Give me all the advice I need for florida

[millimat]

Never been and looking at going in October.
Main questions at this point :
Hotel or villa / apartment? 2 adults and 2 teens
Package or book independently?
Best location for the parks?
Is 10 days enough?

Hotel or villa / apartment? 2 adults and 2 teens

Personal choice. Lots of rental properties = Private pool but further away.

Package or book independently?
Personal choice (sorry, I'm not being v helpful!) but if you want a hotel it may (*may) be cheaper to do a package

Best location for the parks?
Which park? Although it's not impossible to get between them all. Disney hotels are, of course, nice if you are doing Disney. Equally there are loads of places by Universal, plus I-drive (international drive) has a million hotels. Also a fair few hotels have 1 bed/2 bed suites (complete with little kitchen) if that suits you better.

Is 10 days enough?
I'd say no myself, Disney will do 14-day tickets for the price of 7, so you might as well get your moneys worth. But then there is also Universal, Sea World (plus aquatica and discovery cove). Kennedy is out of this world (see what I did there! But it is fantastic). Also various other attractions depending what you are in to. Plus an airboat ride in the Everglades (boggy creek etc).

We're limited with dates so really 10 days is the maximum we could take but don't want to go and feel we've missed loads. Having never been I think the Disney parks are priority.
I like the idea of a Disney hotel for location, early entry etc but definitely don't want all 4 of us sharing a room which seems to be the norm.

Disney hotels are mainly room only but not all - look at www.tripsavvy.com/disney-hotels-for-larger-families-3266433

If you have teenagers are you sure you want to do Disney over Universal?

They've never been to Disney so just assumed it was a must? I don't know then.
Maybe I need a list of must sees? Children are 12 & 15.

10 days is plenty.
For Universal, get a 2-day Park-to-Park ticket as it will give you more flexibility than the Base Ticket type. Plus, thePark-to-Park Ticket is the only way toexperience the Hogwarts Express inThe Wizarding World of Harry Potter Diagon Alley. It's also a good choice when one park closes earlier than the others. For instance, if Universal Studios Florida closes at 5 p.m. and Universal's Islands of Adventure closes at 7 p.m., the Park-to-Park ticket allows you to leave Universal Studios Florida and have two hours to enjoy the rides at Universal's Islands of Adventure.
I'd spend one day at SeaWorld and with teens I'd only spend one day at Magic Kingdom. Give Animal Kingdom a miss, but spend a day at Epcot and another day at Hollywood Studios. Six full days of theme parks will be exhausting.
With your remaining days, I'd recommend getting a couch tour out to the Kennedy Space Centre. We went with Grey Line tours. I'd also visit Downtown Disney in one of the evenings. To get the most out of Downtown, don't do it after a full theme park day - do it after a lazy day spent by the pool. We also spend a day at shopping outlets and a day at the Everglades if there's any energy left!
Have a look at staying at The Enclave Hotel and Suites in a two bedroom family suite. It has theme-park shuttles and decent swimming pools.

The choice of villa or hotel depends if you are willing to drive or not. We always go for a villa but we also rarely do full days in the parks. We like being able to jump in the pool at 5am in the dark if that's what we want to do. And all those utterly hyper, worn out kids are very wearing to me.

There's lots to do in Florida.

I prefer a villa - 4 of us packed into a hotel room is not a holiday for me! Also like having our on pool, but we do stay a night or two at universal as if you stay in some of their higher grade hotels you get free express passes (skip th lines) as well as early park entry. If you stay one night, you get both passes and early entry for the day you check in and the next day. Two days is enough to do both universal parks and do everything at least once.

We've been to a travel agent today and got lots of advice.
Now wondering if we need to do Disney at all? Then again, 2 days at universal isn't much of the holiday!

All the advice on Disney parks and universal is on touring plans.com

Be wary of a coach tour to Kennedy. We didn't do anything like everything we wanted to and were really frustrated. The coach stopped at about a gazillion hotels to pick up so we arrived late and had to leave early to do all the drop offs. It was the one thing I regretted. Given the cost of hiring a car in Florida (peanuts) I'd do this to give you maximum flexibility.

We have three adults, booked for October, daughter has been checking prices withe the different travel agents, virgin's price was down to 850 before Christmas. So flights straight there, checked luggage, car rental and room at the Rosen International, its opposite universal.
We've also started to sign up for special offers for restaurants and cafes.
October is a great time to go for the weather but epcot has food and drink festival on, plus Halloween and a bit into November the park is decorated for Christmas.
Hope this helps.

DD and I went when she was 16. We stayed at the Universal site as she is a massive Harry Potter fan. We had free shuttles between the hotel and Universal/Islands of Adventure and had 14 day tickets for both these and the Disney Parks. We quite often popped over to Universal in the evening for an hour or two.

We wanted to avoid Disney hotels as DD's (and my) tolerance levels for loads of screaming small children is not very high, and Universal generally appeals more to older children.

Generally hotels are room only, so you will have meals to find. Our room had a coffee machine and a fridge and we stocked up on drinks from Walmart.

Driving to the Disney parks was easy. We also drove to Cape Kennedy and to Boggy Creek, as well as to local shops and restaurants.

As a Florida virgin I found it much easier to book as a package. If we were to go again (I have no intention of doing so) I would price up doing everything separately now that I know what is required.

Things to be aware of:
Tipping - waiters expect at least a 20% tip
Cost of parking at the Disney parks was $20 a day when we went
Freeway tolls - ask when you oick your car up whether they will just bill you when you drop your car off as yo.

We found that 10 days was plenty, but we aren't interested in water parks so didn't visit them.

We did Florida Oct 17 hired a car and had a villa (2 DC 8 & 3). I would definitely go to Disney it's the highlight for us although I appreciate we have younger kids than you. Animal kingdom has a whole new avatar section that is great for older kids. Magic kingdom is amazing whatever your age. Universal is a must especially if you have Harry Potter fans. I would buy a 7 day access all areas all parks ticket (you get 7 days free so it's actually a 14 day ticket) you can then go anywhere any day you want. They are not cheap though ours were £550 each including the kids 2 years ago!

We did 2 days universal
2 days magic kingdom (including nighttime fireworks AMAZING)
1 day animal kingdom
1 day epcot
1 day Hollywood studios
1 day shopping
1 day in pool (at villa)
1 day travelling

We went for ten days due to school and work holidays. It was manic but so magical for the kids.

Hire a car. It’s cheap, and quite easy to driven.
Kennedy is really good. Highly recommend. They also do, for extra fee, lunch with an astronaut. This was excellent.
Be prepared to stand in immigration for a couple of hours on arrival. It’s a massive pain.
We stayed in an apartment at a resport they are massive and it meant we could use all the amenities however on the minus side it meant it’s wasn’t as easy to get in and out of the parks eg go in the morning, go back to hotel and then go back later because of the parking costs. So a hotel with transport included would have been good.
Disney Springs is fun. Free parking, great cinema and fun to walk around in the evening.
Go to Whole Foods not Walmart. It is amazing. Great food.
My then 13 year loved Universal - get tickets for both universal and islands of adventure. He said it was the best day of his life!

You can easily do Disney and universal in 10 days, you only need a day per park and will have time to fit in the Disney water parks in between. I'd recommend flight centre for flights then book a villa with pool. Kissimmee has tons to choose from and you'll have to drive everywhere anyway so distance won't make any odds (if you stay close to Disney you'll drive further to universal and vice versa)

I would say definitely do the Disney parks as well as Universal, i’m certain a 12 and 15 year old will still love them.

If you so stay in a (non Disney) hotel then have a look at the public buses. Most hotels in international drive, Lake Buena Vista and the likes will run free shuttle buses to the parks, but sometimes the times aren’t the most convenient. Public buses are cheap and many will stop at Disney Springs or magic kingdom and from there you can get on another bus to whatever park you’re going to.

I would also make sure to get fast passes for the rides you and DC are most excited about - you can book these online on the mydisney app so you don’t need to queue as long. Also if there’s any restaurants within the parks you want to have dinner in, also worth booking in advance.

10 days has worked for us in the past:
Magic Kingdom on first and last full day, Epcot, Animal Kingdom, Hollywood Studios, a Disney waterpark (personally prefer Typhoon Lagoon), Universal, a day at the pool with Disney Springs that night and then a day at the outlets shopping. We’ve been several times though so could be more selective about what we were doing/ seeing.

Never been in October but it will be all done up for Halloween. Universal have horror nights on - maybe worth checking that night out if it’s up your alley.

Finally - please don’t go to SeaWorld, those poor poor whales, it’s really not worth it.

If you go to Kennedy, have a look at the astronaut training experience.

We went 5 years ago when the boys were 13 and 16 and this was the best part of the trip.
Generally Universal was better than Disney for our boys’ age group but my 16yo said his favourite park was actually Magic Kingdom which surprised us.
We all loved the water parks. Our least favourite was animal kingdom which I expected to love. It was good but just not as good as the others.
We stayed off site in a villa and having the boys hit our private pool each day was fantastic. Staying in Disney would not have been our thing but I like the independence and don’t mind self catering (in reality we usually ate out, it was very cheap).