10 Quick Tips For Traveling to Universal with Two Kids
Don’t worry about packing water wings or a life jacket; all pools have them available, so save your luggage space!
Buy a lanyard with your favorite Universal theme with a business card holder before going to the park. The tickets are paper, and of course, my children wanted one for their ticket as soon as they saw them, and at $15 per, it can get pretty pricey! Hot Topic or Boxed Lunch always has these on sale!
If you plan on “doing magic” at the parks, know that there are 2 different types of wands. The interactive wands are not that much more and are the ones you will need to do all the spells. (I was unaware of this and accidentally bought 1 that wasn’t interactive, and I had to talk my kids into sharing) it is a lot to spend on a wand, but my kids enjoyed this part!
Stay in a Universal Hotel!! This was worth it, and we could have gotten away with only going to the park one day and staying at the hotel the rest of the time.
We stayed at Cabana Bay, and I bought pool floaties and took them with us for the lazy river, as they were an extra cost at the hotel.
When they say “Universal Resort Guests get into Harry Potter Early,” they are referring to Universal Studios, not the Island of Adventure. We made this mistake and many others so that we could have gotten an extra hour of sleep!
To ride the Hogwarts Express you have to have park hopper tickets. We didn’t do this since my kids weren’t interested, but everyone said it was a cool experience!
If you plan on taking a stroller, make sure it folds up small! Most of the buses in the evening are normal charter buses, and it’s hard to get a larger stroller onto them.
Start the day in the Harry Potter area. We didn’t purchase the fast passes and were fine starting in the Harry Potter area first and then moving on to the other areas of the park with minimal waiting in lines.
Food is VERY reasonably priced. I am always trying to save money for food since my kids are so picky, but it was worth packing a few snacks in my purse and buying them lunch. It wasn’t much more expensive than eating at a fast-food restaurant.
I did pack quick breakfast options as well as snacks.
Coolers are not allowed.
We chose to Lyft from the airport. There is a shuttle, but it has a nominal fee, so we went with Lyft since it was cheaper!