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First off, Paris is great but not even on the same page as the whole experience of Florida, so would definitely agree it's worth it.......
For Disney we don't really bother staying on-site anymore - you still have to travel to the parks, the hotels are over priced and the perks you get (mostly the extra "magic" hours) result in trips to the busiest parks at the wrong times. The theaming is good but for us it just didn't justify the negatives.
I know a lot like the villa option, but for us we still wanted that hotel feel and convenience so went for a "suite" hotel. These are often pretty cheap - we got a large 3 bed apartment with all the facilities but also had a large communal pool, bar and all of those things that made it not feel just like we were at home but in a different county. Last year I think we stayed at
Lake Buena Vista Resort Village & Spa a staySky Hotel/Resort in Orlando - Hotels.com
and was really good. Still needed a car but was very central and made the stay a lot better. Was even opposite one the the outlets (was a smaller one though).
For universal though, I think it's massively different and can't recommend enough staying on-site. They are expensive but it's such a difference maker.
First up the hotels themselves are actually pretty good. Not great rooms but much better than other paces but the 2 we have been to (royal Pacific and the Hard Rock) have fantastic pools and we were more than happy to spend a lot of time there - we always enjoyed the evenings around the pool the best and they have pool side "dive in movies" and stuff going on after dark so lots of atmosphere and a really good time to wind down after the day.
they are also 10-15 walk to the park gates which is not only good for the morning, but also means that it's actually doable to nip back to the hotel - we would spend some time int eh parks, going back to the pool for an hour or two then go back to the parks later. If you are out you can't really do this and you feel like you have to spend all day in the parks which can take some of the shine away, especially doing it day after day.
The big one, at least for 3 of the 4 on site hotels, is that your room key can be used to go through the "express" line in almost all the big rides (apart form Happry Potter). It means that you only have to queue for about 10-15 min for most rides and some not at all. Even if you are not big on rides I can't stress just how much more enjoyable this makes the day though. As well as going on all the rides you want it just frees up so much more time to see and do all of the other stuff and makes everything go at a much better pace. We could go on loads of rides in a couple of hours, back to the hotel and chill and do the same in the evening so easily.
They are expensive but you get use of the room express pass on both check-in and check out days, so for a 2 night stay you could have 3 full days which is more that enough to do the 2 parks there. Personally we always try for about a 3-4 night stay there then move out to somewhere cheaper for all the other parks inc Disney.
Loads of tips on here so feel free to ask and am sure you will be inundated, but make sure you at least do some research before you go. Will make a big difference (especially for Disney - that place is a minefield). My personal favourite in Orlando is Discovery Cove - very expensive and some people don't really "get" it but if you do it's an amazing place. |
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