avoiding it and going to Animal Kingdom or the Studios.
Thanks for all your comments so far, they are really helping. Do you think it is possible to do both Universal Studios and Universal's Islands of Adventure in one day? How many days would you allocate to Disney's Animal Kingdom & Disney's Hollywood Studios? Would one day be enough to do both Seaworld & Discovery Cove? Sorry for all the questions, its a real minefield - didn't realise there were 4 parks to WDW! Do they still do the parades in the evening at Magic Kingdom with fireworks? Apologies in advance as i'm sure there will be plenty more questions I need to ask.
Yes you can do both Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure in the same day if it is not a really busy day. You would want to at Wizarding World of Harry Potter as soon as the park opens and then go where you like from there. It would be a long day but you can ride all the rides in a day.
Disney is a little more tricky because of the parks not being right next to each other. I went last October with some friends of mine and we bought one day park hoppers and rode every major ride at Animal kingdom and Hollywood Studios and then ended the day riding about 5 rides at Magic Kingdom and then watched the fireworks. So doing more than one park in a day can be done but you have to use there fast passes wisely and you really dont get to enjoy all the parks have to offer. You are really just enjoying the rides is all. And just like at Universal Studios if you do more than one park a day you can get pretty worn out pretty fast. I think you should probably pick out 2 Disney parks and just go to one each day so as to not feel rushed.
As for Seaworld and Discovery Cove I have never been to Discovery Cove but Seaworld can take most of a day if you try to hit most all of the animal shows. If you just ride rides it wont take very long to go through SeaWorld.
And yes they do parades and they do fireworks every night at Magic kingdom. If you get on Disney's web-site it probably gives the parade times at each park. Not sure how far in advanced they post this but I am pretty sure it is on there somewhere.
From Tony Duda
Posted February 15, 2012 at 3:05 PM
Gemma, UK people get special discounts on park tickets that we in the States don't, check the parks UK web sites to see those deals. The deals I've heard about are for longer multi-day visits but you should investigate.
You said a 9 day trip but only 5 park days, is that 100% true? You mean zero time at night or in the morning for short park trips? I ask this because the best deals are multi-day and a little time each day can make the cost worth it.
Ok, so here goes, what do you guys reckon to this plan:-
1 x Day - Disney Animal Kingdom
1 x Day - Disney Hollywood Studios
1 x Day - Epcot - followed by evening parade & fireworks at Magic Kingdom
1 x Day - Seaworld
1 x Day - Universal Studios & Island of Adventures
1 x Day - Kennedy Space Center
We were going to buy the 'Orlando Freedom Ticket' which will gain entrance to all parks (except Kennedy Space Center) and the tickets are £428.00 each (adult prices as our boys are too old to be children now). This includes FASTPASS as Disney parks.
Do you think this is a reasonable price? Also, do you know if we can pay for parking in advance as this is not included.
Look forward to hearing more thoughts!
Sounds like a great plan to me!
As far as the price goes it sounds pretty good to me but I am not really sure of the exact exchange rate. You could buy a 3 day park hopper Disney ticket here for about $300.00 and a 1 day SeaWorld ticket for $80 and a 1 day parker hopper to Universal and IOA for about $120. Which would be about $500 Total. Which would be a little less than the tickets you are getting, but the diffrence is is that those tickets you are getting are probably good for like 2 weeks to every park. So you could go back to a park you really liked if you want to. So your tickets are probably a much better deal!
From David L.
Posted February 19, 2012 at 10:02 AM
That sounds alright, but if you don't mind spending extra on parking, you can visit an extra park on your animal kingdom day as animal kingdom closes earlier than the rest of the parks(usually). Instead, you could explore some of the hotels(Disney) or Downtown Disney(A big Disney shopping center). Have a great trip!
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