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.

Epic Universe Update

Universal Orlando Resort will open a third theme park, Universal Epic Universe, on May 22, 2025. This post has been updated to assume you will visit Epic Universe as part of your trip.

Universal Trip Cost Summary [With Epic Universe]

If you want your one-liner, a trip to Universal for a family of four costs about $6,114 once Epic Universe debuts. But c’mon, you know there’s so much more to be said on this topic…

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 a chart, following by the specific figures:

Here’s how they break down for families of different sizes:

Family of Three

Budget Trip — $3,162
Baseline Trip — $4,955
Expensive Trip — $8,343

Family of Four

Budget Trip — $4,016
Baseline Trip — $6,114
Expensive Trip — $9,767

Family of Five

Budget Trip — $5,170
Baseline Trip — $7,704
Expensive Trip — $11,191

I’m going to start by outlining my “baseline” trip. After that, I’m going to cover five spending categories—flights, hotel, tickets, transportation, and dining—in more depth, giving estimated amounts for a lower-cost “budget” trip and a higher-cost “expensive” trip alongside the “baseline” analysis.

Overview of My “Baseline” Universal Orlando Trip

My “baseline” family is going to be a family of four—two adults and two children. I’ll give summary numbers for families of three or five people, too. Here’s a quick look at this trip, with more analysis on some topics in the later sections.

First, we pick our dates. I went with June 6 to June 10. 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 three theme parks. If you’re looking to put together a short, weekend trip, we’ve got a post on that too.

Then, hotel. The Universal Orlando hotels come in three tiers—Signature, Prime Value, and Value. All have Early Admission—the most important perk—but only select Signature hotels include complimentary Express Pass (Universal’s ‘skip the line’ system).

We’re going to pick a “Value” hotel—Universal’s Cabana Bay Beach Resort—for this stay. It comes out to $1,338 for four nights.

Now, park tickets. The ticket situation at Universal Orlando can look pretty complicated, but it’s easy to home in on a good baseline. You’ll want one day for Epic Universe. You’ll want two days for the other two parks. You’ll need park-to-park privileges for those two parks so you can ride the Hogwarts Express. This means your ticket will be 2-day 2-park park-to-park plus one day Epic Universe, which comes to $1,970 for four people.

Next up, flights and transportation. Flight prices are going to vary greatly by origin, airline, timing, and baggage requirements. On the plus side, MCO is regularly one of the least expensive airports in the country to fly through. I’m going with $284 per person as the baseline, or $1,136 for four roundtrip flights.

You’ll need to cover the cost of transportation 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 $120 round trip.

Finally, food and drink. I discuss in more detail below how I come out to a food and drink budget of about $78 per person per day as the baseline. For five full days (two travel days, three park days), the total comes to $1,550.

Baseline Trip Summary Of Costs

Putting this all together, you get:

4 Nights at Cabana Bay - $1,338
3-Day Park Tickets - $1,970
Flights - $1,136
Transportation - $120
Dining - $1,550
Total - $6,114

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 a child), you’d be looking at $4,955. For a family of five (adding a child), you’d have to get a larger room, and your total cost would go up to $7,704.

Okay, so that’s my “baseline.” If I didn’t know anything about your family of three to five people and you asked me to throw together a plan and budget for you, that’s what it would look like. But some people want to spend a little (or a lot) less, and some are willing to spend a bit more. In the sections that follow, I’ll go topic-by-topic and explain how spending more or less might work out, providing some extra context for the “baseline” along the way.

Importantly, the budget and expensive trips are not the cheapest or most expensive possible options—they’re meant to have some reasonable boundaries. For some specific items, it’s not too helpful to do much more than just say “people on a budget will find a way to spend X% less, people on an expensive trip will spend X% more.” That’s unsatisfying, but it’s left as an exercise to the reader if they want to dive more deeply into what their specific budget will look like.

Trip Timing and Length

One of the biggest changes you can make to your trip when it comes to cost is to change the length and dates. For the baseline trip, I chose three full days (four nights) in June. This works out to one park per day, a fine approach for any visit.

If you’re planning a more expensive trip, you might add a day, but early June is as good a time to visit as any. The longer trip would allow for either an extra park day or a day at Volcano Bay. You could also spend the day at another nearby theme park, but note that the cost of one-day tickets to a non-Universal park is going to be greater than adding a fourth day to your Universal tickets. For this post, the expensive trip will include four full days, enough for one day at each of the three theme parks and one day at Volcano Bay.

If you’re on a budget, you can shorten your trip, change your dates, or both. For this post, we’ll do both, switching to August dates and only two full days. This will be enough to spend one full day at the two older parks and one day at Epic Universe. August dates are less expensive than June because August tends to be hotter and wetter.

As a quick aside, I almost feel like this pushes the “budget” concept too far. For what Universal Orlando now offers, I personally wouldn’t spend less than 2 full days plus a substantial part of a third (i.e. 3 days worth of tickets) there. But travel on a budget requires compromises, and I think an fun-filled weekend at Universal Orlando will be a great trip.

We’ll see how these changes impact prices in the two next sections—hotels and tickets.

Hotel Selection

If you’re not sure about spending for a Universal hotel, read more about the perks they offer here. If you want to read more about the hotels generally, we have a Guide to the Hotels of Universal Orlando Resort.

For the baseline trip, we opted for Cabana Bay Beach Resort, a “value” hotel at Universal Orlando Resort. That came out to $1,338 or $335 per night for four nights. Personally, that’s a little on the higher end of what I’d expect to pay for Cabana Bay Beach Resort, but that’s how it goes sometimes. While Cabana Bay Beach Resort definitely has value vibes, it is a good hotel for a Universal trip.

You can save around $50 per night in June switching to Universal Endless Summer Resort - Dockside Inn and Suites, but I don’t think that swap makes sense. A family of five will have to spend a little more for a suite. The baseline hotel stay costs:

Family of 3 - $1,338
Family of 4 - $1,338
Family of 5 - $1,738

Generally, I don’t think it’s worth it to opt for a non-Universal hotel, even if you’re planning a budget trip. But switching to Universal Endless Summer Resort - Dockside Inn and Suites, shortening your trip to three nights, and changing dates to August brings hotel costs down to $492. A family of five—who need a bigger room—will see similar savings, from $1,738 to $763. So, families on a budget will spend:

Family of 3 - $492
Family of 4 - $492
Family of 5 - $763

On the flip side, I don’t think an expensive trip necessarily needs to be at the most expensive hotel at the resort. Loews Royal Pacific Resort is a good hotel with Express Pass Unlimited (for the older two parks), and usually it isn’t as expensive at Hard Rock Hotel and Loews Portofino Bay. For the five-night trip, the expensive hotel stay will cost $3,801 or $760 per night. These rooms can actually fit five people, so the family of five won’t need to opt for a suite. The family on the expensive trip will spend $3,801 on their hotel, regardless of family size.

Tickets

While Universal has a wide, fairly quirky lineup of ticket options, my advice is to keep it simple.

First of all, you need park-to-park (a.k.a. park hopper). You cannot ride the Hogwarts Express without park-to-park privileges. If it weren’t for the Hogwarts Express, we’d have nice little discussion here about pros and cons. But the Hogwarts Express is pro enough to justify the cost of the park-to-park privileges.

Second, as of this update Epic Universe is always sold as its own day. For example, you can’t buy “3-day park to park” tickets covering all three parks. You’d instead buy a ticket with 2 days of park to park at NOT Epic Universe and one day at ONLY Epic Universe, for three total days. (Note: This very well may change before my next major update to the post.)

Third, you don’t need access to Volcano Bay unless you’re dedicating a day to it. Reasonable minds could disagree (as with most everything in this post), but I don’t recommend Volcano Bay until you have four full days. The only caveat I’d add is that since guests at Loews Royal Pacific Resort get Express Pass Unlimited at the older two theme parks, these guests may find themselves with some extra time even on a 3-day trip.

Finally, buy tickets from Undercover Tourist or another specialist in discount theme park tickets.

Putting these points together, our baseline trip will include 2 days of park-to-park at the older two theme parks and one day at Epic Universe:

Family of 3 - $1,482
Family of 4 - $1,970
Family of 5 - $2,458

If you’re on a budget doing the shorter trip, you’ll only need 1 day of park-to-park, plus one day at Epic Universe:

Family of 3 - $1,059
Family of 4 - $1,406
Family of 5 - $1,752

The more expensive trip makes some major changes. That trip adds a day AND adds park-to-park access to Volcano Bay:

Family of 3 - $1,766
Family of 4 - $2,348
Family of 5 - $2,930

Notably, guests on an expensive trip won’t need to consider Express Pass because it’s included with their hotel—at the two older theme parks, at least. If they wanted to add Express Pass to their day at Epic Universe, it would cost around $250 per person.

Food and Drink

We’re admittedly not super into food at this site. Generally, on theme park trips, we eat a lot of quick service food in parks. We’re also not big drinkers (I do consider a beer at Moe’s to be a staple of my Universal visits, though). Your food budget is going to vary greatly depending on whether you eat 2 or 3 meals a day, whether they’re table service or quick service, how much your kids eat, and how much you snack and drink in between.

For the baseline trip, I’m going to budget for five full days of food—that’s two travel days plus three full days at the parks. I’ll assume 2.5 meals per person, per day, and I’ll assume you spend about $25 per meal—a reasonable estimate for a quick service meal at Universal Orlando Resort. I’ll add $15 per person, per day for snacks etc. That comes out to about $78 per person, per day, or for the whole trip:

Family of 3 - $1,163
Family of 4 - $1,550
Family of 5 - $1,938

The family on a budget has one fewer day, and I’ll assume they can also save about 20% through thriftiness, spending about $62 per person per day. This brings us to:

Family of 3 - $744
Family of 4 - $992
Family of 5 - $1,240

For what it’s worth, you absolutely can spend a lot less than this on food. When we take trips to national parks, we often live on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, plus some bulk snacks, for several days at a time. This is definitely one of those areas where “budget trip” does not mean “cheapest trip possible.”

The more expensive trip could go much, much higher on food and beverage, but we’re going to try and keep it somewhat reasonable. They’ve got one extra day, and I’ll assume they spend 20% more (total $93 per person per day):

Family of 3 - $1,674
Family of 4 - $2,232
Family of 5 - $2,790

Flights & Transportation

I’m grouping flights and transportation (to/from the airport) together because if you don’t need one you probably won’t need the other. If you’re close enough to drive, this is where you’ll find potential savings.

Since flight prices vary so much, you’ll need to check specific flight prices for your trip, but I always want this post to be as complete as possible. My current estimate for a roundtrip flight to MCO is $284 per person. Based on what I’m seeing at this very moment, that’s a little high, but I’m going to stick with it as a baseline:

Family of 3 - $852
Family of 4 - $1,136
Family of 5 - $1,420

A family on a budget might be thrifty enough to save $25 per person:

Family of 3 - $777
Family of 4 - $1,036
Family of 5 - $1,295

Even a family planning an expensive trip probably won’t spring for domestic premium cabins, they’ll spend the same as the baseline:

Family of 3 - $852
Family of 4 - $1,136
Family of 5 - $1,420

And you’ll need to get from MCO to your hotel and back (that’s a Disney post with some relevant info for Universal trips). Generally, I’m going to recommend Uber (same). A family of five may wind up spending more to fit the extra person, but the smaller families might opt for bigger vehicles if they have a lot of luggage, too. Based on the prices I’m seeing in the Uber app right now, here are my baseline estimates for this roundtrip:

Family of 3 - $120
Family of 4 - $120
Family of 5 - $150

A family on a budget might be thrifty enough to save $30 on this trip:

Family of 3 - $90
Family of 4 - $90
Family of 5 - $120

A family that’s willing to spend a bit more might just book a private SUV in advance:

Family of 3 - $250
Family of 4 - $250
Family of 5 - $250

That wraps up the topic-by-topic breakdown. If the baseline trip made sense to you, the summary of those costs is back at the top of this post. I’m going to close with summaries of the costs of the budget and expensive trips.

Budget Universal Trip Summary of Costs

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

3 August Nights at Endless Summer - $492 (-$846)
2-Day Park Tickets - $1,406 (-$564)
Flights - $1,036 (-$100)
Transportation - $90 (-$30)
Dining - $992 (-$558)
Total - $4,016 (-$2098)

For a family of three, a similar trip costs $3,162 (-$1,793), and for a family of five $5,170 (-$2,534).

Expensive Universal Trip Summary of Costs

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

5 Nights at Loews Royal Pacific - $3,801 (+$2,463)
4-Day Park Tickets - $2,348 (+$378)
Flights - $1,136 (+$0)
Transportation - $250 (+$130)
Dining - $2,232 (+$682)
Total - $9,767 (+$3,653)

For a family of three, a similar trip costs $8,343 (+$3,388), and for a family of five $11,191 ($3,487).

Conclusions

Our baseline Universal Orlando trip for a family of four costs around $6000, or just under $400 per person per night. A family on a budget can reasonably shave about $2000 of that cost, bringing them to just under $350 per person per night on a shorter trip. A family willing to spend more might be prepared to add over $3000 to those costs, mostly in the form of a longer stay at a more expensive hotel, bringing costs closer to $500 per person per night.

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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