Anonymous wrote:OP. Thank you so much for all the comments.

1) Currently 28th Night is airport hotel (due to late arrival), then uber to/checking in to Portofino on 29th and Checking out on the 2nd (4 nights). How would you do it differently?

2) The reason we have 5 days is due to the buy days, get free days deal (also hopper tix for hogwarts). Will it really be that boring? I have no clue how to plan the park days. I do better when I have a plan in hand (I have anxiety) but have very limited time due to parents care.
Which days should I do which parks and where do I get a plan for the day?

3) 10 yr old is vegan, 8 yr old is lactose intolerant and a little gluten sensitive. I will have to carry food for lunch and then research dinner places. Can't do grocery as no car.

PP with the details about the Spring trip - How sweet of you to take the time. To the other PP, no we won't go in debt over this and retirement/529 won't suffer.

Anonymous wrote:5 days is waaaay too long. 1 day each of the two parks.

Anonymous wrote:Here is my spring break report fwiw. I say express pass all the way.

https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1124996.page

Anonymous wrote:How busy is it likely to be the Friday of Thanksgiving week?
It’s our first time going and we’re just doing a day.

Anonymous wrote:We recently went to Universal and had a great time, but it was surprisingly more expensive than Disney. We did Portofino for the Express passes. We also bought the 2park park to park pass to enjoy the Hogwarts train between. We had a great time but I was very shocked at the price. We just hit the bullet and paid it. We didn’t want the upheaval of relocating rooms. You really only need 2 full days to do both parks with the Express passes. But, also you should bookend that with travel days.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not good at this kind of vacation planning. We are on a budget, single income for now but spouse would like to splurge for express passes late October trip. Difference is $1k+. it’s not a huge sum for some I know.

Crowd calendar was different on 2 different sites and even then switched from 6-7 to 4-5 rating to back. Not sure what to believe.

Total with airfare, airport hotel stay due to late arrival and tickets plus 4 night stay at Portofino is about $4k which DH twisted my arm to get but can be canceled. We haven’t spent that on an any vacay. Not counting food and other expenses. All this is for the HP fan whose birthday will be during the trip.

I know people mix and match hotels for the passes. That would mean we would switch hotels twice or thrice - from airport hotel 1 to universal hotel 2 to hotel 3 for express and if we were going strictly by crowd calendar then back to universal hotel 2.

Yeah am a little tightly wound buy Please tell me I am right and we need to re-do this (I would cancel this trip entirely but DH is a softie with our kid).
TIA

What days of the week are you going?
How old are your kids?

We did Universal on a long weekend where DCPS had off for a Thur and Fri. We flew down Wed after school, Thur park was mostly empty. Friday there was an uptick in crowds due to Halloween special event.

We had the express pass from staying at the hotel - but really was not materially different. We did all we wanted and then some. We also really enjoyed the hotel pool.

Anonymous wrote:Check for annual pass rates. The price of an annual pass (just need one per room) isn’t much more than a multi day ticket and can save a lot at the hotels. We went for a week and had a blast and didn’t get bored. It was great to re-ride our favorites with little wait - we were at an express pass hotel and as far as I’m concerned it’s the only way to go. We filled the rest of the time at the pools, the mini golf at CityWalk, the water park, etc.

This is the link to check for annual pass hotel rates:
https://res.windsurfercrs.com/ibe/default.aspx?hgID=641&langID=1&checkin=1/22/2018&nights=1&rooms=1&adults=2&children=0&promo=aph&iata=&group=&hotels=&ada=

Anonymous wrote:Not good at this kind of vacation planning. We are on a budget, single income for now but spouse would like to splurge for express passes late October trip. Difference is $1k+. it’s not a huge sum for some I know.

Crowd calendar was different on 2 different sites and even then switched from 6-7 to 4-5 rating to back. Not sure what to believe.

Total with airfare, airport hotel stay due to late arrival and tickets plus 4 night stay at Portofino is about $4k which DH twisted my arm to get but can be canceled. We haven’t spent that on an any vacay. Not counting food and other expenses. All this is for the HP fan whose birthday will be during the trip.

I know people mix and match hotels for the passes. That would mean we would switch hotels twice or thrice - from airport hotel 1 to universal hotel 2 to hotel 3 for express and if we were going strictly by crowd calendar then back to universal hotel 2.

Yeah am a little tightly wound buy Please tell me I am right and we need to re-do this (I would cancel this trip entirely but DH is a softie with our kid).
TIA

Anonymous wrote:You only need two days at Universal. It'll get boring after that.

You can save money by staying at Cabana Bay in one of the rooms with a kitchenette. We loved ours! We ate breakfast in so we could sleep a bit later and still have time to eat before getting to the parks when they open.

We drove so we brought food with us and then I did stop by the grocery to buy smores fixings rather than pay the hotel prices for marshmallows and graham crackers. We roasted marshmallows at the fire pit.

The Trader Joes is not far and, of course, there's Publix and a nearby Whole Foods.

We stayed at Cabana Bay twice and loved all the pools and the lazy river. NOTE: They have added a hotel there but not increased the number of pools so it does get crowded!

I've stayed at another Universal hotel and like Cabana Bay the best. One drawback is that the check in is frequently slooooow.