Orlando booking advice

[GloriousTeaParty]

I want to take DCs to the Harry Potter park at Orlando. I don't know anything really about the Disney parks. Is it best to go through a travel agent but the hotels look so much cheaper booking through sites like booking.com? How to book park tickets? How many parks? How long should we go for? Was thinking about ten days but wouldn't want to spend all that in parks so maybe better not in a park hotel? It all looks so complicated to organize it puts me off. Would be grateful for any advice.

Have a look at the Dibb forum (just google) and also 'it's Orlando time' Facebook page, these will help you start.

You can book as a package, direct with hotels, through agents like booking.com. How long you spend in parks is up to you and dependent on what your dc would like. We always go in a villa to get some peace and quiet, but a car is almost essential if you do that.

How old are your dcs?
The Harry Potter park is in the universal studios park and the islands of adventure park. Hogwarts express train takes you between the two and it's a different experience each way.
IMO there's so much to do in Orlando that with a few days rest aswell then 3 weeks is a perfect amount of time.
We did 2 weeks with no rest days. We had a day at a water park and a shopping day and the rest between the above two parks and Disney parks.
We bought our tickets from attraction tickets - they have good deals.
We also stayed in a villa and booked that and the flights separately. It was cheaper to do it that way.

Thanks I've just a looked on the Facebook page. DCs will be 15 and 7. We wouldn't be able to do more than two weeks. Is there good parking at the resorts if you stay in a villa? From googling it seems Kissimmee is recommended as a place to stay? How many days would you recommend for doing the two parks?

The two parks in terms of how many days ticket passes should I get?

Disney is great for a few days, but Universal was much better for my DCs (8 - 14). We stayed 3 days in a Universal Hotel - got the boat to Universal and the 'extra hours' to make the most of the HP time. I think we did 3 days staying on Universal Resort, and 12 Disney. (Got the dining plans which helped).

Next time I'll get a villa and car, do the space centre, Busch Gardens etc etc.

Depends on how you want to do it really.

The Harry Potter experience is wonderful!

We went for 11 days last year, and it was plenty for us. We don't like thrill rides or water parks and found that the 4 Disney parks plus Islands of Adventure and Universal was quite enough. We also drove to the Kennedy Space Centre and to Boggy Creek for an airboat ride.

There is plenty of parking in Orlando. It isn't like the UK. Parking at each park is $20 a day.

Thanks for the advice am going to look at those places and prob stay a bit further away and drive