Universal vs Disney

Universal vs Disney
I wanted to do a brief comparison between the Disney and Universal Parks.  Both were really enjoyable but each gave a completely different experience.

Universal felt a little more of a grown-up park than Disney, but the kids still found plenty to do.  Universal had more serious thrill rides (they have 2 roller-coasters listed as world class coasters.)

While Universal had character experiences, I felt that Disney felt more magical with their character encounters.

Overall I felt that Universal had some of the better rides (for an adult) but I felt that the Disney experience felt better. Universal felt like a theme-park (albeit a good one), while Disney felt a lot more like an experience (I will concede that we did stay at a Disney resort and do the Disney transport buses etc but I don't feel that would change my views).

Kristine found that Universal was a bit cooler to walk around - there were less large expanses of concrete and more greenery.  However the crowds (particularly around the Harry Potter areas) were worse and in many cases made it impossible to really enjoy the features (like the spell casting).  The big rides often had much longer wait times at Universal and with no free fast-pass (the fast-pass cost about US$80 per person per day) it meant that if you wanted to ride a popular ride there was a long wait that there was no way to avoid, often outside in the heat (they did have misting fans however)

Universal also provided free lockers for storing gear for rides, which meant that no-one had to miss out or risk taking the bags on the rides or leaving them in an accessible area.  The lockers could be rented for a longer time, but a free period was given that varied with the predicted wait time of the ride to ensure that you could use it for the ride.

The characters at Universal were out for shorter time periods - we found that we consistently caught the character experiences just as they were closing and hence missed out. This may have just been bad luck, but in Disney the character experiences were much more accessible.

Universal had a lot of really cool 3D moving car rides, where the movie interacted with the car and pushed it back or spun it etc, and they felt really immersive.

Universal definitely scored points by having a drink cup with free refills from around the park - this made it so we didn't need to bring the water bottles.  As well as softdrink we could get cold (filtered) water, powerade or even just a cup of ice.  Disney had refillable cups but they were only able to be used at the resorts.  In the parks each drink had to be purchased separately and the water tasted horrible (very strong sulphur taste) so we ended up carrying self-filtering water bottles.

So overall I felt Universal had better rides but Disney felt more like a magic experience.