Here's my answers/thoughts/Opinions:
Do they have resorts. Any benefit to staying there.
- Absolutely! 5 resort hotels (with more coming this year and subsequent years). All have some benefit of staying onsite. All of the on-site resorts come with the benefit of early entry into one (or both) of the parks. And the 3 deluxe/premium hotels offer free unlimited express passes of the attractions during the entirety of your stay. There is so much to be said about the different on-site resorts (pros and cons) that there are a ton of threads in the resorts forum that you can go through. Plus all of them are within walking distance to the parks, or have really great transportation - water taxi's almost directly to the front gates, or shuttle bus to the transportation hubs. You are literally door to door from the resorts to the park gates in ~15 min give or take when staying at any of the onsite resorts.
Packages
- Most will say it's not worth it to book a package (and I agree). You are not typically saving any money through booking a package vs. booking all of the pieces separately. And when booking separately you can typically cancel/change your hotel reservation without any penalty (like if you see a better rate later etc.).
Meal plans, do they have a bunch of restaurants like Disney
- Most will say it's not worth it (and I agree). The meal plan options are somewhat limited and do not offer much cost savings. There are a ton of great restaurants, inside the parks, directly outside the parks in City Walk (which is kind of like Disney Springs), and at all of the onsite hotels which as noted above are all close to one another.
Fast passes
- Yes. At Universal they are called Express Pass and cover pretty much all of the attractions. They are not free though. They are either bought separately in the parks/on the website OR as noted above if you stay at one of the 3 Deluxe/Premium resorts, they are free with your stay. The time of year you go kind of dictates how necessary they are. If you are going during a peak period, they are IMO very necessary or you'll be spending a ton of time in line. Going during a slower period you can easily get by without them. Personally I would never pay for them on their own. If I'm going during a busy time of the year I would definitely stay at one of the deluxe resorts so I get them for free with my stay.
Transportation
- Do you mean from MCO to the resorts? Or from the resorts to the parks? As noted above, from the resorts its super fast/easy to get to the parks from the resorts. From MCO, there is no "Magic Bus" type thing that you might be used to. You need to sort out your own transportation for that.
Magic Hours
- As noted above, if you are staying at an on-site resort, there is daily early entry an hour before the gates open for everyone else. It's typically only for one park or the other (either IOA or US), and it's to the Harry Potter section of the given park for the most part. During the busiest times of year (Summer Break, Christmas/New Years) they usually have early entry to both parks.
How many days should we book
- You'll get really varying responses from all of the board members. Here is my ideal/typical booking to Universal. We book a one week stay, on-site at a deluxe (so we get the Express Passes) and usually get a 3 day park-to-park ticket. This gives us a nice split of park days vs. resort days, and allows us an adequate amount of time to see/do/explore everything and go on all of the best attractions multiple times throughout the trip. Some will say this is too much, some will say this is too little, but for us it's just right.
