Universal Orlando on a Budget

We are lifelong Floridians, but now that we travel full time, we are learning how to play “snowbird” and touristing many places we haven’t been in years, or have never been to.

Universal Orlando was a frequent stop in our twenties for City Walk and it’s clubs and restaurants, but we only visited Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure once during that time, and then a visit to Universal Studios for Rock the Universe when our oldest was a teen and wanted to go with a friend–Luther was just a baby so stayed home! We had Disney passes for most of Luther’s childhood before traveling, so those have been done.

So, when fall had us returning for the winter, we decided we wanted to finally bring Luther to visit these parks. Now that he’s a teenager, he’s up for more adventure, roller coasters, and he loves Harry Potter. Since it is such an expense, we had to strategize a plan, and a budget!

Lucky for us, a friend of ours that works for Universal and can give guest passes, happened to need help with a project, so we negotiated a deal that scored us 3 one day, two park passes, which meant we got in for $0!

Realistically, we could have taken sandwiches and snacks, but we didn’t want to deal with backpacks or lockers much, so we opted to take our hydroflask with us and share meals and snacks. We also knew he’d want souvenirs–a wand was high on the list–so we set a budget for the day of $250.

We really meant to get up and moving early, but we didn’t, and Luther wanted to attend his daily coffee breakfast with his grandpa, so we didn’t get in a rush and left after that.

Traffic, was Orlando traffic, so we didn’t get to the exit until after 10AM. We opted for RV lot parking so we didn’t have to be closed in the garage, although we should have fit with no issue, it gave us piece of mind. We had to check in with security since we were a large truck and not an actual RV, but they were understanding. Parking cost us $32

We opted to start at Universal since we could do a lot of the stuff quickly and our list there was shorter. They were using a new system, so the queue to get into the park was superlong, and we found out we were also there on the Winter Break for both California and New York, so it was pretty busy. I grabbed a caffeine fix from the Coca Cola stand ($6) to get through the line in a good mood. Everyone was nice and we chatted with people while waiting, eventually getting into the park by 1130.

For lunch, we stopped at Mel’s diner, and split a burger basket, onion rings and fries for $26. Totally missed getting a food photo since we were famished!

We planned our route in advance, and decided that single rider lines would work well for us to avoid long lines and save on the cost of fast pass upgrades.

We spent time exploring the movie sets, Men In Black and their ride (at least I think we did, I can’t remember…), and Fast and Furious, before making our way to Harry Potter.

High on our list was a butter beer ($6) and chocolate frogs (3 for $37, two for us and one for a friend).

We made our way through Olivander’s where Luther chose a wand and stand ($110) so he could do the interactive spells in both parks. He also brought his own money for a niffler, albeit he only had enough for the little one ($21), but he was happy.

We then wandered around a bit letting him play with the interactive wands and casting spells. The lines were super long for the rides, and he decided he didn’t want to wait in them.

We eventually made our way to Kings Cross and awaited our turn to enter Platform 9 3/4 (an hour!) to ride the Hogwart’s Express to Island’s of Adventure. It was neat how they had the windows and doors as screens so you truly felt like you were part of it.

After exploring a bit more, we opted for dinner at Three Broomsticks where we again shared, this time it was fish and chips, a chicken platter, and a side baked potato, then we just shared from the two platters, for $45. Again, missed taking a food photo–we were so hungry!

We then set out to explore more of Harry Potter, then on to Jurrassic Park, Toon Town, The Mummy and Marvel, where BJ rode the Hulk while we rode the Accelatron. I had a sinus headache and Lou wasn’t quite ready for upside down rides yet.

We patiently waited for sundown for the after dark Harry Potter experience and wandered back and it was totally worth it.

We stopped for snacks and enjoyed chocolate covered smores and a red velvet moonpie, $21–something we ended up regretting when we decided to ride The Forbidden Journey without realizing how much it actually moved.

We then joined the mass of people being herded out at closing time, and made our way out of the park, through City Walk, and back to our truck. Since it was late, the drive down I-4 was a lot less busy than the morning commute, so our trip home was about half the time. We talked the whole ride home about what we loved and what we want to do when we come back. As I write this a week later, he is still carrying the niffler and wand around the house, reading the books again, and talking about it.

In total, we spent a collective $300, but deducting Luther’s contribution, we spent $278 from our budget, a little over–but that’s on me for getting the wand stand so he had a place for it to display instead of in the box. I know that realistically, most people wouldn’t be able to do this, and there are many scams out there for tickets–don’t fall prey to them! Had we not had the hook up on tickets from a friend, we would have paid a lot more, and we would have budgeted differently and brought our own food to save.

We had a fabulous day and will eventually return for more memories, and when we can ride more. Tell us what your favorite’s were and what we should add to our list!