How to enjoy Disney / Universal / Sea World (Orlando, Lake City: appointed, waterpark)

[RelocatingVerySoon]

Hi there,

Husband and I are taking 4 nights/5 days trip down to Orlando next week and we will be visiting (1) Magic Kingdom, (2) Epcot, (3) Universal Studio & (4) Sea World. It is my husband's first time, and for me, it's my 3rd time though my last trip down there was 5 yrs back!

This being our first real vacation in a loooong time, I really wanna make sure that we have a good time!!

Can you tell me how to get the BEST of those 4 theme parks??

Thank you!

[Lisa_from_Debary]

My daughter and I are passholders at Disney. We like to carry back packs and bring our own food unless we are going to make reservations ahead of time at one of the more expensive sit down restaurants...I also make sure to bring plenty of bottled water, the money you save on that alone will pay for an expensive sit down dinner.

At The Magic Kingdom, I can recommend The Liberty Tree Tavern, its wonderful. Rays in tomorrow world has a nice selection of counter service but its all pretty samey...

At Epcot, I didn't care much for Canada, but I did enjoy Japan's Sushi and Tempura bar, I LOVED Italy, they have waiters there, with their shirts unbuttoned halfway down, breaking into song as they bring your food..., I also liked England, but China was a bit of a dissapointment, nothing better then you can get a local Chinese delivery...Mexico sucked as well.

These restaurants I mention all require reservations or you will end up waiting, you can call 407-WDW-DINE to set up reservations in advance, a more in depth description of the places to eat can be found on the Disney website.

I have always heard that Discovery Cove is wonderful at Sea World but its like $150 per person, you get to swim with dolphins though...

One of my favorite restaurants outside of the parks is at the Swan Hotel, its called Gullivers, they do a nice buffet with a different theme, depending on what night you go there, I have enjoyed the Seafood night, the American night and Italian night, we also ate brunch there one morning and it was wonderul as well. I have a child and the food there is great for her as well. A selection of characters comes through while your eating also. The grounds of the hotel are very nice however you might have to pay for parking unless you are staying on the grounds and don't have to drive...

Downtown Disney is really nice if you want to visit there, the best place in my opinion is The Earl of Sandwich, they have a nice selection of salads and sandwiches which are nothing like what is offered in the parks and the prices are reasonable as well.

I'm sure you know to bring rain panchos just in case, these take up less room then an umbrella. When it rains is the best time to get inline for the rides...people tend t thin out like they are going to melt in the rain or something.

[Troops]

Hey there,

This post might be a little long winded but I wanted to assist as much as I could and give you as much detail and ideas as possible


5 days and you will defiantly have your work cut out. But it will defiantly be a holiday to remember.

My family and I visited Florida for a month (been back 3 weeks) and we managed to cover 95% of Disney, all of seaworld and universal. So as adults alone you will have a very good chance of squeezing in a lot.

Magic kingdom to be honest I would save that for last and catch if you can the ‘wishes’ castle firework display on your final possible evening ... Its breathtaking and a memory that will be with me for a lifetime.
The ‘feel’ of the place is just amazing and will always bring out the child in you. For fun you have a lot of ‘viewing’ attractions but for the thrills you cannot beat Space Mountain.
But for my family I would think the best part of magic kingdom is of course the parades, they are again an amazing site to see.

Epcot can be done in a day or less, it rated ok on our scale defiantly a bit of disappointment if you do magic kingdom before that. The highlight for us in this park was walking through the different countries ( and honestly if England was as beautiful and wonderful as it is in epcot there would be the possibility that my hubby and I would not be looking on here for advice and info on orlando  ) I think the most disappointing thing for us was the ‘innoventions’ journey to tomorrow.. this what we were expecting new and futuristic technology … apart from the robots (3 of them) the rest was Xboxes and playstations ( all the released ones)

Universal studio’s … ok the best way of doing this one would be do the studios first in the AM ( will not take very long) and then go have some fun in Island of adventure. It appears when you are there that they have spent a lot of time and money on the island and left the studios to a little rack and ruin we did it the other way round and were a little disappointed at spending our last ‘theme park’ day at the studios when having done Island of adventure the day before. If you do it with the studios first you can check out twister, earthquake, T2, MIB ( hehe the most fun) & ET and catch the blues brothers, unfortunately they have now shut down the ‘back to the future’ ride so there is a big gap there now. Then head straight over to Island of adventure where I would highly recommend, the hulk, duelling dragons, the amazing adventures of spiderman, and Jurassic park river adventure, also it’s a great way to reach for the child in you and get your pic taken with all the ‘super heroes’ who are readily hanging around with no queues ( like magic kingdom) and speaking of pics for a classic memorable pic if you want one there is a place where ‘spiderman’ hangs and they will take your pic in front of a plain backdrop and then they place the pic on a comic book cover’ so worth the $22.00 and it even comes with a plastic frame ( unlike many others ) to put blatantly universal studios itself very disappointing but Island of adventure is an absolute must.
Also just to add they do have a rather large entrance section which I would bring along the lines with ‘downtown disney’ I would say its very popular in the evenings with a variety of bars and restaurants.

Seaworld.
Well there is nothing but a ‘must do’ is all I can say about sea world and of course you must check out ‘shamu’ sea world is a more of a wandering around park with the occasional rides and I would again if you are up for the thrills go for ‘Atlantis, Wild Arctic. and a must is the Kraken. Very enjoyable day. Also there is a restaurant that you can book when you arrive at seaworld for a buffet lunch which is worth it when you consider the prices of other eateries.
Again this can be done in a day (while we were there they were doing a pay one day get one day free. So if you wanted to return if you had the time you can)

If you were to ask advice on where to go for the best I would strongly suggest

Universal studios/ Island of adventure (1day)

Disney’s MGM Studios ( I personally would swap MGM for Epcot. MGM has more to offer with the more of a fun filled Disney day ‘feel’ to it inc tower of terror, rocking roller coaster, extreme stunt show, Indiana jones show, and the backlot tour is wonderful and intriguing) (1 long day)

Seaworld (1day) (then maybe downtown Disney for the evening)

Magic Kingdom ( make the day last watch all the parades and stay for ‘wishes’ and check out the evening ‘light’ parade too)

N.B sometimes its more beneficial to fast track some rides but then sometimes you can get a fast track that will give you an evening time ( even when you do it in the AM)

Hope this assists you in planning your very enjoyable holiday.
Have a wonderful time.

[RelocatingVerySoon]

Wow, thank you both VERY MUCH for such detailed replies! Very helpful!!

[RelocatingVerySoon]

We are driving down from Atlanta to Orlando tomorrow for our mini vacation at Disney.

Now that they closed I-75 from Lake City, Florida, to Valdosta, Georgia, are there any detours we have to use? Anybody has an idea?

Any chance that it will be re-opened tomorrow afternoon?

[flboi85]

Not related to them in any way, but make sure you check out Wet N Wild waterpark on International Drive. I love that place.

[RelocatingVerySoon]

Just wanted to say thanks to those gave me suggestios/advice! Husband and I just returned from our mini vacation in Orlando last night and we had such a blast! Our absolute fav was Magic Kingdom! Like everyone says, it brings a kid in you and fireworks at 9pm was absoluely breathtaking!!! We even took a little movie clip of fireworks so we can show it to family/friends!
The weather was perfect; a bit cloudy and cool, not too hot, and to our surprise, it didn't rain one bit!!!
We returned home with lots of fun memories and pictures and we can't wait to go back to Orlando in a near future.... perhaps with our little one this time, who knows...

[Lisa_from_Debary]

I much prefer the waterparks at Disney, there are two of them, Blizzard Beach and Typhoon Lagoon.