I have three quick questions as a Universal newbee:
when does hotel booking usually open up?
tell me more about these icees. DD is a huge icee fan. Are they available at the parks amd resorts or are they are park thing?
is this the best thread to ask random questions?
The hotel link doesnāt seem to work. I wanted to book for next March but so far it is only open through January from what I can see?
Is your browser in desktop mode? It should look like this:
(I punched in a March date)
That is so weird. When I look here - they wonāt let you book past January. Universal Orlando Resortā¢ | Your Orlando Vacation Destination
But your link worked for me. Thanks!
Now I have to figure out if we are going to do one night at RPR/Hardrock and one at Adventura or just swallow the extra and just book two nights at the deluxe. I think for our first trip - figuring it all.put we will probably stay put, but those Easter prices are tough!
Yep I know, the old reservation system lets you book farther out. Itās strange.
Plus, it often gives you a better rate! The only reason I get to stay at Aventura for my HHN trip is b/c of this link! The current system rate is $187, but itās only $124 with the link!
I couldāve even kept my stay at Dockside and saved about $470 versus the rate I originally booked!
I check it almost every day to see if there are any changes. Itās mostly going up in price to $132. So glad you put it out there again!
Is it safe to say the prices fluctuate? Right now the April dates Iām looking at are the highest Iāve ever seen when looking.
Yes! For sure!
IME - Youāll see better rates as you get closer. (About 6 months or so before your travel)
My trip is in 100 days. I really do check the hotel link a couple times per day. Iāve had the most success getting a good / better rate around 1pm Central time. I donāt know if thatās me being superstitious or if itās that I check more on my lunch break!! 
The rate I had booked originally for this trip was $98 at Dockside. I saw it yesterday at $87! Not a big change, but it wouldāve saved $100! (a.k.a - 10 butterbeers!!)
With your trip being so long, do you break up the dates to see if a split stays would get you a better rate?
Yesh right now dockside is almost $200! For that rate Iāll stay at Disney and Uber.
Itās so funny you ask! More than once Iāve booked trips where booking the entire trip at one place made the whole hotel stay price crazy expensiveā¦
Iāve, literally & truly, have had to book a single night a Dockside to arrive and get a $95 rate that night. Then ācheck-inā to Dockside the next morning, again, to get a low rate, like $87 each night, that covers all my tripā¦ If I were to book the entire trip as a whole each night is $130+???
Hereās the pricing for my trip for the entire timeā¦
If I only book a single night for my arrival at Dockside and then book the rest hereās the rateā¦
Arrival Night onlyā¦
Then adding in the rest of my datesā¦
If youāre really savvy about booking, youāll notice I juggled the older system & new system to get the best rate. The newer system gave that great one night arrival. It was over $100 on the old systemā¦
I really donāt get itā¦They have the rooms. Why does one day more jack up the price?? You would think it would lower / nothing changes as you are booking more nightsā¦ 
Usually when they list those rates, they are averaging. So if you include a weekend, it LOOKS like the daily rate is higher because they are averaging the weekend rateā¦but when you look at the price broken down by day, youāll find that the per day rate was actually the lower rate, and only the weekend days were higher. I, personally, never found a case where the sum of the parts was actually less than the whole, as it were.
Maybe Iām not understandingā¦
I understand how the rate is broken out. Iāve seen it when I go to bookā¦ 
Iām confused because here is the rate for all 10 nights - $1677.38
Hereās the rate for 9 nights starting on Friday instead of Thursday - $934.76
That one night makes the total a difference of $742.63!!
What am I not understanding about āaveragingā to get a better rate / cost? 
Sorry. I am distracted, so let me clarify. I mean that the āper nightā price that it lists on the booking page is averaging the per night prices together. So if it says, say, $110 for two days, it might actually be $100 for Thursday, and $120 for Friday. So it lists the per night cost as $110. Thatās what I meant by thatā¦but that you can actually see the per-night cost when you look at the breakout (as you showed).
I was also just saying that IN MY CASE, when Iāve looked at the broken out prices, I couldnāt do what you are doing and find a combination that suddenly gives a lower overall price. It seems like that would take a LOT of effort to have to track down, though.
Also, the room category is different.
In your example, the room type changed. If you can only have one room type on the reservation, and the room is not available the first night, then your only option is the more expensive room.
Iāve had issues where I could book two nights in a type of room, but not one night.
And to further clarifyā¦if you added another dayā¦say Wednesday, then you would have $100, $100, $120. Now the āper nightā average shown on the booking page would be more like $107ā¦but the total cost of the booking would still end up being $320.
My bad! I wasnāt paying attention and just clicked on the first rate I saw for that hotelā¦
Itās still $534.49 more than booking a single night and then 9 more nightsā¦ Itās so weird!
It does! Thankfully, I have a (mostly) desk job that Iāve done for so long that I have it down to an art. It gives me all this time to chat hereā¦lol (Iām sure most people here notice Iām not online after 5pm or weekends!! )
I see. So there is a Be a Savvy Traveler rate. But in the more expensive case, there isnāt.
