Florida theme park tickets

Tbh your better off doing a park then a day off because if you hit a park each and every day your there it gets very tiring and you will become burnt out like i was back in 2008. Tbh i found the water parks the best and not neccessarily the theme parks...notably Typhoon Lagoon, and Blizzard Beach.
Typhoon Lagoon has a wave machine which send a wave every 90 seconds. I managed to body surf and tread water for a total of 24 waves before i swam to the beach (man made lol). Even the american life guard said i was "A Beast".


See if you can beat it!!;)

Also not all of the theme parks are amazing, some are better than others, Universal Studios, Epcot, Magic Kingdom (kids), Sea World and Islands of Adventure (only because of the Spiderman ride) are the best. Busch gardens is good but you have to drive to that. Typhoon Lagoon and Blizzard Beach water parks are good too. The rest are meh in my opinion and i did all of them over 21 days.

Also Kennedy space camp was good because i watched a shuttle take off from VIP area so i was lucky to go at a time when this was happening. Got a coach out too it as part of the Hotel i was at on Intnernational drive (May 2008)
 
Last edited:
Conanius said:
As someone with two children I'm somewhat gobsmacked at the thought of 8k for the equivalent of a jazzed up two weeks at Alton towers. You could have an amazing road trip holiday with them in California for a lot less.

I'd much prefer to spend that on several 'better' holidays. As an example, and whilst it wouldn't be what I'd do with my two little ones,we spent half of that for 2 weeks in Bali in a 5* Spa Hotel with only 30 rooms through Kuoni ....

Maybe I'm simply out of touch, but if I had to do Disney, a friend did Euro Disney with his wife and 4 kids for under £1k including accommodation on the park last year for a 5 day stay.
Click to expand...
Florida parks are in no way comparable to any theme park in the UK. I've been twice, one time spent at all the disney parks and another time at all the others (universal, seaworld, busch gardens etc)

They are all such higher quality than anything you get over here and also than euro disney (this is crap in comparison to Florida)

There is no comparison to be made here, if you can afford it then go for it, you'll kids will never forget those memories!

Roar87 said:
Euro Disney is one theme park as far as I'm aware, Disney World is 6, plus there are 2 Universal Parks, SeaWorld, NASA, and the dozens of other attractions in the area, plus you have great weather in Florida most of the time. It's not really comparable to Alton Towers in any way, 1 day in Alton Towers is plenty, you'd want 2 days for Magic Kingdom alone because of how much there is to see and do.

It's also a completely different type of holiday to a 5* spa holiday, you're walking around all day seeing sights and going on rides, it's not relaxing at all. Ideally you'd have a holiday after Orlando because you need one.
Click to expand...
Yeah basically what i said above, Florida parks are miles better than everywhere else.
One Vision said:
Tbh your better off doing a park then a day off because if you hit a park each and every day your there it gets very tiring and you will become burnt out like i was back in 2008. Tbh i found the water parks the best and not neccessarily the theme parks...notably Typhoon Lagoon, and Blizzard Beach.
Typhoon Lagoon has a wave machine which send a wave every 90 seconds. I managed to body surf and tread water for a total of 24 waves before i swam to the beach (man made lol). Even the american life guard said i was "A Beast".


See if you can beat it!!;)

Also not all of the theme parks are amazing, some are better than others, Universal Studios, Epcot, Magic Kingdom (kids), Sea World and Islands of Adventure (only because of the Spiderman ride) are the best. Busch gardens is good but you have to drive to that. Typhoon Lagoon and Blizzard Beach water parks are good too. The rest are meh in my opinion and i did all of them over 21 days.
Click to expand...
I found the Disney water parks were amazing we did them more than once, the other Disney parks were ok but I probably would have enjoyed them more as a younger kid (I went aged 16 and 18)

The universal ones, sea world and bush gardens are all amazing though!

I wouldn't bother with Wet n Wild - it wasn't great, seemed very old and scruffy compared to all the other parks
 
Last edited:
The thing to concider when buying on the day is that the queue for the tickets alone is often 1hr plus, do you really want to be doing that with young kids every time you visit the parks? When we went last summer Virgin Holidays had the best ticket prices for the theme parks. We didn't bother with Disney as there was no kids and the rides are a bit tame for adults. I think the Universal, Seaworld, Busch Gardens, Wet'n'Wild ticket was about £220 per adult for two weeks and was more than enough to keep us entertained.

Wet'n'Wild is now closed afik and being replaced with a brand new water park opening this year.
 
Just got back from Florida (Kissimmee, 4 miles from all the Disney parks).

Was great, albeit expensive given the current exchange rate. Worth doing at least once. :)

We bought the 14 day passes for all the Disney parks as they were the same price as 7 days passes, plus Legoland.

Dont bother with Legoland, its utter toss.
Make sure you have Fastpass as normal queues are horrific.
The photo pass thing is great for pics.
Dont eat the Blazin ghost chilli chicken wings at Buffalo Wild Wings unless you want to be in tears for 20 minutes but do try the grapefruit beer.
Didnt see any chavs.
Americans are really nice/helpful.
 
Last edited:
Guilty of visiting Orlando 9 times, 3 times with my parents (aged 6, 10 and 18), 6 times with various partners.

Can't get enough of the theme parks, the shopping and the food.
 
chroniclard said:
We bought the 14 day passes for all the Disney parks as they were the same price as 7 days passes, plus Legoland.

Dont bother with Legoland, its utter toss.
Make sure you have Fastpass as normal queues are horrific.
.
Click to expand...

Interested with the Legoland comment, it is poor in comparison to Windsor, or dont you enjoy the Legoland parks in general?? My son is a lego nut and loved the theme parks in the UK and Malaysia.

In reference to the queues, the last time I went was 2008 and I bought fast pass for everything but didnt require it (start of September). Wondering if I am going to need them this time (1st of May to early June)?
 
Ace Modder said:
I have always wondered is the Disney holiday experience as expensive for the natives?
Click to expand...

The cheapest way is to book a fly - drive and 1 night in the hotel you fancy. They'll quiz you on your plans when you get there. Tell them that you're shopping around for hotels and the room rate tends to magically drop.

Takes balls and try to avoid peak times or you might end up sleeping in the car!
 
Pretty much all finalized now....well its starting to feel like it.

Flight tickets issued.

Accommodation booked (this was a headache with the missus trawling through seemingly 100s of villas before deciding on one, also losing two in the meanwhile due to her lack of decision making).

Rental car booked

Its now onto the theme park tickets. It definitely isnt cheap. Due to the length of time we are there we are looking at filling every week with options.

1)Weeks 1 to 2 (Disney/Universal Switch) = 500 quid approx each
2)Weeks 3 to 4 (Seaworld/Disney/Discovery Cove/Legoland) = 250 quid approx each (this does include the dolphin swim though)
3)Weeks 4 to 5 (Disney 14 day package) = 300 quid approx each

Sometime during this as well I would like to slot in Kennedy SS and Gatorland.

Then multiply this by four.....:(:eek: (albeit a slight reduction.....and I mean VERY slight....for the kid's tickets.

Still have to sort out NYC accommodation yet and itinerary. At least I wont have this expense in the UK. We will will shunt into one of our houses for a couple of weeks.

Its my daughter's birthday when we are over there. She is Mickey Mouse mad. We booked the Chef Mickey meal for us on her birthday for breakfast, it wasn't cheap and I didn't want to book it so far in advance. My hand was pretty much forced though because on the particular day we wanted there was only 2 slots left! Didn't know it was going to be so popular especially in the season we are going.

Getting pretty excited now, although my wife is cursing me for booking NYC at the tail end of the trip. She doesn't fancy taking the kids around Manhattan.

On a positive note we will get to go to Philly for a couple of days (never been). The senior operations director of one of the companies I work with over there is arranging a two day itinerary for me and the family around his home town. Looking forward to it.
 
Last edited:
Nice, we are pretty much sorted too - Going May 20th to June 4th.

We wanted to do the Doplhin swim but the rules state minimum age of 6 and my boy is only 5 :(
 
Jez said:
As awful as Disneyworld Florida appears to me (it will be chav central), if the £2000 is a concern right now why not consider one of the plethora of 0% credit card deals to split the cost?
Click to expand...

You seem to be getting Florida confused with Magaluf.

chroniclard said:
Just got back from Florida (Kissimmee, 4 miles from all the Disney parks).

Was great, albeit expensive given the current exchange rate. Worth doing at least once. :)

Americans are really nice/helpful.
Click to expand...

Yea generally speaking great people, been to Fort Myers, St Petes and the keys over the years, love it.
 
Last edited:
If you are considering going to universal studios I'd definitely recommend staying in one of their premium hotels to get the unlimited queue skip. On one ride there was a 90 minute queue and we literally did not stop walking until we sat in the front seats, skipping the whole queue. Absolutely worth it for those days. Think it costs a lot of money to park your car at those hotels though.
 
Rifte said:
Interested with the Legoland comment, it is poor in comparison to Windsor, or dont you enjoy the Legoland parks in general?? My son is a lego nut and loved the theme parks in the UK and Malaysia.
Click to expand...

Never been to Legoland Windsor so cant compare.

We just thought the rides were poor, very small and average with long queues.

Example, "Driving School", queued for an hour for the kids to spend about 2 minutes on some crappy little cars and then be charged(optionally) $20 for a printed driving licence. Utter rubbish.

Lost Kingdom Adventure, 30 minute queue for a car ride where you shoot poor guns at cruddy targets, like something from the 80's in Alton Towers. Compared to Disney Hollywood Studios Toy Story version which is infinitely better.

Half the rides are barely fairground standard I dont think it being Lego made up for the low quality rides.
 
SDK^ said:
Nice, we are pretty much sorted too - Going May 20th to June 4th.

We wanted to do the Doplhin swim but the rules state minimum age of 6 and my boy is only 5 :(
Click to expand...

We fly from India to London on the 28th of April. We are taking a couple of days break here for the kids, and then we leave on May 1st.

We leave Orlando on the 6th of June.

We have a similar problem with the dolphin experience, my daughter is only 3, where my son is 7 and able to do it.

Fortunately my mother is coming that week, so she will look after our daughter for the 30 mins or so we are in the water with the dolphins.

We did a dolphin interaction in Singapore last year and my son loved it.

Legoland is kinda a must for us. Personally I also think the parks are pretty poor from a ride perspective. Even in the UK out of the core 'Merlin' parks it was the weakest in my opinion, and compared to Orlando definitely not comparable.

My son though loves Lego.....so we have to go, and we managed to get a package which for an extra £25 each we could have access to the park for 14 days......reckon we will only go once though.

Avatarland apparently opens up at the end of May.....so fingers crossed we will be there for it. Also Volcano bay?.....thats opens a similar time.

A bonus for me will be the Hulk coaster in Island of Adventure. When we went in 2008 that ride was sublime. I heard for the past 2 years or so it was closed for an upgrade etc. So we shall see.
 
Rifte said:
A bonus for me will be the Hulk coaster in Island of Adventure. When we went in 2008 that ride was sublime. I heard for the past 2 years or so it was closed for an upgrade etc. So we shall see.
Click to expand...

I went on Hulk in September last year, it was good, just over quite quickly.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom