We’ve been going to Universal since kids were 8 and 11. Agree that the HP rides are too scary for many 8 year olds. I would say 10+.
We go every year. Stay 4 nights. Always stay on resort - Royal pacific is our favorite. Hard rock is slightly closer but it was a let down. Portofino is slightly further and less kid friendly. Got lost trying to find the pool…
To the PP who found the rides are just pneumatic with a screen… that’s less than half the rides - and my kids love them. Hagrids motorcade is an awesome coaster. Same with Hulk.
Some people get bored at Universal. Some people love it over WFW (like my family). Won’t know until you try.

The food options & quality are infinitely better at Universal. We stayed at the Portofino I believe and it was very nice.

Op here thanks for feedback. Any feedback on Portofino or Royal Pacific hotels?

Anonymous wrote:Thinking 3 days at the park/4 nights at an on-site resort ? Not really interested in WDW right now. Did it when they were younger, maybe return in a few years. This would be with tweens. More interested in theme rides vs thrill rides.

Are their any other options? If it’s due to location(Orlando), then yeah it’s probably your best bet.

Anonymous wrote:People rave about hard rock but we prefer royal packfic. My kids really like to just hang at that pool and watch the movies on deck. There is also the restaurant area outside the parks that has stuff to do if you want to fill time otherwise.
I personally don’t like it as well as WDW but if you haven’t been yet and your kids like HP, I think it’s a fun trip.

I’m the Hard Rock PP and have only stayed there but Royal Pacific is the only other hotel that I would consider due to location and Express Pass. I hear it’s lovely and don’t think you can go wrong between the two. Portofino is lovely too (we went for a meal) but much too far in my opinion.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We did a week in April and going back for a week in December. Stayed at Hard Rock with tweens and had a ball! Just did half days at the park.

We are normally a Disney family but not interested in standing in those lines. We were fastpass experts so it will be interesting to see what happens with that.

We spend a day there and that is more than enough for our 12 yo DS, I can’t imagine a week there.

PP here. We went for about 4-5 hours a day, like 5/6pm until 10pm. We did one of the two Harry Potter areas every day. In addition to that, my kids did the major coasters at whatever park we were at, plus whatever our favorite other rides were. The first couple days we did all the rides because we hadn’t been before, but after that we just did the ones we liked. During the day we hung out at the very nice pool and water slide with delicious pool restaurant and bar at our hotel. I definitely wouldn’t have wanted to spend all day at the parks like we do at Disney but this was a perfect blend of activities. Like I said we are going to repeat the trip in December and we are really looking forward to it. I have girls (10 and 13) and I suspect they are much more into Harry Potter than your son.

Anonymous wrote:I think overall the rides at universal are pretty pathetic. 90% of all the rides are just movie screens with pneumatic seats.

Agreed. The Harry Potter stuff is great, the rest you could do in two hours.

We spent 4 nights there with a group of 7 adults and 5 kids 8-16. They all loved it. We had a multi park pass that also included the waterpark, where we spent a whole day. It was an awesome trip.

Anonymous wrote:We did a week in April and going back for a week in December. Stayed at Hard Rock with tweens and had a ball! Just did half days at the park.

We are normally a Disney family but not interested in standing in those lines. We were fastpass experts so it will be interesting to see what happens with that.

We spend a day there and that is more than enough for our 12 yo DS, I can’t imagine a week there.

People rave about hard rock but we prefer royal packfic. My kids really like to just hang at that pool and watch the movies on deck. There is also the restaurant area outside the parks that has stuff to do if you want to fill time otherwise.
I personally don’t like it as well as WDW but if you haven’t been yet and your kids like HP, I think it’s a fun trip.

My middle school kids enjoyed US much more than WDW.

We are there as our post-pandemic trip right now. Standing in a very long line for VelociCoaster, which is awesome, btw. Having a blast. Don’t expect a lot of masks, if that matters to you (our family is now fully vaxxed).

We did a week in April and going back for a week in December. Stayed at Hard Rock with tweens and had a ball! Just did half days at the park.

We are normally a Disney family but not interested in standing in those lines. We were fastpass experts so it will be interesting to see what happens with that.

We went in 2019 with a Costco travel package. We stayed Club Level at Portofino Bay for 4 nights and had a buy two days get three days free for tickets. We loved it! I can’t imagine coming over just for the day to only do HP. We did spend a ton of time in HP but also enjoyed the other rides as well. We liked Volcano Bay so much we went two days in a row.

I'd say Universal is pretty Harry Potter oriented. I particularly love the Men in Black Ride. The things like Poseidon's Fury are a little cheezy but still fun. I still miss Dueling Dragons, though. That was their best coaster, IMO.