New to Universal with kids...help

[monica9]

Agreed. I would never go to the Theme Parks board and say "I'm taking a day out of my Universal vacation to try WDW - what can I do?" I'd probably get roasted alive.

Not necessarily. If you said you are going to check out WDW because you normally go to UO and ask which is the best park to go to if you have a day I'm sure people wouldn't be rude. No one on here is either. People have given a lot of good advice which is what I came here for.

 

[monica9]

Half a day for that cost would make my head explode. They are planning to get there at the most crowded part of the day. By close time the crowds should die down, but still, without express pass, they are going to be severely limited in a short half day.

But they seem determined to see UO with the time they have and contrary to the first post that it was for the older one to have bigger coasters, because if SW coasters are TOO intense, I can't see the child doing the ones at UO, it really seems it is to look at the Universal park and decide if they want to return.

I do understand wanting to see the park, but that is a lot of money, and while I do think they will enjoy what they do get to do, I really feel the plan for half a day is going to lead to disappointment.

Now if they do add another day, it will probably be far more enjoyable. They could also take advantage of the hotel perk of early morning extra hour.

But that is only for the potter areas so that would decide which park they will be spending the day in if they take advantage of early morning extra hour and I do think if I only had one day, I would choose the studios one.

The fact they do not care for HP in no way should they skip it. It is fantastic even if you never heard of HP. I feel the older child is the perfect age to enjoy playing with an interactive wand also. But with the half day plan, that would be darn near impossible as the area will be wall to wall people by the time they get there.

Likewise, if I only had half a day for disney, I would skip it.

Good Response. We really want to go for a day to see if it is worth returning next year when my little one is almost 4 or to wait until she's older. I've repeatedly been told UO is for older kids/adults which is why we would only go for a day or two. We have all intentions of returning to UO eventually and can't wait to but I want to make sure it's worth our time with the age of our kids, thats all.

 

[bchbetha]

Studios with Kids guide https://orlandoinformer.com/universal/studios-florida-kids
and IOA with Kids guide https://orlandoinformer.com/universal/islands-adventure-kids

 

[skylock]

Good Response. We really want to go for a day to see if it is worth returning next year when my little one is almost 4 or to wait until she's older. I've repeatedly been told UO is for older kids/adults which is why we would only go for a day or two. We have all intentions of returning to UO eventually and can't wait to but I want to make sure it's worth our time with the age of our kids, thats all.

I think everyone here is just wanting you to have a rewarding time for your first visit and do not want you to be cheating yourself out of the whole experience.

I was just there with a big group that initially started out with 5, but grew to 16 by the time we left.

We had kids from 2-10 and adults from 24-88.

Nobody had a bad trip. But we did do 4 days with express pass.

The 2 yrs old mom took him off to play while switching up with us to do the rides herself. With express pass that was really easy. They do have child swap but with EP we never bothered.

Just thinking what I would do with half a day and a small child is not filling me with a lot of joy.

If your husband went off and let the child enjoy himself, that would be cheating the husband out of his fun unless just being in the park watching the child play would be enough.

It is pretty well a given your older child will not be up for the hulk or rip ride rocket which is the 2 main coasters.

The mummy is also pretty intense. The ride in diagon alley is a little bit coaster, but not intense and is a lot of fun.

Anyway, you will need to figure out how you are going to structure your time. Which park, figure out your priorities of what you really want to do, then hit the park running. Single rider lines can be your friend but can't be counted on to be open.

Anyway, have fun. You will probably go back.

btw, I do not think there is a lot of difference between a 2 and 4 yr old as far as the parks go.

 

[macraven]

There have been some last threads here in this forum that included videos of the parks

Hopefully someone will pull a few of them up to show you

 

[bchbetha]

When ds1 was 10, he'd have been all in on Hulk and RRR. Darned kid is a total thrill seeker hence our yearly visits to Cedar Point!