My 6y.o. is finally ready to check out the Harry Potter world!! MK is a must-stop, too, of course.
Need advice: neighborhood (and hotel) recommendations that would give us the shortest travel time to MK and Universal Studios. That is, shortest travel time by car, in the morning, when we are trying to make the RD.
Not considering “themed”, Disney- or Universal-branded options.
Usually a place will be closer to one than the other…but since Disney and Universal aren’t terribly far from one another, it isn’t a big deal.
Not sure what kind of accommodations you are looking at. We liked “Floridays” a lot. They have a mixture of 2 and 3-bedroom condos. (We did a 3-bedroom condo.) It was closer to Disney than Universal, but not bad in either case.
You may not want/need that much room, but having a full kitchen and separate rooms is nice. There are definitely cheaper places, though. That is just one we’d recommend since we stayed there.
thank you, that looks like an awesome place. And yes, we need that much room - we traveling in a pack of 7 this time 
Did you notice many pets or pet smells when you were there?
We noticed no pets nor pet smells. It was actually one of our favorite places we’ve stayed. (We always stay off site.) Nice location, nice amenities, etc. The only place we liked more was when we rented a house a couple years ago…but it was a 30 minute drive from Disney, so location wasn’t as nice. Probably the only downside we felt was that location of our particular unit required us to really drive to the main pool. I mean, we could walk, but it was faster to drive. But other units are extremely close to the main pool.
There are places that are cheaper, that might be similar, but I don’t hesitate recommending Floridays. Sometimes you can get some good deals through them as well, though.
I should add that the year we stayed at Floridays, a Tropical Storm had us holed up in the condo for 1 1/2 days and so we rented some movies to watch. Had a relaxing time there. There was 6 of us on that trip.
We’ve stayed at Sheraton Vistana Villages for both Disney and Universal. I highly recommend it for a large family. I didn’t notice any pets though.