As an official Floridian, I get emails all the time from people with questions about their upcoming Orlando vacations.  Apparently, a Florida driver’s license makes me an expert on tourism.  Well, that and my awesome habit of usually being right and knowing everything.

Most recently, a friend emailed to ask me which theme park is better – Walt Disney World or Universal Studios Orlando?

My expert opinion is that it depends.

Universal Studios vs. Disney World

Questions to ask when deciding which theme park is right for your vacation.

How old are your kids?

Both of the mega theme parks in Orlando cater to children.  Obviously.  But the age of your children will make a big difference in what they’ll get out of each.

Walt Disney World is perfect for toddlers and preschool age children. My 4 year old daughter thinks that Disney World is heaven and Mickey Mouse just might be the Messiah.  Which is a testament to Disney’s marketing and not at all a reflection of my poor parenting.

meeting Mickey

There is a limitless supply of things for her to look at it.  From parades to musical shows, we could easily spend days and days just sitting and watching stuff at Disney World and she would never be bored.  My 9 year old son?  His eyes were in danger of rolling out of his head after the first 5 minutes of the Mickey Club House sing-a-long show.

Disney World also has tons of rides and attractions that are suited to a younger child.  A Small World doesn’t scare the crap out of my daughter, and she is more than happy to stand in line for yet another ride on a carousel.

on the carousel

However, a trip to Universal Studios requires at least one adult willing to spend a lot of time sitting with a toddler and a stroller while everyone else goes on the big kid rides.  While Universal’s Islands of Adventure offers Dr. Seuss land, the overwhelming majority of rides and attractions are better suited for older children.

How much of your vacation is dedicated to theme parks?

Disney is best experienced in big, huge chunks. Our very first trip to Disney World was for an evening event.  We spent 4 hours at the Magic Kingdom and came home stressed out and exhausted from trying to squeeze as much in as we could in a short amount of time.  Our second trip to Disney World was for a long weekend and we stayed at a Disney World hotel.  We visited 3 of the 4 parks and everyone had a chance to do (or see) at least one thing on their Disney Must Do List.

If you’re going to do Disney, then do Disney.  Give yourself plenty of time to soak it all in and understand why it’s called the happiest place on Earth.  You’ll also save a ton of money by buying a multi-day ticket.

Universal Studios is perfect if you want to do something besides amusement parks during your Orlando vacation. You can spend one or two days and get the most out of both Universal parks.

Universal Studios roller coasters

If you’re trying to get as much into your vacation itinerary as possible on the lowest budget, spend the big bucks on Universal and then go for some of the cheaper things to do in Orlando (like a trip to the beach).  Central Florida offers so much more than roller coasters and cartoon characters.

How much money do you want to spend?

While the ticket prices for single day admission are comparable, I always find we spend more money when we go to Disney World than when we visit Universal Studios.

Of course Universal Studios has theme restaurants with overpriced hamburgers, souvenir shops, face painting and a dozen chances to have your family vacation immortalized in a caricature drawing.  But Disney is the master of the upsell.

You can tell we love our children because they have ears

You can’t walk three feet in Disney World without someone trying to convince your kids to ask you for money.  Vendors walk the streets hawking $10 balloons, neon necklaces, gourmet cookies and of course you have to buy the ears. And don’t forget all of the extra experiences you can buy!  You can have lunch with a character or giver your little girl a princess makeover – but don’t expect that to be included in your price of admission.

The biggest difference between the two parks is that Disney is an experience, while Universal Studios is an attraction.  You need to decide if you’re planning a Disney Vacation or a vacation to Florida.

(All photos by Britt Reints.  Obviously.  Or this would just be creepy.)

Walt Disney World wasn’t the final destination of the winter vacation that I wrote about earlier this month. After two days at Disney’s Animal Kingdom Lodge, Disney transportation picked us up and drove us to Port Canaveral. There, we boarded the Disney Magic, one of two ships on the Disney Cruise Line, and sailed to Key West, Grand Cayman, Cozumel, Disney’s Castaway Cay in the Bahamas, and back to Port Canaveral.

Before I go into details, I’ll warn you—I’m going to sound like I was paid by Disney to write this. I wish I were. I’m just a huge fan of Disney vacations, and especially their cruises.

The Disney Magic from Castaway Cay

My family and I took our first Disney cruise in January 2006. Over four days, we sailed to Nassau, to Castaway Cay, and back to Florida on the Disney Wonder. Just like the corporate bigwigs must have planned in their meetings, we were hooked. Before we even left the ship, we booked another cruise.

In January 2007, we took our first seven-night Disney cruise. This one brought us to Key West, Grand Cayman, Cozumel, and Castaway Cay. Before we disembarked, we fell for their evil plan again—we booked a third cruise. Our third cruise would dock at the same ports, but this would be a holiday cruise over New Year’s Eve 2008.

The Art Deco Lobby of the Disney Magic

The almost two-year wait between cruises was tough. I think we started counting down about nine months before leaving. My daughter was packed at least six months early. I do have to say that the timing might not have been the best choice. It was pretty amazing to see Disney World and the Disney Magic decked out for the holidays, but leaving for a vacation on Christmas Day was a little hectic when you still try to work in all the family traditions. From the look of things on the ship, some people took their entire extended families on the cruise. There were groups of ten or twenty family members at some tables at dinner. Sometimes, we thought that our small family of three got a little lost in the shuffle. Before the end of the cruise though, I think that some of the crew realized this too and tried to make up for it. That Disney. Say what you want about them, but in my experience they always respond to their guests, and most cast members go out of their way to make vacations special for everyone.

Captain Mickey and Minnie

If you’ve cruised before but not with Disney, you’ll notices a few differences. First is the price. I won’t lie—a Disney cruise is expensive. For the same price, you could take three cruises on some other lines. But for anyone with kids, a Disney cruise may be the best choice. On board are three different clubs for kids—one for three to seven year-olds, one for eight to twelve, and one for teens. And by club, I don’t mean a place where they can have a juice and dance to Mickey Mouse Club hits for a couple of hours—I mean a place where they can actually hang out for about fifteen hours each day with a full team of trained counselors. My wife and I never left our daughter there all day long, but she would have stayed there if we let her—they make it that much fun. There are games, activities, parties with Disney princesses and other characters, “lab” experiments with Stitch, movies with Goofy, and tons of other stuff. They even take the kids to meals and outside on deck for fresh air and exercise. Another great feature of the Disney cruises is that the characters are so much more accessible than they are in the parks. One night on this recent cruise, we ran into Alice (from Wonderland) and Wendy (from Peter Pan) in the hallway and the lot of us stood chatting and taking pictures for a few minutes.

Walking to the Beach on Castaway Cay

With all the time that kids want to spend in their clubs, the adults must be bored, right? Wrong. There’s a full-service spa and health club, an adults-only pool, an adults-only restaurant, a dance club, a sports bar, a piano bar, poolside bars, a coffee bar…and there’s also just going back to the cabin for some time without the kids.

Other amenities onboard include a family pool, a kids-only pool, three formal family restaurants, a buffet restaurant, and several quick-service food stops. For entertainment, there’s a first-run movie theater (we saw Bedtime Stories just days after it opened, and could have seen about a dozen other movies) and there’s a live theater where each cruise you can see several different shows produced by the same team as Broadway’s Lion King and Beauty and the Beast.  And all of this food and entertainment is free—well, free with the exuberant cost of the cruise itself. The only extras are spa services and alcohol.

Meeting Sleeping Beauty

From what Disney reports (I just know what I’m told) their cabins are a little larger than those on many other cruise ships. Each of them also has a split bathroom which can speed up the time it takes to shower and dress for dinner. Cabins range from inside rooms with no ocean view to the huge Walt Disney Suite—which I’ll probably never see in person.

I won’t go into writing about the ports that we visited other than to say that there are chickens on the street in Key West, there’s money in Grand Cayman, and there’s tequila in Cozumel. But there was one more stop and it’s the best of all. Like a few cruise lines, Disney owns its own island in the Bahamas. Disney’s is Castaway Cay and it’s always the final port of call on every cruise. For a full day, guests can hang out on the beach (where the ship’s crew become beachside waiters), try out lots of activities both in the water and on the land, eat at an island buffet with food served all afternoon, and shop at some of those ever-present Disney gift shops or at unique Bahamian shops that Disney doesn’t own. There’s also both a kids club and a teen club on the island for more of that alone adult time—which can be at one of several bars or at the adults-only part of the beach far, far away from the kids. (In emergencies—or just if the kids are having a bad day—parents are always reachable with pagers that Disney provides.)

There’s so much to see and do on a Disney cruise, that one week isn’t enough. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever been on a seven-day vacation where time flies as quickly as it does at sea with Disney. So are we going back? You bet we are. But I have to wait two years again. I think I’ll start counting down now.

Animal Kingdom Lodge at Walt Disney World

Despite being a New Englander, I hate winter. I hate snow. I hate cold. My personal list of great things to do in New England during the months of January and February is short—stay inside or get outta Dodge (Yeah, I know Dodge is out west, but you get the idea.)

This winter—for the third time in the past four years—my wife, daughter and I flew south to Florida for a week of winter. With snow coming every weekend and the average temperature around two degrees, we kind of prefer to be where people think an overnight low of 40 is the next ice age.

Lobby of the Animal Kingdom Lodge

My family and I are huge Disneyphiles and started our vacation at Disney’s Animal Kingdom Lodge at Walt Disney World. Like most of Disney’s deluxe resorts, the Animal Kingdom Lodge could be a vacation destination itself. It was built in 2001 as a companion resort to Disney’s Animal Kingdom Park.  The six-story building was modeled on African architecture with a semi-circular design, thatched and woven ceilings, and large support beams. Inside, the lobby is huge and includes rich African colors, real African artifacts, and a large mud fireplace with hand-carved chairs surrounding it. We arrived on Christmas night and also saw a four-story Christmas tree. Another great attraction in all of Disney’s luxury resorts is a kids’ seating area with kid-sized chairs and tables around a TV showing classic Disney cartoons—and each kids area is also specially designed to match the theme of the lodge.

Seating around the mud fireplace in the lobby

As beautiful as the building is, the real attraction is the 33-acre wildlife preserve that the lodge is built on. Just outside of the lobby, rock formations lead to savannas and thousands of indigenous African grasses, shrubs and trees. On the savannas, about three dozen different types of animals roam freely. You’ll see ones we all know—like zebras and giraffes. And there are some animals that are less common but that most people have heard of—like impalas, gazelles and wildebeests. But many of the animals are things you’ve never known about (at least I never did)—like Ankole cattle, blesboks, eland and kudu. There are birds too—like cranes, flamingoes, ostriches and storks. Notably absent is the king of the beasts—the lion—for the obvious reason I suppose that it might eat the rest of the population of the savanna. That and there might be some complaints. (Look, kids! Simba is eating Timon and Pumba.)

Giraffes

One of the coolest features of the Animal Kingdom Lodge is that you don’t even have to go outside to see the animals. There are windowed hallways in the lodge that provide views, but there are also balconies in some rooms that look right over the savannas. Before we got there, I was kind of afraid of a giraffe or something sticking its head into our room and eating me during the night. (Closed windows and the fact that an animal is a plant-eater don’t play into my freakish imagination.) In reality, the animals can’t get that close anyway and probably wouldn’t want to. They do get close enough for some fantastic photos though.

Ankole cattle

Aside from animal-watching, there are a few other things to do at the lodge. Themed-activities for kids are scheduled throughout the day. Restaurants and lounges include the African-themed Jiko with a wood burning stove, the African buffet Boma, and Victoria Falls lounge. There’s also a quick-service restaurant with a mix of African-themed choices and the usual burgers, pizza and chicken nuggets on a Mickey plate for the kids. There’s a small health and fitness center, but I didn’t use it (hey, I was on vacation) and an arcade and child care center.

Zebras

The hotel pool, I thought, was kind of small and boring for a luxury Disney resort, but I hear they’re adding another one plus another restaurant when they build Disney Vacation Club villas there. The distance is also a bit far to Disney parks other than Animal Kingdom, but the free transportation for staying at a Disney resort is a bonus. I won’t even attempt to list rates for staying at Animal Kingdom Lodge since Disney bases rates on charts and schedules that even Einstein might take a while to figure out.

Overall I thought Animal Kingdom Lodge was a pretty cool resort. I’d go back, but there are so many other great choices at Disney World that it might be a while before we stay at this one again. Still, we missed a lot of things to do at this resort because we only stayed two nights. Coming up next: where we went on day three of our winter vacation.