Honeymoon at Universal Studios and/or Disney World?

Stay at a resort you get magic hours and free shuttling to the Disney parks obviously I didn't honeymoon there lol BUT I'm a pass holder so I go quite often

We're not honeymooning there (Trust me I tried) but I agree with @MrsSantamaria2015, stay on resort. They take care of you. And if they're offering free dining...take it.

Super jealous that you have a season pass @MrsSantamaria! My DH and I went to Disney for our HM. I think it was around $3500 for 6nights and 5 day park hopper passes. They had a promotion going on so we also got a free dining plan. Check out disneyworld.com to start planning. We stayed at a Deluxe hotel for our honeymoon, but normally we stay at one of the value resorts. I think it was around $2500 for a week (including dining plan) the last time we went. There are a lot of different options to choose from! If you are getting overwhelmed, call their customer service number. They've always been incredibly nice and helpful!

Rosie9615 I love my disney pass lol

@MrsSantamaria2015 - haha a "pass holder." I am very jelly at that. How much did it cost you to stay at a resort when you've went?

@Rosie9615 - Thank you for the information! I don't think we could afford to spend **** on the trip, though. So, our Florida Disney and/or Universal ideas might not be something we can do

Well we only stay weekends so like 400-500 lol.

If you stay at one of the value resorts, you'd spend probably $1500-$2000 for the both of you.

Disney is too big IMO to make the stay very enjoyable. . . if you want to go to a different hotel for dinner one night, you have to take a boat or a bus or the monorail. . . plus, it's expensive, you have to reserve *everything* months in advance (planning a Disney vacation is a religion for some people), and the parks are always much more crowded on the days when extra Magic hours are available, so those are the days you actually want to avoid (b/c you're better off with fewer crowds and not getting the extra hour or two).

I recommend staying at Universal-- their hotels are all walking distance to each other (though they also have shuttles and boats available for transportation), are much more affordable, and generally have fewer kids around. You can easily book a shuttle from any universal hotel to any Disney theme park, so getting to Disney won't be an issue. They also have the "City Walk" right there with restaurants, entertainment, mini golf, etc. Finally, you won't have to reserve a million years in advance just to eat!

We just got back from our second stay at the Royal Pacific at Universal, and we really love it. Everyone is super nice. If you're planning to go right after your wedding, that will be "peak" season, so crowds and prices will both be bad. If you wait another month (mid-September), you could end up saving a lot of money, and will have almost no wait in lines at Universal (though, Disney will still be a cluster-f). I think you could probably do 4 nights really comfortably with $2000 (for lodging, meals, other non-airfare expenses), but the parks are SOOO expensive, they can really add things up. My advice would be to do 1-day at Universal with Park Hopper (about $150 per person total), and 1-day at Disney with Park Hopper (a little more expensive than Universal)-- you could easily do two Disney parks in one day, as long as you plan in advance and make sure you know the hours and take full advantage (and there's free transportation between parks).

Staying at a resort is definitely worth it. Can you postpone the honeymoon a little and go in the off-season? You'll get much better rates. You can also save by not doing the parkhopper, staying mid-week, and bringing some of your own groceries (like having cereal and fruit in your room for breakfast).

We went there on our honeymoon 2 weeks ago. To be honest it was exhausting.

We started with 5 days at Disney. Spent one day at each park and used the park hopper and went to 2-3 park a day for the last 3 days. We stayed at the Port Orleans Riverside and it cost about $2600. We got a free dining plan. We ended up spending about an extra $800 in food that wasn't covered, souvenirs and various other things.

We went to the beach for 2 day to rest and then we went to Universal for 2 days. We stayed at the resort on site there, Royal Pacific. Really beautiful resort but a little pricey for my liking. The hotel was walking distance to the park and you get to go in an hour early as well as free fast passes. Now, we went in the slow season so we didn't even need fast passes, the park was nearly empty besides people at Harry Potter. Being able to walk to our hotel was really nice. We spent about $1000 on Universal for the hotel and the park passes, food was not included and it was expensive.

Overall it was cool but I think we went for too long and by day 6 I wanted to go home. I preferred Disney to Universal for most things. I really like the magic bands they give you. The main thing I didnt like at Disney was the long waits for the buses. It wasn't a huge problem but after being able to walk to the hotel at Universal I was over the buses. I do suggest staying at resorts for both places. There are nice perks. We barely spent anytime at our hotel at Disney so I would suggest just getting a cheap place to sleep. Most nights we were out till at least 10pm.

Let me know if you have any specific questions. I don't think you will be able to do it for ****, I guess it is possible if you stay off site and dont eat out much. My pricing did not include flights. I would recommend spending at least 4 days at Disney and wearing good shoes.

Sara-- a guest left our hotel with a microwave and a cooler-- I think they were saving on more than just breakfast

@ Barbara, when did you stay at the Royal Pacific, we just got back too!!

Kathryn-- We were there for our anniversary September 10th through the 17th.

To add to what Kathryn said re: pricing, the Royal Pacific is Universal's mid-range option. They recently opened up the "Cabana Bay" which is their more affordable option. It looked nice and has a lazy river, but since it's brand new, it is booking way in advance, so you'll definitely need to plan ahead.

I love Disney World and Universal. Tried to convince FH to consider that for a honeymoon, but we have been there a couple of times in the last few years so he doesn't want to repeat.

The following is regarding Disney:

If you stay off resort you can save a lot of money. That said, staying on resort and getting a meal plan turns Disney World into an all inclusive. Yes, restaurants book up early, but you still have lots of time. My mother and I went to Disney World right before Christmas 2 years ago. We booked everything in August and had no trouble getting reservations at all the restaurants we wanted. You can also take Disney transportation everywhere in the parks and attach your credit card to the park pass bracelet they give you so you don't need to worry about carrying money.

I would look around for deals. Check with a travel agent and different airlines. When my mother and I went we were able to get free dining. So our package included 1 snack (we used it for breakfast), one light meal (lunch) and one sit down meal (dinner) each every day for free. I have noticed that deal is often advertised in the late summer/fall.

My only caution is that Disney World is big and busy. When FH and I went for the first time we had a great time, but were literally exhausted by the end. My mother and I took things a bit slower, but it was still very busy. The resort hotels are beautiful and you could easily spend your time lounging there and really enjoy it, but most people don't go to Disney World to lounge at the hotel. If you do go and want to stay on resort, it is worth it to pay for one of the moderate resorts over the cheaper ones. I have stayed in both and both were great, but the cheaper ones were more crowded, had more kids, and did not have as much of a "resort feel" that you might want on a honeymoon. Although, all we did in our resort was collapse at the of busy days so I guess it doesn't really matter in the end.

As for Universal:

Harry Potter World is amazing! The rides are kind of crazier there. More traditional amusement park, I thought. We spent two days at Universal once. One day per park and that was plenty. We didn't stay at their hotel though. If you are looking for exciting rides and some extra days to just relax in Florida that might be the better bet.

Let me know if you have any questions!

Edited to add universal because I got too excited about Disney and forgot.

From my experience, if you want to visit both parks, you can find less expensive accommodations outside the park. For instance, I went at Christmas with my mother, sister, and niece and nephews one year. I found a resort outside of the park that was $76/day (plus resort fee/cleaning fee of $26/day) BUT it was basically a 3 bedroom apartment. Had 2 bathrooms, a full kitchen, dining room, living room, etc. I purchased tickets from AAA. One day tickets and 3 day tickets were discounted. We were only going 2 days, but the 3 day tickets were cheaper than 2, 1-day tickets so everyone had 1 day extra to spend whenever they wanted the rest of the year. But I live in FL and have previously lived in Orlando, so transportation or finding my way around wasn't an issue. It really depends on your budget. If you're looking at $4000 for a wedding, you could easily drop $2000 in just a couple days between flights, food, hotel, and park passes.

To Everyone: added a note in the OP that we don't mind waiting til the off season. We had already decided that if we couldn't afford it right after the wedding, we'd wait another month or two. So, no reason we can't do that just to save money!

@Barbara - thank you so much for the detailed information, OMG! I think I am leaning more towards universal anyway, because I feel like Disney World will be more fun with my future kids.

@Rachel - I think I might prefer Universal as well, but I've never been. But, like you said, Harry Potter!!! If we stayed for more than a couple days, we had imagined splitting the time between an amusement park and maybe just hitting up some of the beaches there. I don't think I could handle constant amusement park for a week!

@KB - I don't mind not staying on the resort, personally. I don't think it would bother me at all to not have something all inclusive. Also, is parking terrible there? We had actually planned to drive down (it's not that far from VA). Also, I imagine we want to split any time we spend there lounging AND checking out one of the parks. I appreciate the insight on how many kids might be there, because I might not like that! lol.

@Cheryl - Again, good to know about outside accomodations. I guess I had never planned to stay in the resort originally. That's really cool about the tickets through AAA! Also, since our wedding is likely going to end up at less than 3k, I'm not looking to spend 2000 on the honeymoon. Call me stingy, but I just can't justify it. So, it may not work out!

Thanks ladies!

As a heads up, there really aren't any beaches in Orlando-- you will need to drive a little over an hour to get to the closest beach (Cocoa Beach).

If you're a Harry Potter fan, another advantage of staying at Universal is that you get early admission to "Hogsmeade"-- both Harry Potter parks are the most busy places in Universal, so that extra hour REALLY makes a difference (and since Universal has fewer properties than Disney, there's not a huge rush of ppl going in all at once).

We drove to Orlando once when FH was working in Miami for a few months. We didn't find parking bad at all. We stayed off resort that time. You get directed to a spot in a large parking lot and then you can take a shuttle or boat into the park you want. When we stayed on resort we flew in, but noticed that there were lots of parking spaces at the hotels so that probably isn't a problem.

We just went to Universal in Feb and it was pretty cheap. We stayed at Cabana Bay which is a few minutes away from the park but there is a free shuttle to take you there. We also got the early admission tickets from staying there. I would recommend it!