Best For
Theme park families, first big trips, multi generation groups
Recommended Nights
6-8
Getting There
MCO, about 25 minutes to the parks
Known For
Universal, Epic Universe, Walt Disney World, heat
The Trip Families Save For
Orlando is the single biggest thing I do. Universal and Orlando is my largest business line by more than four times over, and it is not close. Seventy five families have booked it through me.
I am not romantic about it. Orlando is hot, it is expensive, and half of what gets sold to families there is stuff they did not need. But it is also the place where a nine year old finds out that a castle can be real, and where three kids who fight about everything will hold hands in a line for a ride they are all scared of. That is worth the airfare.
What I actually add here is not enthusiasm. It is the money. The difference between the right ticket and the wrong ticket for a family of five is often more than a thousand dollars, and nobody tells you that on the booking page. That is what this page is about.
Who it is for
Families with kids roughly four and up. Grandparents who want to be the hero. Anyone who has been putting this off because the planning looked like a second job.
Who should skip it
If your kids are under three, wait. They will not remember it, half the rides have height limits they cannot meet, and you will spend the whole trip pushing a stroller through a parking structure in ninety five degree heat. Go to a beach.
Getting There
General ranges, not exact schedules. Your travel advisor can pin down the real times once your dates are set.
Tickets, And What Actually Saves You Money
Universal Is Three Parks Now
Universal Studios Florida, Islands of Adventure, and Epic Universe, which opened in May 2025. Plus Volcano Bay, the water park. A two day ticket does not cover that any more. If you are flying to Florida for Universal, you need at least four days.
Park To Park Is Not Optional
The Hogwarts Express is not a ride you queue for twice. It physically carries you from Universal Studios Florida to Islands of Adventure. With a base ticket you get turned away at the platform in front of your kids. Families find this out the hard way every single week.
The Multi Day Breakpoint
The jump from two days to three is the one that matters. Two day tickets include a single separate day at Epic Universe. Three days and up let you go back to Epic as often as you like inside the ticket window. The per day price also falls off a cliff after day three, so day four and day five are close to free.
The Single Most Expensive Mistake
Universal Express Pass lets you skip the regular line. Bought separately for a family of five on a busy week it is genuinely eye watering. But three hotels, Hard Rock Hotel, Loews Portofino Bay and Loews Royal Pacific, include Unlimited Express for every person in the room, every day of your stay, at no extra cost. Read the next section before you book a cheaper room.
Free Express Does Not Cover Epic
This is the thing almost nobody knows and it changes the plan. The complimentary hotel Express Pass is valid at Universal Studios Florida and Islands of Adventure only. It is not valid at Epic Universe or Volcano Bay. Epic sells its own Express separately, and there is no Unlimited version there at all. So build your Epic day around rope drop, not around a pass.
Why This Costs You Nothing
I am paid by the resorts, not by you. My price is the same price you would pay booking it yourself, and often better, because promotions change constantly, are not always public, and can be reapplied to a booking you already made. I watch yours after you book. Families who do it alone almost never go back and reprice.
On Site Or Off Site
Here is the calculation I run for every Orlando family, and it surprises people every time. Price the room difference between an off site hotel and Hard Rock, Portofino Bay or Royal Pacific across your whole stay. Then price buying Express Pass for five people for the same number of days. The expensive hotel is frequently the cheaper trip.
That is the most valuable sentence on this page. It does not always come out that way. On a quiet week in September, when lines are short and Express is cheap, off site wins easily. On a school holiday week it is not close.
What on site actually buys you at Universal, tier by tier. The three premier hotels above include Unlimited Express and are walkable or a short boat ride to the parks. The preferred tier, Sapphire Falls and the newer Helios Grand at Epic Universe, gives you early park admission and easy transport but no free Express. The value tiers, Cabana Bay, Aventura, Endless Summer and Stella Nova, give you early admission and a shuttle at a price that competes with off site, which for a lot of families is exactly the right answer.
Disney’s on site logic is different. You are buying early entry, extended evening hours at some resorts, and the earlier dining window. You are not buying line skipping, because Disney sells that separately.
How Many Days Do We Actually Need
The honest version, not the one that sells more tickets.
Universal Or Disney, And Can We Do Both
You can do both. Most families should not do both on one trip.
Here is the honest answer. Universal skews older. The headline rides are intense, the theming is aimed squarely at kids who read Harry Potter and played Mario, and a seven year old will hit a height wall on about a third of it. Disney skews younger and wider, has far more for a four year old, and is a planning game rather than a spending game.
If your kids are eight and up, Universal is usually the better trip and the better value, especially now that Epic Universe exists. If you have a mix that includes a preschooler, Disney carries the day better.
If you insist on both, and plenty of families do, the rule is simple. Give each resort at least three consecutive days and stay on the property you are visiting. Do not alternate. Two days here, two days there, a rental car in between and one rest day is how people come home needing a holiday.
And do not do seven park days in a row. Build in a pool day. Every family that ignores me on this comes back and tells me I was right.
Rope Drop, In Order
What I actually tell people to do at opening.
The Parks, Honestly Ranked
Epic Universe
The newest of the three and the reason the whole Orlando conversation changed. Five worlds built around a central garden: Celestial Park, the Wizarding World’s Ministry of Magic, Super Nintendo World, How To Train Your Dragon’s Isle of Berk, and Dark Universe. Isle of Berk is the one that lands hardest with younger kids. Go on your first morning, not your last.
Islands of Adventure
Still the best single theme park in Florida for kids over about ten. Hogsmeade, Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure, Velocicoaster, and the Seuss area that saves you when the little one has had enough. This is where park to park earns its money, because the Hogwarts Express runs from here into Diagon Alley.
Universal Studios Florida
Diagon Alley is the single best built thing in Orlando and I will argue about it. The rest of the park is a mix of genuinely great screen based rides and a few that have been there too long. It is the easiest park to do in one day, so put it opposite a long Epic day.
For The Kids
Height is the thing that ruins Orlando days, and it is the thing nobody checks before they go. Measure your kids at home, in the shoes they will wear, and write the number on your hand. Then plan around it instead of finding out in a queue.
Downtime Pick
A hotel pool afternoon. Every family I send to Orlando pushes back on this and every one of them thanks me later. Do the park from opening until about one, come back, swim for three hours, then go back in at five when the day trippers are leaving and the heat has broken. You will get more done, not less, and nobody melts down at four in the afternoon in a stroller.
What To Eat
Butterbeer
Smoked turkey leg
Pineapple soft serve
Cuban sandwich
Key lime pieWhat I Actually Think About Orlando
I know this place too well to sell it to you badly
Adam and I lived in Orlando. Before the kids, before Kansas, before any of this. We went looking for a Korean restaurant off Colonial because I had been in Gwangju long enough that the cravings were real, and we found one, and that is the kind of Orlando I know as well as the park one.
Which is why I am comfortable telling you what to skip. Skip the character breakfast if your kids are over eight. Skip the second water park. Skip buying Express for a September Tuesday. Skip the resort where the only thing it has going for it is that it is on property.
What I will not let you skip is the math on Express Pass, because that one is worth real money, and the number of days, because a family that flies to Florida for three park days has bought the flights and then not bought the trip.
Seventy five families have gone through this with me now. Not one of them has told me the planning was the fun part. That is genuinely the job. Send me your dates and I will tell you honestly whether the week you picked is a good one, before you book anything.
Kennedy Space Center
The Best Non Park Day In Florida
About an hour east of Orlando on the coast. It is a full day, it is genuinely educational without being boring, and standing under a Saturn V does something to a ten year old that no roller coaster does. The Atlantis shuttle exhibit is the one that gets the adults.
Go on a launch day if you can time it. Launches slip constantly so do not build the trip around one, but check the schedule the week before. If there is a window, it is the single most memorable thing your family will do in Florida.
Where The Money Is Worth Spending
If you are splurging once in Orlando, spend it on a premier Universal hotel during a busy week, not on a suite during a quiet one. The room is not the point. The Unlimited Express Pass that comes with it is, and on a school holiday week it converts a frustrating trip into an easy one. The second best place to spend is a VIP tour, which is expensive and completely worth it for a multi generation group where somebody cannot stand in heat for six hours.
Add A Cruise Out Of Port Canaveral
If You Are Flying All That Way, Do Both
Port Canaveral sits about an hour east of the parks. That is the whole reason this works. You are already in Florida, the flights are already bought, and the ship leaves from the same side of the state you are standing on. Families fly across the country for this trip. Getting two vacations out of one set of plane tickets is just math.
Parks first, cruise second. Always. Do the parks while everyone still has legs, then get on the ship and let the kids run while you sit down for the first time in a week. Nobody wants to come home from a cruise and then walk twelve miles a day at Magic Kingdom.
Three and four night Bahamas sailings are the easy add on. Seven nights if you have the time. Disney, Royal Caribbean and Carnival all sail out of Canaveral, so doing Disney parks does not lock you into a Disney ship.
One thing people get wrong. Do not fly in and cruise the same day. Give yourself a night on the ground. Florida afternoon storms delay flights constantly and the ship does not wait for you.
Small Things Only Locals Know
We lived in Orlando. Before the kids, before Kansas, before any of this. So I know the part of Central Florida that has nothing to do with a turnstile.
Here is what nobody tells you. Orlando is not a theme park city that happens to have springs. It is a springs and lakes and old Florida city that had theme parks bolted onto it. Almost every family I book does four or five days of parks and then asks me what else there is. This is what else there is.
Winter Park And The Boat Tour
Twenty minutes from downtown and a different planet from International Drive. The Scenic Boat Tour is one hour on a pontoon, twenty dollars for adults and ten for kids two to eleven, leaving hourly from ten to four. It runs through narrow hand dug canals between the lakes, past cypress and old estates, with a guide who has been doing it for years. It has operated since 1938. Walk Park Avenue after and get ice cream. Best half day in Orlando and it costs almost nothing.
Weeki Wachee Springs
About an hour and a half northwest. Live mermaids, underwater, in a 400 seat theater sunk sixteen feet into the side of the spring. It has run since 1947 and it is the strangest and best thing in Florida. My kids talked about it longer than they talked about some of the rides. Buccaneer Bay water park is attached, so bring suits and make it a full day. Showtimes move with weather and water temperature, so call before you drive out.
Blue Spring State Park
Forty five minutes north in Orange City. From mid November through March hundreds of manatees crowd into the spring run because it holds at 72 degrees while the river outside goes cold. You stand on a boardwalk and look straight down at them. It is not a show and there is no ticket booth for the animals. One thing that matters now, as of July 2026 you need a day use reservation to get in. The park hits capacity and closes. Book it before you drive.
The Pancake Place At The Other Springs
De Leon Springs State Park, about an hour north. The Old Sugar Mill Pancake House sits inside the park in a replica of an 1830s sugar mill, and every table has a griddle built into the middle of it. They bring you a pitcher of batter and you cook your own. That is the entire concept and kids lose their minds over it. Open eight to four daily, park admission on top. Go early because the wait gets long, then swim in the spring after.
St. Augustine
Two hours northeast and worth every minute. Oldest continuously occupied European founded city in the country, settled in 1565. Castillo de San Marcos is a real coquina fort you can walk the top of, the old town is small enough that nobody melts down, and there is a beach at the end of it. We did this as a day trip more than once. It is the history lesson that does not feel like a history lesson.
Riviera Beach
My hideaway. It is a long way, close to three hours south, so this is not a day trip. It is where you go if you want a few genuinely quiet days on the water with nobody around. Singer Island for the beaches, and Peanut Island sitting out in the inlet that you reach by boat. It is also home to the Port of Palm Beach, which is worth knowing if you would rather do a short Bahamas sailing from there than from Canaveral.
When To Go, And Practical Tips
More From Us
Honest note. I have written about Orlando for years in my working life and almost never on this blog, so most of what follows is adjacent rather than exact. I am fixing that, and an Orlando post is the next thing I write. Every image below is the linked post’s own cover and I checked each one actually shows what it says.
Orlando FAQ
How many days do we need in Orlando?
Six to eight nights for one resort done properly. Nine or ten if you are doing Universal and Disney on the same trip. Four park days is the minimum that makes the airfare worth it.
Do we need Park to Park tickets?
At Universal, yes, if the Wizarding World matters to you at all. The Hogwarts Express only carries guests with Park to Park admission, and it runs between two different parks. A base ticket means you see the platform and then turn around.
Is Express Pass worth it?
It depends entirely on the week. On a school holiday week it is the difference between eight rides and three. In mid September it is often a waste. Before you buy it, price the three Universal hotels that include it free, because the expensive room is regularly the cheaper trip.
Does the free hotel Express Pass work at Epic Universe?
No, and this catches almost everybody. The complimentary Unlimited Express that comes with Hard Rock, Portofino Bay and Royal Pacific covers Universal Studios Florida and Islands of Adventure only. Epic Universe sells its own Express separately and does not offer an Unlimited version.
Universal or Disney if we can only pick one?
Kids eight and up, Universal. A preschooler in the mix, Disney. If you have both, and money is not the constraint, give each of them three straight days and stay on the property you are visiting that day.
Does using a travel advisor cost more?
No. I am paid by the resorts. You pay the same rate or better, and I keep watching your booking for promotions afterwards, which is the part almost nobody does for themselves.
Ready To Put Orlando On The Calendar
Send me your dates and how old your kids are. I will tell you which week is worth flying for, which ticket to buy, and whether the hotel with the free Express Pass is actually the cheaper answer for your family. There is no fee, and there never has been.
Plan Your Orlando Trip