Help with Orlando

[loveisagirlnameddaisy]

Please can someone explain the parks in Orlando to me in very simple terms. I get that there's Disney and also Universal but find the whole thing baffling. How many parks are there, what are they called, which are worth visiting and how do I buy tickets?

We have been a few times now.

You have Disney:
Magic Kingdom (MK) all things Disney includes the castle.

EPCOT... (E) A park of 2 halves... All things future, plus the world showcase, lots of little live shows there too.

Hollywood studios (HS)... star wars is the big attraction, plus Toy story land and a thrill ride or 2.

Animal Kingdom (AK)... some rides, some animals, always our first park.

Then Typhoon Lagoon and Blizzard Beach... the 2 water parks.

Disney Springs, shopping, eating, bit of live music.

Disney resorts... you can visit all of the resort hotels, to eat or wander round. Some are on the monorail or the skyliner.

There are also the smaller attractions... mini golf Winter/Summerland and Fantasia
___
Then Universal
Universal Studios (US) and Islands of Adventure(IOA)... the 2 theme parks, both have bits of Harry Potter stuff.
City Walk...restaurants, shopping, night life, mini golf etc.
Volcano Bay... water park, newish and excellent!
Then the resort hotels, again can be visited for food etc.

You can get combo tickets including Universal, Seaworld, Busch Gardens - (theme park near Tampa)and Aquatica (water park )

There is also Discovery Cove, Kennedy Space Centre, Wild Florida etc... depending on length of holiday.

You can buy tickets in many places. Would look at the ones on the Virgin/Tui/ BB holidays websites to get an idea of what each type offers.

"BA" not "BB"

@bigyellowTpot

no idea as never been but be aware florida is absolutely massive and I believe Disney and universal are no where near each other probably would be many hours of travelling between them.

They're very close together. We got a taxi and it wasn't expensive.

OP there is:

Disney comprised of:
Magic Kingdom
Animal Kingdom
Hollywood Studios (formerly MGM)
Blizzard Beach
Epcot
Typhoon Lagoon

And Universal:
Universal
Universal studios

Independents
Busch
Sea World
Discovery Cove (less of a park more a water space)

If you're going for a long time you can get package tickets to All Disney or All Universal. Some packages do Universal + Busch+ Sea Word.

If you stay at a Disney hotel parks aren't included unless purchased as a package (Disney your Way etc). But there is free shuttles to the parks (handy as they are 5-10+ mins away from each other.

Universal also do free/included park entry with some stays.

We did 10 days at Disney and bought the package but then did a day trip to Universal to see the Harry Potter section. Single day tickets are expensive though cheaper (just) than packages. We saved money by buying during the Dining Plan discounts. Meant all our food was included for a few hundred each (although you still have to tip).

Thank you SO much to everyone, loads of great info here to work my way through.

We'd like to hire a villa, have seen a couple on Air BnB that are reasonably priced. And will definitely have a car.

@loveisagirlnameddaisy

Does anyone know if it's better value to buy when you're over there?

It's not generally cheaper unless you have a Florida address. They get locals prices.

If you are planning to spend a lot of time in the theme parks, you might want to consider staying on site. You can put a package together direct with the Disney and Universal websites (I won't link because I am in a different country, it comes up in my currency!) You usually get early entry to the parks before the general public, it is considerably easier to take the shuttles/boats /trains than parking which costs, it's $27 a day at Universal for example. It also means that in the heat of the day you can get back quickly, get in the pool for a bit and have lunch and rest your feet! Then head back with a bit more energy. It very much depends on your budget but the range available on site is pretty good from "budget" options to more upscale or 2 bed apartments with kitchens , although even the most basic American hotels are usually enormous by European standards.

The Disney and Universals parks both have apps which are really well organised, you can find out the wait times on each of the rides in real time (which will save you the long walk across the park if it ends up being a 2 hour wait). I believe they have wifi available at least they did when we were there, not sure if your kids have phones yet but that also might be useful.

At 10 and 12, Cape Canaveral is well worth a visit. It is about an hour's drive away from Orlando on the East Coast. Sometimes they launch satellites and rockets which would be great to see, check the Kennedy Space Centre for the launch dates around the time of your visit aseven if you can't make it on the launch day you can sometimes see it even from Orlando!

For the remainder of your holiday you could consider a villa somewhere like Sanibel Island, Marco or Captiva, they are expensive though. We stayed at St Petersburg which was great for us. The Atlantic coast is beautiful, but the West coast has the Caribbean style white sandy beaches and turquoise water and the waves are more gentle plus you get the sunsets. The Keys are again, have their own separate character, the Turtle hospital is great and the views across the exceptionally long bridges are something else.
Have a lovely holiday!

IME this is one of those holidays that needs a lot of spade work before you get out there, particularly if you are going when the parks are going to be busy eg summer holidays.

Disney gave up on the Fast Pass system and now operate Genie+. it is worth really getting to grips with how this works. It is the difference between an 2 hour queue for a ride (i think the Runaway mine train got to 180min wait when we were last there) and booking a slot for the ride, turning up 5 mins beforehand and walking on. Doing 2 or 3 rides a day with 2 hour queues in between isn't much fun!

Ditto with the eating and drinking. We would pay for stuff on the app eg a dole whip icecream, 5 mins later the app would ping it was ready and we'd go to the front of the queue to collect, whereas people had been in the queue for half an hour just to buy ice cream, because the staff at the front were busy filling the app orders.

There are a lot of really good channels on youtube of people talking about all the rides, the different restaurants etc. Just be careful they say new for 2022 or similar as a lot of the old information is really out of date.

Also, its knackering, really properly knackering. We were walking 10+ miles a day in the parks according to my watch. Its definitely work bookmarking a few days r and r at the end at a beachy place, or Florida has some really nice state parks, Wekiwa is nearby and is beautiful with lots of biking, hiking, canoeing etc. Two weeks just doing the parks would be too much for me!

@Cdmlover

But tickets in advance. Wholly recommend you looking at a The Dibb. Full or really useful information including how to use Genie+ and Lightening Lanes in Disney. I will say, it’s worth booking one night at a Universal hotel so you get front of line passes (you get these passes for the day you check in and are valid until closing time of the day you check out). Not all Universal hotels offer it - the basic ones don’t.

This

Honestly the DIBB forum has everything and every tip on Disney, other parks, Florida, food, discounts, tips everything

Enjoy!!!!

It takes a lot of pre-planning to get the most out of your time there.

I also recommend the DIBB but I also suggest some of the Disney or Orlando Facebook pages too.

Thanks again, I knew Mumsnet would provide the answers.

To the OP who suggested staying on the parks, we'd prefer to have a villa. We definitely want to enjoy the parks but also relax and not let them be the be-all and end-all. Hoping 10 days in Orlando is enough.

We then plan to drive down via Clearwater to the keys and will fly out of Miami.

We are going in just over a month, flying in to Miami and driving up to Orlando, we have 10 days there and we are just doing Disney. (With our 3 year old), we are staying in a villa with its own pool so we can go back there and relax when things get too busy! We went on honeymoon a few years ago and stayed at the Hard Rock hotel at Universal which was amazing and was great for early entry and popping back to the pool during the busiest part of the day. We were only there five days though so being very close by meant we could maximise our time in the parks. We’ve booked our tickets through attraction tickets, for Disney the prices seem to be more or less the same everywhere but there are sometimes freebies which come with them which differ depending on the supplier, we got free magic bands with ours when we booked a few weeks ago.

We have been several times to Disney World and Universal.

It depends on whether your children enjoy fast roller coasters if so Universal parks plus their water park Volcano Bay. VB wins hands down over Blizzard Beach, Typhoon Lagoon and Aquatica (Seaworld) just because of Krakatau which is a water roller coaster which drops you down drops (nothing huge) but pushes you up climbs too, video below. Plus their fast flowing TeAwa the Fearless River, where you have to wear a life jacket, the water is fast moving keeping you moving forward then a small wave is released and pushes everything round and has a choppy water bit. Completely epic but not too forceful as we wore sunglasses all the way round just held on to them in the choppy bit just in case. They also have really good slides, family ones, 2 person ones and solo rides. We stayed at Cabana Bay to access that before moving across to Royal Pacific Resort club level for front of the line access.

I actually hate that Disney have removed fastpass forcing you to make any booking at 7am that morning rather than 60 days before. And charging you $15 per person per day to do it whilst also charging you if you want to guarantee to get on certain rides. Genie is good for newbies though and free. I highly recommend asking questions on The Dibb, even if that question has been asked a million times before people on there love all things Disney and Universal.

Disney is the place where you can take a bag on pretty much every ride it is so tame even RocknRoller coaster that goes upside down. Whereas Universal make you put everything into a locker, except the lanyard that is carrying your ticket as you scan that to open the locker. You tuck the lanyard inside your top so it stays on for the likes of Hulk.

Krakatau ride. The best ride ever. All rides, tours etc are on YouTube for all the Orlando stuff.

Buy your tickets before you go, we use www.attractiontickets.com/en Disney 14 day ticket is £1800 for 4 people, but that is park hopping ie different parks on the same day and all 6 parks. Magic Kingdom alone is about $108 per person for 1 day about £78. We Brits tend to go for longer as it takes a day to get there hence the deals on the tickets.

Attraction sell all tickets not just Disney.

It's mind boggling isn't it? I'd Really like to go but just don't know where to start.

We stayed on site in disney when we went last time. Previously we stayed outside and drove in. Being on site was much easier and we got a lot more out of it. Our accommodation had a kitchen within it so we could do meals there as well as eating out. The buses between the parks were brilliant - regular times and easy to use. If you're driving in due to the size you'd still need to get a shuttle bus/boat/monorail to the parks themselves. I also think we got earlier entry to the parks because we were staying on site.

@Lovinglavidaloca

It's mind boggling isn't it? I'd Really like to go but just don't know where to start.

Start on the DIBB site. Honestly covers everything

@bigyellowTpot

no idea as never been but be aware florida is absolutely massive and I believe Disney and universal are no where near each other probably would be many hours of travelling between them.

This is 100% wrong.

Definitely look at DIBBS, Ed are going for the first time this July and in case helpful our travel itinerary is:
Land in Miami, stay over one night
Drive to Orlando
Stay in villa in Kissimmee
Do some of the parks, Kennedy Space Centre etc
Drive to Fort Lauderdale, for two nights for a beachy few days
Fly back from Fort Lauderdale

I still need to book park tickets, and work out how to use the Genie app!

That should have said 'we' not Ed.
Also, forgot to say, we are going for 15 nights in total and our children are 10 and 12

I recommend Windsor Hills as a villa location - close to Disney, a Walmart and the 192 for restaurants

This is really useful info thanks. Can I
join in with some questions?
We are mainly planning to do Disney and have a 14 day ticket but have a Harry Potter obsessed 8 year-old. Would one day be enough for Universal if just planning to do Harry Potter area (which I am aware you need a 2 park ticket for) or longer? Would it be best to hire a car or how else would you get there from a Disney Hotel- we are staying at Pop Central.

@Vanillaradio

This is really useful info thanks. Can I join in with some questions? We are mainly planning to do Disney and have a 14 day ticket but have a Harry Potter obsessed 8 year-old. Would one day be enough for Universal if just planning to do Harry Potter area (which I am aware you need a 2 park ticket for) or longer? Would it be best to hire a car or how else would you get there from a Disney Hotel- we are staying at Pop Central.

Get an uber - they're even not bothered if you're a bit wet!

If you're just doing HP you could get a 1 day park to park, but you'd need the skip the line bit.

Great thanks- I'll have a look at tickets for Universal

The thing is for one day, you won’t see it all if you want to do the HP rides too. See if your budget affords a night in one of the universal hotels that gives free express pass, ie Hard Rock.

You can drop an overnight bag at reception and go straight to the park and have use of express pass. Stay one night and then have the next day too. There is so much to see HP wise and, that’s assuming you don’t see something else you’d like to experience at Universal. They do have some good rides.

Ive never hired a car in Orlando. Uber is cheaper.