So it looks like Universal is running a buy 2 days get 2 days free ticket promotion. I’d like to take the family down in mid-late July. Last year, we visited WDW for 3 days using touring plans and it was a giant success! We packed so much into that visit. My only concern is will 4-days at Universal be too much time for just these 2 parks (is Volcano bay a must)? I’ve heard Universal can be done in much less time than Disney. We have a 12 y/o and 7 y/o (the 7y/o is not too fond of roller-coasters). Thoughts and opinions welcome.
We did four days in February 2018. It was great, actually, because we could keep the park days very relaxed. (We were done each day in the parks by 3:00 pm.) We did not have Express Pass. But crowds were light due to being February.
Despite the fact that you can “do everything” in that time, it is nice to be able to do favorites multiple times, and spending time taking in the ambiance.
Universal is great for those who don’t love roller coasters. There are really only 3 coasters (aside from the two kiddie coasters). Now, I suppose The Mummy is technically a roller coaster, kind of, sort of, as well…but hard to really consider it anything frightening. Mostly, you’ll experience a lot of simulator rides of varying types.
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4 days is not too much! You’ll be able to take a more relaxed pace. And you can re-ride your favorites multiple times! I love Universal because it’s so relaxed and sometimes it’s nice not to have to do much planning.
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Oh…and in regards to this…having 4 days when you have to be wearing masks in the Florida heat will take even MORE of the pressure off to want to push yourself. You’ll need to keep it VERY slow, with frequent breaks.
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What are the thoughts on the VB water park? Do you think it would be worthwhile to include for the two kiddos? Also, my wife wants to go back to Animal Kingdom just to ride the Avatar ride 
I’m not sure if this is even possible considering they are not selling any tickets right now.
No, we like having 4 days.
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I’ve done the buy 2 get 2 myself and love it. You can do all the major rides and attractions at each park, at a leisurely pace & allowing for plenty of time to explore WWOHP, in a day a peice. So, IME, Day 1 & 2 are the “getting to know the parks” days with day 3 & 4 allowing for deeper exploration and repeat rides.
I’ve seen people on here say they can do everything at USF/IOA in one day, but it would feel like a nonstop forced march for me. Plus, they have to be skipping a lot of fun shows & just hitting the “E-ticket” rides.
If you are a fan of water parks then VB is great - at least when it’s not packed. When it’s at capacity VB IME isn’t fun. (queues too long and shoulder to shoulder in a “public pool” environment)
Also, FYI a basic Annual Pass is only about $10 more then the promotion you are considering. The next tier of AP, with fewer blackout dates is about $50 more. I usually stick w/ the promo because I live so far away and tend to only take a single / annual vacation. (However, they are having a sale through Sept. 30th with 3 extra months added to the AP.)
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And even before the extra months added, you could go twice in an almost-annual vacation.
For example, we went in February to just Universal, and we have a Disney/Universal trip planned for January. Because of the passes, the days in Universal, will cost just food and lodging.
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We went in February and Volcano Bay was my favorite day of the trip. It is really lovely and probably very nice in July heat. If you have four days I would include VB.
We had two other parks days and by design spent a lot of time in Harry Potter. We had Express Pass and did all the big stuff we wanted, but we could have spent another day. We missed a lot - Kong, Fast and Furious, my kids (10 and 6) weren’t interested in Hulk Or RRR, I wasn’t interested in the really wet rides. We didn’t see any shows outside of Harry Potter. There is definitely enough for 4 days.
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I would LOVE to have 4 days. When we went we only had 1.5 days and it wasn’t even enough to see 1/4 of the stuff. But, I like to meander and “see stuff” instead of just doing rides.
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Thanks for the feedback about the 4-days! Having looked a little closer into IOA, it seems to be geared more towards tweens and teens. My 7 y/o is definitely not a thrill seeker and probably won’t ride most of the bigger rides, but my 11 y/o will love it.