Off day suggestions?

[KateDrake]

Hi all! I took advantage of the buy-2-get-2 promo and got tickets for our family of 4 (me, DH, DD11 and DD6). However, with the way flights worked out, we'll actually be there for 5 days. Wanting to see if anyone has suggestions for a day off? Thinking we could just hang out by the pool, visit CityWalk, etc., but then noticed that the parks close fairly early while we are there, so we can probably do them in the evening. Any COVID-safe and not-too-expensive suggestions welcome! (We booked this on a whim today because we found a great deal!)

Totally new to this and so thankful for all of your great posts. We are Disney pros but have never done Universal but have always wanted to. My kids are finally old enough to read the Harry Potter books and are having daily wizard duels, so we decided to take the plunge. We'll be there Sunday-Thursday in late September. I know that is a rather long trip, but that's how it worked out with flights and since we are coming from Mountain Time it will be nice to have plenty of time to soak it all up.

 

[disneydreamer1980]

Maybe hit DS? Or visit the Poly or Wilderness lodge? I’m not sure I’d have the willpower to be so close to WDW without making a little visit lol. Universal is awesome though and WWoHP is absolutely amazing. You’ll have a great time!

 

[Matthew81]

I recommend seaworld

 

[CyndiLooWho]

If your kids are under 13, you could go to Legoland. Took our boys at 11 and 13, and they had a blast - lots of family coasters and not too far a drive. My boys also adore Kennedy Space Center. It's a 1 hour drive on the toll roads, but they love it. They informed me that our next trip they want to do 2 days there so they can do some of the extra paid tours. They were truly disappointed that I had only slotted one day in and had fastpasses for all other days in Orlando (their last trip with us was to WDW).

Both of those things are a bit pricey and require a rental car, but both were very much worth doing.

 

[LSUfan4444]

We considered two Disney options to get a little Dis fix..

A monorail tour starting at the TTC, walking to Poly then the Grand and Monorail to MK. From there, boat to Wilderness Lodge, bus back to MK then monorail to Contemporary. Our idea was to just snack along the way and not really sit down for a meal BUT have the option to if a reservation was available and we had enough time. To be 100% honest, I don't even know if it's feasible now with any COVID restrictions because we benched that idea before looking too far into it but we have done it before and really enjoyed it.

The other was a Epcot resorts/skyliner tour

 

[hhoope01]

To keep costs down a bit, there are options still at the Universal complex. In Citywalk, there is the Hollywood Drive-In Golf course (putt putt). Over at CBBR there's the bowling alley. Did you buy the 2 or 3 Park tickets? If only the 2-park, you might look at upgrading to 3-park and hit VB (though admittedly this might be a little pricey compared to a round of putt putt.) Depending on your risk-adverseness, there is the Cinemark theaters in Citywalk. If you haven't eaten at the HR restaurant, you could do that on your "off-day" and ask to take one of their memorabilia tours.

If you go bowling at CBBR, walk around the hotel for a bit to see the resort. Also, while I think pool hopping isn't allowed (due to Covid) right now, maybe by late September it might be an option (assuming you are staying at one of the on-site hotels.)

 

[Lynne G]

Relax and enjoy pool time, check our movie theater and or mini golf in City Walk, many other mini golf around the resort, but you would need a car. If have a car, yes, Legoland or Seaworld would be nice. Can also check Discovery Cove, if you want a nice park and can pay extra for dolphin interaction. Free parking there, and a nice, relaxing day can be had there.

Science Museum is on I4 and is a fun place to visit, if your kids are into that.

Anyway, my less than 2 cents info.

 

[ruthies12]

I would highly recommend you look into upgrading your tickets to seasonal annual passes after you've arrived. I think you will be surprised at how little it will cost to upgrade, in the past upgrading those buy 2 get 2 tickets to a pass has only been around 30 bucks per ticket, sometimes less.

If you upgrade you can go into the park again on the 5th day if you feel like it or do something else. It'll open up your options. Also right now is passholder appreciation so if you upgrade on the first day you will get discounts on food for the rest of your stay.

You also can probably still rebook your hotel with a passholder discount if you want to plan on upgrading at least one ticket to a pass, you don't have to have the pass at the time of check-in, just tell them you are upgrading and then you stop back in later to show your pass. Depending on which hotel you are at the hotel discount could more than make up the cost of the upgrade. go to the Universal hotels page here on the disboards and use the link for the APH rates sticky at the top of the page to see if your hotel dates are still available and discounted.

They are also adding 3 months free to passes purchased before September 30th, so you could plan another trip next year for super cheap since you wouldn't have to buy tickets again.

 

[ruthies12]

I was curious and bored so I looked and if you bought the 2 day park to park buy 2 get 2 free from Universal it was 297.13 after taxes. The Seasonal annual pass is only 324.82 after taxes for a difference of 27.69 so that is all it will cost you to upgrade.

Just a heads up if you didn't already purchase your tickets, I highly recommend Undercover Tourist for ticket purchases, they have the same deal of buy 2 get 2 that my sister just purchased for 275 per ticket. Those tickets are still upgradable.

 

[andieb0602]

We have a late September Sat-Thurs planned so I think we'll be there at the same time!

I think a lot of what you can do depends on your comfort level (and whether or not you have a car). The Topgolf in Orlando is half price on Tuesdays which is something we've talked about doing and it's around 4 miles from UOR. It's much more fun than "regular" golf. We also have gone to Disney Springs or done a skyliner crawl on our "rest" days. We've looked into Kennedy Space Center as well but there are lots of exhibits closed right now so we decided it wasn't worth it at this time. On site we've talked about the mini golf at Citywalk but never done it. It's on the agenda for this trip if we find we're bored.

Keep in mind that the masks can slow you down and make you more tired. When we went last month we would leave the parks before close and eat dinner at Citywalk. By the time we were done eating we were ready to just go back to the room, rest, and not have on a mask. We never even made it out to the pool. You get used to wearing the masks - it's not bad at all - but at the end of the day we wanted to breathe freely and comfortably in air conditioning so we decided to not go out more.

Also @ruthies12 gave some excellent advice. AP hotel rates for late September are really good right now even with some of the hotels being shut down. (A family suite interior entry at Cabana Bay with an AP rate is $62 less *per night* than the savvy traveler rate offered to the public and is even less than the FL resident rate.) Passholder Appreciation runs through the end of September so you would get 10% off your food. We saved the cost difference of upgrading to APs on our first trip with the reduced hotel rate and then got food and merch discounts in the parks which saved us even more. We're also getting three more trips out of the APs before they expire.

 

[KateDrake]

I would highly recommend you look into upgrading your tickets to seasonal annual passes after you've arrived. I think you will be surprised at how little it will cost to upgrade, in the past upgrading those buy 2 get 2 tickets to a pass has only been around 30 bucks per ticket, sometimes less.

If you upgrade you can go into the park again on the 5th day if you feel like it or do something else. It'll open up your options. Also right now is passholder appreciation so if you upgrade on the first day you will get discounts on food for the rest of your stay.

You also can probably still rebook your hotel with a passholder discount if you want to plan on upgrading at least one ticket to a pass, you don't have to have the pass at the time of check-in, just tell them you are upgrading and then you stop back in later to show your pass. Depending on which hotel you are at the hotel discount could more than make up the cost of the upgrade. go to the Universal hotels page here on the disboards and use the link for the APH rates sticky at the top of the page to see if your hotel dates are still available and discounted.

They are also adding 3 months free to passes purchased before September 30th, so you could plan another trip next year for super cheap since you wouldn't have to buy tickets again.

I was just looking into this! We did the exact same thing at Disneyland in January. Bought tickets at a discount (I can't remember if it was UC or Get Away Today), and then upgraded after we'd used our Magic Morning. It's so nice to get all the discounts! We are currently staying at Surfside but maybe with the discount we could upgrade to CBBR. And my extended family is hoping to come Fall 2021/Spring 2022, so maybe that extended pass would be worthwhile!

 

[KateDrake]

I recommend seaworld

Oh man, I watched that documentary and now I just can't do SeaWorld! But thank you so much for the suggestion!

 

[KateDrake]

We have a late September Sat-Thurs planned so I think we'll be there at the same time!

I think a lot of what you can do depends on your comfort level (and whether or not you have a car). The Topgolf in Orlando is half price on Tuesdays which is something we've talked about doing and it's around 4 miles from UOR. It's much more fun than "regular" golf. We also have gone to Disney Springs or done a skyliner crawl on our "rest" days. We've looked into Kennedy Space Center as well but there are lots of exhibits closed right now so we decided it wasn't worth it at this time. On site we've talked about the mini golf at Citywalk but never done it. It's on the agenda for this trip if we find we're bored.

Keep in mind that the masks can slow you down and make you more tired. When we went last month we would leave the parks before close and eat dinner at Citywalk. By the time we were done eating we were ready to just go back to the room, rest, and not have on a mask. We never even made it out to the pool. You get used to wearing the masks - it's not bad at all - but at the end of the day we wanted to breathe freely and comfortably in air conditioning so we decided to not go out more.

Also @ruthies12 gave some excellent advice. AP hotel rates for late September are really good right now even with some of the hotels being shut down. (A family suite interior entry at Cabana Bay with an AP rate is $62 less *per night* than the savvy traveler rate offered to the public and is even less than the FL resident rate.) Passholder Appreciation runs through the end of September so you would get 10% off your food. We saved the cost difference of upgrading to APs on our first trip with the reduced hotel rate and then got food and merch discounts in the parks which saved us even more. We're also getting three more trips out of the APs before they expire.

We love TopGolf! I will have to look into that. I think right now we are looking into upgrading to APs, but I love this as an alternative!

And you are so right about the masks. I am all for wearing them, but they do seem to sap your energy! We just wore them hiking at Yellowstone last weekend and I found myself getting tired much faster. Though maybe that's my quarantine-wasted body just being out of shape!

 

[ruthies12]

https://res.windsurfercrs.com/ibe/d...hildren=0&promo=aph&iata=&group=&hotels=&ada=
@KateDrake here is the link to the passholder rates for the onsite hotels

 

[ruthies12]

not sure why the link comes up as portofino bay, but it is for all the hotels

 

[nkereina]

Have you considered Volcano Bay? I'm not sure what the hours are like in late September, but worth considering as the weather will certainly still be warm enough. Look at the cost of purchasing one day tickets versus upgrading your tickets to a 3 park one, I'm not sure which would come out cheaper.

If it were us, we'd sleep in, grab breakfast, spend the afternoon at Disney Springs, and make a dinner ADR at a Disney resort. Technically, you're supposed to have an ADR or resort reservation to set foot on the Disney resorts that are open, but I don't believe they are enforcing that. I saw mention up-thread of an Epcot resort area/Skyliner tour but I believe Yacht Club will still be closed at that point (due to NBA) and the Skyliner ride won't take any longer than 15 minutes.

Another option is Cocoa Beach. If you won't have a car, I know Tony Hinds drives to Port Canaveral so he'd likely be willing to do a drop off/pick up in Cocoa Beach as well.

 

[CAPSLOCK]

There are a lot of little diversions on I-Drive as well, many of which are very close to Universal. Escape games, dinner theaters, go kart tracks, Wonderworks, etc.

 

[Alynw]

I highly recommend Gatorland. Its literally only a few min from disney. On our off days we like to get away from the crowds and the hustle from the parks and gatorland offers a nice easy relaxing day outside. U get to see so many gators and tons of other animals as well, u do walk around but at ur own pace. They have live gator wrestling shows, feed the gators, take ride through swamp in monster truck, zip line and more. Cost was like $26 adult i think. They have places to eat and drink as well. This place is always a must do for one of our off days everytime we go.

 

[maverik85]

The Hollywood Drive-In minigolf is fun but it is best at night so could really do it any day after the parks too.
I agree with some others that walking around Disney Springs can be fun. It is quite large so can easily spend awhile there and have fun without spending any money.
If you have a car Cocoa Beach isn't too far so a beach day coudl be fun too.