Planning before you go
Before you go to Florida, decide on what parks you are going to visit. A holiday to Orlando can be a once in a lifetime experience for some and there are so many different parks and places to visit that you need to have a clear idea about what you want to do!
Trying to cram every single park into a two or three week holiday will leave you feeling like you haven’t really had a holiday and you may come home feeling more tired than before you left!
Our biggest piece of advice is try to prioritise which parks you want to visit. Not only will this help to give you some days for relaxing or shopping, but it will also save you some money as ticket prices are expensive!
If you’ve never been before then you might feel that you don’t want to miss a single park so we are going to try and give you some advice on how to prioritise your visit.
- Decide which parks are a MUST for your visit. If it is your first time then you’ll most likely want to visit Universal and Disney. If you’ve been more than once then you perhaps want to replace one of these parks with something else, or just miss one of them out?
- Water Parks – Unless you are a huge water park fan you may want to decide if you really need to visit all of the water parks that are on offer…Disney have 2 water parks, Universal have 1 and SeaWorld has 1. All of these can be bought as part of a combi ticket deal for the parks but you may not want to visit them all. It’s okay to not do absolutely every park!
- SeaWorld own the SeaWorld theme park, as well as Aquatica (water park), Discovery Cove (dolphin swim and family resort) and Busch Gardens (theme park). Busch Gardens is situated in Tampa which is around 2 hours away from Orlando and is home to some of the most exciting and thrilling rides in the country (more information on the Busch Gardens page). You may not want to visit all of the parks that SeaWorld has to offer, especially the journey to Tampa but don’t worry – you can buy tickets for individual parks and experiences from their websites.
- Plan relaxation/shopping days! Disney have 4 theme parks and 2 water parks, Universal have 2 theme parks and 1 water park, SeaWorld has 1 theme park (in Orlando), 1 water park and 1 family resort. That’s 12 different experiences in Orlando alone if you decide you do want to visit all the parks. Make sure you plan your parks carefully and try to have some rest days!
Buying your tickets
The easiest (and cheapest!) way to buy your tickets is through ticket buying websites before you go. These websites (our recommendations are listed below) often offer extra deals when you buy tickets such as meal or discount vouchers, and most also offer payment schemes which allow you to put down a deposit and then pay your tickets up in the lead up to your holiday. Usually you can put down a deposit of £10/£20 per ticket or combi deal which you can pay up until 6 weeks before your holiday. These companies will then send you real tickets rather than you having to print paper tickets or vouchers.
Here are some of the websites that we have used in the past and would recommend:
Simply Orlando 