Convince me to purchase the Park to Park option

[WDWLODGE]

We are a family of 4, aged 14 & up. We are longtime Disney vacationers and have finally decided to visit Universal. We are staying onsite at the Royal Pacific for 2 nights. We currently have 3 Park 3-day passes. We arrive at MCO @ 8AM and plan to spend our 1st day at Volcano Bay. On our 2nd day the Park hours are 8A-6P, so the current plan in Universal on day 2 with a 6:30 dinner at Toothsome. On day 3 which is also our checkout day we plan on doing early entry at IoA from 7A-9P.

We'll have the unlimited Express Pass, so I assume we'll be able to do most everything. With the exception of Hogwarts Express, since we don't have the park to park option. Is an added $200 really worth it. Are there other reasons I should consider spending the extra cash?

 

[DisneyMom93]

Nope. We only do Park to Park passes because we go for five days. We go to each park for two days and we split the last day between the two parks.

The only reason to do a Park to Park if you’re only going for two days to the two parks, in my opinion, is if someone is a huge Harry Potter fan and wants to ride Hogwarts Express.

 

[emmabelle]

I like Hogwart's Express but not sure if it's worth $200.

 

[BroadwayHermione5]

Park to park is the way to go because it’s convenient AND you can’t ride the hogwarts express (the best and easiest way to park to park) if you don’t have park to park. Plus if you do volcano bay and get there early and leave mid afternoon like we do you might want to head back at night!


Also-a friend and I were just discussing this. UOR and IOA both have rides we don’t enjoy and even without express pass we can do both parks in one day very easily. So if we have two day park to parks we can go slow one day and fast another

 

[CAPSLOCK]

I'd do it so that you can do parks after VB (however, I'm not a big water park person - half a day is good for me).

 

[AJA]

$200 is hard to justify especially If you don’t have a huge Harry Potter fan in your group.

 

[DoryGirl1963]

IOA & USF are so close together that we just treat them as one big park - it's only a few minutes walk back & forth or via the train is even more fun!

 

[cschaaf]

I'm not an HP fan and don't care much for the train. For some reason, I always feel a bit claustrophobic on that. I'll ride it when the family wants to, but that's usually only once a day at the most.

When you figure that in the $200 calculation (only riding twice on a 2-day visit), it really doesn't look worth it if you just think about that as a ride.

However, we do love to park hop. I can't remember the last time we spent a single day in a single park. We like being able to switch parks if one is more crowded than the other. We like heading to lunch out in Citywalk, then deciding what we want to ride next regardless of which park it's in.

If bad weather approaches and you are in IOA, you can jump to USF which has more indoor rides.

As someone up thread said, with EP, you can make your way through one of the parks in less than a full day if you aren't going slow or riding every single ride. You can certainly re-ride things a few times if you wanted (minus Hagrid's ... well, technically you could do that, but that would eat a lot of time), having the option to head to the other park and hit some rides works well for us.

To us, the flexibility is worth the extra money, but I could certainly understand that for many it isn't.

ETA: the 2-day thing makes the decision a bit harder, I think. If you were going to IOA/USF for 3 days, I'd absolutely recommend getting park to park. At 2 days, the choice is a bit harder.

 

[bchbetha]

Like Dory, I think of Universal as just 1 big park. Each side on its own is kind of small compared to some other amusement parks. Also, because the parks are *right there* you can see the rides from one park to the other so it's like it's taunting you if you can see if but not go in. I would never go without park to parks (and I always get hoppers at Disney).

 

[WDWLODGE]

Thanks everyone! Aside from my daughter none of us have ever seen or read Harry Potter. We may try and watch one of the movies before we go. I know when we go to Typhoon Lagoon or Blizzard Beach we typically spend about 5 hours there. Let's say we do finish up at Volcano Bay a little early would it be easy for us to add on the Park to Park option at the gate? I know if we decide to do it at UP we can do it at the Train Station.

 

[CAPSLOCK]

Yes, you can add the park to park option at the gate or any guest services location (including your onsite hotel).

 

[hopemax]

Since you are staying at Royal Pacific and would therefore have Express Pass, I would recommend the park-to-park because it does save walking and tired feet, depending on how you tour. Without EP the wait times for the train can get long enough that it would be just faster to tour a little differently and go through the front gates.

We often will do things like start our day at Studios, doing Minions, Mummy, Transformers, Fallon, Gringotts. Then hopping on the train to do Forbidden Journey, Hagrid's if we time the lunchtime dip in wait time, and then go counterclockwise around IOA hitting Jurassic Park rides, Kong, Spiderman. Then we are in position to leave and walk the pathway back to RPR. Or the opposite, we'll start in IOA with Spiderman working our way around to Harry Potter, catch the train, and then working our way through either side of Studios. MIB-Simpsons-ET-Bourne or the previously mentioned route, and hop the boat back to the hotel. All depending on wait times. Without the train, we tend to just do 1 park per day, instead of half of each park. I love the train in the way I love the Skyliner and Monorails. It just makes it so much easier to get around.

 

[DL1WDW2]

I just read thru this but Do not see actual date for your trip. But I did notice one of the days , the park closes at 6:00.
I know March31 is the first grad nite bash party… Maybe that is the reason for the early closing .
Please tell us your dates because holidays or Spring Breaks and even the weather would factor in to purchasing park to park .
Im not HP fan at all but the experience and first time excitement …
Might want to consider but the 6 :00 Close would not make it worthwhile.
….going to read more carefully Maybe I missed something.

 

[HopperFan]

Well we got it and were very happy we did .... if it starts to storm, even some lightning 20 miles away I think, most of IOA closes!!!! Like other than a couple rides, most of the park shuts down and it can be lengthy. Studios becomes critical, then watch the weather to head back quickly to IOA. Without hopping the day could be lost.

 

[skuttle]

For us, we couldn’t spend an entire day in the studios. My kids got bored with the simulator rides so it was nice to have the park to park to split those up a bit.

 

[UOAP-Naples]

When are you going? I didn't see that in your post. During rainy season, it's nice to be able to park hop over to Studios when all the rides close at IOA. IOA has a lot more outdoor rides that close for weather, Studios is mainly indoors.

You absolutely can just do one day at each park if that makes more sense for your family. My wife and I just bought single park tickets the first few times we went and it was fine. As passholders now, we just look at it as one big park and hop back and forth whenever we want.

 

[WDWLODGE]

When are you going? I didn't see that in your post. During rainy season, it's nice to be able to park hop over to Studios when all the rides close at IOA. IOA has a lot more outdoor rides that close for weather, Studios is mainly indoors.

You absolutely can just do one day at each park if that makes more sense for your family. My wife and I just bought single park tickets the first few times we went and it was fine. As passholders now, we just look at it as one big park and hop back and forth whenever we want.

I just read thru this but Do not see actual date for your trip. But I did notice one of the days , the park closes at 6:00.
I know March31 is the first grad nite bash party… Maybe that is the reason for the early closing .
Please tell us your dates because holidays or Spring Breaks and even the weather would factor in to purchasing park to park .
Im not HP fan at all but the experience and first time excitement …
Might want to consider but the 6 :00 Close would not make it worthwhile.
….going to read more carefully Maybe I missed something.

We are there from 4/27 - 4/29.

 

[UOAP-Naples]

We are there from 4/27 - 4/29.

That is not rainy season yet, so weather is less of a concern. There could still be a front that goes through but you shouldn't have the daily afternoon thunderstorms that occur June-Sept.

Your plan works for 2 days if you want to save a little bit. There is enough to do in each park to just do a full day in each. For longer trips or during rainy season, I would definitely recommend park-to-park.

 

[Pooh's World]

We are a family of 4, aged 14 & up. We are longtime Disney vacationers and have finally decided to visit Universal. We are staying onsite at the Royal Pacific for 2 nights. We currently have 3 Park 3-day passes. We arrive at MCO @ 8AM and plan to spend our 1st day at Volcano Bay. On our 2nd day the Park hours are 8A-6P, so the current plan in Universal on day 2 with a 6:30 dinner at Toothsome. On day 3 which is also our checkout day we plan on doing early entry at IoA from 7A-9P.

We'll have the unlimited Express Pass, so I assume we'll be able to do most everything. With the exception of Hogwarts Express, since we don't have the park to park option. Is an added $200 really worth it. Are there other reasons I should consider spending the extra cash?

Just get the annual pass

 

[Brian Noble]

Is an added $200 really worth it.

I always buy hoppers in advance at WDW, even if I don't really plan to hop. Why? Because I want the flexibility to do whatever I want to do while I am on vacation. Yes, I can add it later, and no it doesn't cost more to do it later. So, it seems obvious that I should wait, right? But I know myself well enough to know that I will sometimes decide not to do it if I have to pay for it right then, even though deep down I really want to.

So, I buy it in advance. That way, if we decide in the moment we want to go to some other park---even for something as simple as to visit a store that had that One Thing we saw earlier in the trip---we can, and there is no hesitation about it.

I apply this principle much more generally. For example, I have a week in the Smoky Mountains this May to do some late-Spring hiking in the national park. I could buy three-day Dollywood tickets to get rides in in the evenings, but the annual pass is only a little more (once you account for parking) and that means I can come and go whenever I like. So I will buy it even though I never plan to come back within the year.

So, I guess the question is: how important is $200? It might be very important, in which case it's not worth the idea of "we can do whatever we want" for just two days. But if it is not very important, then maybe it is.