Choosing where you want to stay at Universal Orlando can be tricky!
There is so much to consider when finding the best hotel to match your needs. Universal Orlando offers four hotel tiers: Value, Prime Value, Preferred, and Premier. Each level has different benefits when staying at them, but one hotel tier offers a BIG benefit!
If you choose to stay in a Value, Prime Value, or Preferred hotel, you can participate in Early Park Admission, which allows you to enjoy access to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter and Universal Volcano Bay up to one hour before the theme park opens. If you choose to stay at a Premier hotel, you also get this benefit and one more significant benefit that the other tiers do not get.
By staying at a Premier hotel, you and your party on your hotel reservation all get free Universal Express Unlimited. This allows you to skip the regular lines for popular attractions at both Universal Studios Florida and Universal Islands of Adventure!
While this perk is great, do you really save money by staying at a more expensive hotel? Is buying Universal Express Unlimited cheaper than staying at a Value hotel? Or is staying at a Premier hotel that includes Universal Express Unlimited cheaper? We did the math for you, so you don’t have to!
We compared Universal’s Endless Summer Resort Dockside Inn and Suites, a Value hotel, with Loews Portofino Bay Hotel, a Premier hotel. The search was for four adults for one night on a weekend in April. Here is the breakdown.
One night at Universal’s Endless Summer Resort Dockside Inn and Suites on a weekend in April will cost $292 (pre-tax). This room is a standard room for four with two queen beds. For one person to add Universal Express Unlimited for both parks to their park ticket, it would cost an additional $125. The total for all four adults to have Universal Express Unlimited for one day is $500, and when you add in the hotel, the grand total comes out to $792.
Now let’s take a look at Loews Portofino Bay Hotel, a Premier hotel. For one night on the same weekend in April for four adults, a Garden-View two-queen bedroom will cost $1,057 (pre tax) for the night. We do not need to add the cost of Universal Express Unlimited as it is included in the hotel cost.Â
When comparing the two hotels, the cost for the night is $295 less when factoring in the additional cost for four adults to purchase Universal Express Unlimited. This means that it is cheaper to stay at a Value hotel and purchase Universal Express Unlimited separately!
If you want to be the most cost-effective, we recommend going this route and staying in a Value hotel and purchasing Universal Express Unlimited separately on the days that you need it.Â
Of course, the easiest way to determine the best hotel for your Universal location is … to let someone else do it! Our friends over at Mouse Fan Travel have 20 years of experience booking Universal vacations — and their services don’t cost you a penny!
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You neglected to consider that you get express pass both the check-in and check-out day. This makes staying at a Premier hotel the better value. Also, express pas pricing can get up to $350 per day making the Premier an even better value.
Couple of things:
1) Isn’t Portofino the most expensive of the deluxe hotels?
2) When you use Universal Express from one of the Premier resorts, isn’t it good from check-in day to check-out day? In other words, if you have one night on a random Saturday in April, you can use the Universal Express all day on both Saturday and Sunday, not just one day.