How Much Does a Trip to Universal Orlando Cost? [2024]

In this post we answer an important question for your trip to Universal Orlando: How much does a trip to Universal Orlando cost? I’m going to start with what I’ll call the “Baseline Universal Vacation.” That’s the vacation I would go ahead and tell a first-timer to book without knowing anything about how the finances look. Then I’ll go ahead and talk about ways to increase and decrease your budget to fit your situation.

2024 Universal Trip Cost Summary

In this post we cover three types of trips. The “baseline” trip is the trip I’d tell someone to take without knowing anything about their budgetary constraints. The “budget” trip assumes a family wants to save a reasonable amount. The “expensive” trip assumes the family is willing to spend a bit more for something like a “once in a lifetime” visit.

You really should read the full analysis below to understand these figures. But they include flights, hotel, tickets, transportation to/from MCO, and dining. Here’s how they break down for families of different sizes:

Family of Three

Budget Trip — $3,145
Baseline Trip — $3,850
Expensive Trip — $6,718

Family of Four

Budget Trip — $3,959
Baseline Trip — $4,797
Expensive Trip — $7,805

Family of Five

Budget Trip — $4,966
Baseline Trip — $5,946
Expensive Trip — $8,903

Baseline Universal Orlando Trip

My “baseline” family is going to be a family of four—two adults, one 12-year-old, one 8-year-old. I’ll give summary numbers for other family sizes, but I’m not going to spend a ton of time on every possible familial composition.

First, we pick our dates. I went with June 7 to June 11. It’s early enough in summer to avoid punishing heat, but many kids will already be out of school. This includes a weekend, to save the parents days of PTO. It’s also four nights, which will include three full days in the theme parks. Of course, you’ll need at least one more day once Epic Universe opens in 2025.

Next up, flights. Obviously you’ll see a lot of variance in flight prices. I’m flying out of New York and use that to estimate, and there are round-trip flights for $270 per person. That’s not on the low end of prices I’ve seen, but I assume you’ll need some baggage (costs vary by airline), so we’ll treat $1,080 for four round trip flights as a fine estimate.

You’ll need to cover the cost of getting to and from Orlando International Airport. We have a post on getting between MCO and Disney World that includes some options that would work for Universal as well. We’ll estimate the cost at $130 round trip.

Onto hotels. The Universal Orlando hotels come in four tiers—value, prime value, preferred, and premier. All have Early Admission—the most important perk—but only the premier hotels include complimentary Express Pass (Universal’s ‘skip the line’ system). We’re going to pick a “Prime Value” hotels—Universal’s Cabana Bay Resort—for this stay.

One thing I want to emphasize is that you need to look at hotel prices and Express Pass pricing carefully. Depending on your family size and stay length, you may very well find it’s cheaper to stay at a Premier hotel that includes Express Pass than to pay to add it for even just a single day. Conversely, you might find that paying for multiple nights at a Premier hotel isn’t worth it if you really only need Express Pass for one day of your visit. I’ll put some numbers to this below.

The price for our chosen hotel comes to $889 ($222 per night). This is part of an ongoing 20% off deal, but I picked my dates to be convenient, not to coincide with any specific deal, so that’s the pricing I’m using for this post.

Now, park tickets. We’re going to go with three days of park-to-park tickets. We consider park-to-park a must have at Universal Orlando because it’s the only way to ride the Hogwarts Express. Over three days, you should have little trouble seeing almost everything at the resort. Do one day at Universal Studios, then one day at Islands of Adventure, then a split day covering your favorites or anything you missed. The total for the tickets on Undercover Tourist comes to $1477.

If you book a package directly through Universal you may get some sort of comparable, or even better, pricing, but this will vary by date and offer availability. For example, Universal has an ongoing package deal that would require at least four-day tickets with this four-night stay. However, the pricing comes out to $2,379, or just $13 more than the booking I’ve outlined. You don’t need a full fourth day in the parks, but if you have an early flight in or a late flight out, paying just $13 more for some time in the parks is a no-brainer.

Let’s talk about Express Pass, Universal’s skip-the-line program. Getting the lower tier Express Pass (only one use per ride) for four family members on June 10 comes to a whopping $886.

I mentioned earlier that the Premier hotels include Universal Express Pass. Upgrading to the least expensive of those would cost $493 per night, meaning that if you were able to do a split stay (staying some portion of your visit at one hotel and some at the other), an upgrade to one of those hotels for part of your stay might make sense.

For the purpose of this post, we’re going to skip Express Pass. Three days at the resort should be enough to cover everything you want with minimal wait.

Finally, food and drink. Universal’s food and beverage prices are comparable to Disney World, so I’m going to go ahead and just use the same calculations I used in that post, just removing one day. This gives a total cost of $1,221. If that seems high for a “three day trip” it’s because it includes all arrival and departure day meals, too, so it’s actually five days worth of food for four people, or about $60 per person per day. But travel days require food, too.

This comes out to a total of $4,797. Roughly speaking, that could cover your entire trip cost, minus getting to and from your home airport. Additionally, perhaps most importantly for some families—this budget has no money for souvenirs.

If you were a family of three (we’ll subtract the older child), you’d be looking at $3,850. For a family of five (adding a younger child), you’d have to get a larger room, and your total cost would go up to $5,946.

Other Possible Costs

While this cost includes all the essentials of a Universal Orlando vacation, it doesn’t include much else. If you’re going to have a car, there’s parking to pay for. Rental cars also obviously come at a cost.

If you plan to do some shopping, be it merchandise from the parks or just vacation shopping at CityWalk, you’ll need some spending money. The list goes on, and we’ll talk about some more items later.

Baseline Trip Summary Of Costs

4 Nights Cabana Bay — $889
3 Day Park to Park Tickets — $1477
MCO-Universal Transportation — $130
Flights — $1080
Dining — $1221
Total Base Trip — $4,797

BEFORE WE GO ON…

Just as the baseline trip was a starting point, so too are the expensive and budget trips. For example, I try hard not to pay full price for a multi-night stay at a Premier hotel. I’ve visited some of them for multiple nights, but I try to only ever book them with some sort of discount, be it from Universal or elsewhere. (And to be clear, these are publicly available discounts, I’ve never taken anything from Universal that wasn’t available to the public.)

Relatedly, budget travel is a real rabbit hole. I’ll explain where I draw the lines and why, but you could push it. Do you want to find a room for $100 per night? $75? $50?! Dig deep enough and it probably exists, but it might not be somewhere you want to be (among other things, you always have to consider transit costs to the parks).

Budget Universal Orlando Trip

Above I outlined the trip I’d tell someone to take to Universal if I didn’t know anything about their financial goals. But if they said “I’d like to do it a little cheaper than average”, here are some of the compromises I’d make.

First, we’ll cut down to 3 nights and 2 days in the parks. You still need park-to-park tickets to ride the Hogwarts Express, but on a short trip they’re even more important because you might miss out on a highlight on day one and need to fit it into day two. I think two days at the Universal Orlando theme parks is enough to have a complete experience. You probably won’t get on every ride, but with good planning you won’t feel like you’re missing out.

I’m going to use similar dates to the ones I gave above. People traveling on budgets still have scheduling constraints. Switching hotels to the slightly cheaper Universal's Endless Summer Resort - Dockside Inn and Suites and switching dates to June 7 to June 10 brings hotel costs down to $614 ($275 in savings).

Ticket costs for our family of four drop to $1410 ($67 in savings) when we drop to just two days of tickets. Immediately, you might see that even a budget-conscious family might want the extra day of tickets if they fly in early or out late. The bulk of ticket costs are in the first two days, with subsequent days costing less and less.

With a shorter trip and some more mindful spending on meals, I assume our family of four can get their food costs down to $855 ($366 savings), that’s just over $53 per person per day for the full four-day (depart, park day, park day, return) trip.

As for flights and airport transportation, I assume with some thriftiness you can save about $25 per person on flights and $30 on your transportation to/from the Orlando Airport. This brings the flight costs down to $980 ($100 savings) and transportation costs down to $100 ($30 savings).

Budget Trip (3 Nights / 2 Days) Summary Of Costs

Again, there’s a lot of range in how budget your trip might get, but here’s one example, with the change from the “baseline”:

3 Nights Endless Summer — $614 (-$275)
2 Day Park to Park Tickets — $1410 (-$67)
MCO-UOR Transportation — $100 (-$30)
Flights — $980 (-$100)
Dining — $855 (-$366)
Total Budget Trip — $3959 (-$838)

For a family of three, a similar trip costs $3145, and for a family of five $4966.

Expensive Universal Orlando Trip

This section is the trickiest. Prices can really only go so low for something to still qualify as a trip to Universal Orlando (as opposed to, you know, driving by it and taking a picture of the sign). On the other side, though, you can absolutely spend as much as you want at Universal Orlando. Like any good business, they’ll keep taking money as long as you’ll keep giving it to them.

But let’s be reasonable. Let’s say someone wanted to treat their teenager to Universal for an “awesome” graduation gift and budget wasn’t an issue. Here’s how I’d approach this.

First, we’re going to make this a longer trip, with four full days and five nights (June 7 to 12). This allows the addition of something that has somehow escaped this post so far—Volcano Bay, the water park (or “water theme park”) at Universal Orlando Resort.

Universal of course wants Volcano Bay to be included as part of the “baseline” trip that anyone would be advised to take…but in my mind at least that’s just not how these trips work. Water parks are sui generis. They work really well for some families and not at all well for others. But if you’re on an “awesome” trip to Universal Orlando, sure, set a day aside in the middle for the water park. Er, “water theme park.”

Our tickets for this setup (4-day, park-to-park, 2 parks plus water park) come to $1794 ($317 more than baseline).

Second, we’re going to upgrade to a Premier hotel. We’ll go with Hard Rock Hotel, which is the least expensive Premier hotel for our dates. The total for the five nights comes to $3336 ($2447 more than baseline). (I mean…yikes…but the good news is that room fits 5 people so at least our family of five won’t have to spend even more…).

Flights and airport transportation costs won’t change from the baseline. I’ll estimate dining costs at 20% more to account for the additional day, but Universal doesn’t offer a ton of expensive, table service dining experiences that you’d want to spend much more on. Dining costs go up to $1465 ($244 more than baseline).

Finally, I want to mention other add-ons. Universal isn’t packed with ticketed add-ons in the same way that Disney World is. The biggest event is Halloween Horror Nights, which costs around $100 per person.

Before we get to the summary, I don’t want to bury the lede any further. The expensive trip comes out to $7805, or $3008 more than the baseline trip. But $2447 of that $3008 is just the increase in hotel costs. So adding days and adding the water park—these aren’t huge costs.

The Premier hotels are nice, but for “just” $886 you can get yourself a day of Express Pass, the biggest perk of the Premier hotels. That’s not the same as 4 days of Express Pass and a nicer hotel, but if we’re looking at all at price here, you’re going to be hard-pressed to justify five nights in a Premier hotel.

Expensive Trip (5 Nights / 4 Days) Summary Of Costs

Again, there’s a lot of range in how expsneive your trip might get, but here’s one example, with the change from the “baseline”:

5 Nights Hard Rock — $3336 (+$2447)
4 Day Park to Park + Water Park Tickets — $1794 (+$317)
MCO-UOR Transportation — $130
Flights — $1080
Dining — $1465 (+$244)
Total Expensive Trip — $7805 (+$3008)

For a family of three, a similar trip costs $6718, and for a family of five $8903.

Conclusions

Universal Orlando trips tend to cost in the range of $3000 to $9000. Our baseline cost of $4,797 for a family of four represents a pretty good trip, and the additional hotel costs that bring you into the higher ranges might not be worth it. On the budget end, even a family of three is only going to get close to $3000.

All Your Other Universal Orlando Planning Questions Answered

Don't be overwhelmed by Universal Orlando planning! Take a second to check out our most important content!

Just starting out? Start with our Universal Orlando Resort planning guide! If you’re considering a Universal hotel, read our Review of Universal’s Aventura Hotel!

You’ll want to know what rides the parks offer, so we’ve got a Universal Studios Florida Rides Guide and a Universal’s Islands of Adventure Rides Guide. And to know how to get on them without the long waits, read all about Express Pass at Universal Orlando Resort.

If you’d like an idea of how to plan a day at these parks, we can help there, too. Our One Day Universal Studios Florida Itinerary covers a full day at the original park, and our Universal’s Islands of Adventure One Day Plan covers that park.

Early risers always have the best theme parks days (well, we think so). Read about Early Park Admission at Universal Orlando to learn how to get an extra hour in the parks. And read about rope drop at Islands of Adventure, including getting on the brand new Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure.

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