Ride Variety

Image: happyskrappy, Flickr (license)

One of the things that separates a park like Universal’s Islands of Adventures from, say, Cedar Point is the variety of rides it offers guests to experience. Regional parks tend to have a few simple flat rides, but the main attractions are roller coasters and flight simulators. Theme parks, on the other hand, consider balance and experience far more.

This is crucially important when visiting a park for only a single day. If everything is basically the same in the park, or if there simply aren’t very many attractions to experience, you can get bored easily. If there’s more variety, it’s easier to spend your day exploring the whole property.

If you’re committed to park hopping, Disney obviously is unmatched in attraction variety. You can ride Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, see Festival of the Lion King, compete in Toy Story Mania, and experience Millennium Falcon: Smuggler’s Run all in a single day. 

If you only want to visit one park, the question is far more complicated.

Universal’s Islands of Adventure offers the single greatest variety of rides in Central Florida. You have thrilling dark rides like The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man and Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey. You have an intense roller coaster in The Incredible Hulk and a more family-friendly one in Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure. Disney’s Magic Kingdom and Epcot are a close second and third.

Epcot, though, has it’s own unique consideration: It’s the most immune to rain. That park’s major attractions can all be experienced in inclement weather, and it features plenty of indoor and covered spaces to kill time in while waiting out an afternoon shower. 

Ultimately, Universal’s Islands of Adventure makes the most sense for variety unless you’re certain to expect a monsoon, in which case, you should visit Epcot.

FOMO Factor 

Image: stephenjrichardson, Flickr (license)

The worst part of visiting a theme park for only one day is the creeping realization that most people aren’t there with the same ticking clock as you. You can watch people boarding monorails back to their hotel or hanging out in CityWalk and feel quite a bit envious.

The FOMO Factor — that is, Fear of Missing Out — is a very real thing, and it absolutely cam impact how much you enjoy your trip. You’re there for such a brief period of time, constant reminders that you can’t see it all can feel like daggers in your toes.

Disney is the absolute worst for this. On-property guests all wear their MagicBands, but you likely are without one — a mark of shame that you must brandish. There are constant advertisements and reminders of the broader Walt Disney World at hand, places you don’t have a prayer of visiting in a single day. Want to do dinner at Be Our Guest? Well, California Grill will taunt you off in the distance. Want to spend 3 hours waiting to ride Flight of Passage? Enjoy the promos for Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge on every inch of the property.

Universal, though, is just small enough that it’s almost liberating. “Taking a trip to Disney World” is such a specific, loaded thing in peoples’ minds. If you go, and only spend one day there, people look at you like you're crazy. Universal, on the other hand, carries no such baggage. Its major attractions are relatively doable in a day, and while its hotels are gorgeous and amazing spaces unto themselves, they haven’t yet earned the cachet of Disney’s resorts.

Universal is small enough to be manageable — one of Walt Disney World’s older sister’s greatest virtues. No one leaves feeling like they could never see it all in a million lifetimes, wondering what wonders they missed out on. They leave contented in what they experienced, pleased that they got their money’s worth even if they might not necessarily need to rush back to see the rest.

All told, whether to visit Disney or Universal comes down to a lot of factors, and those factors are exacerbated when the trip shrinks down to a single day. But all things being equal, in such an abbreviated time frame, Universal just makes more sense.

Yes, a one-day ticket is slightly more, and yes, it might seem more crowded at times. But wouldn’t you rather eat an intentionally-composed single-bite amuse bouche than one bite of an amazing entree that you can’t have more of? Disney is great, but it truly needs time to be savored; Universal is great in both small and large doses.

That is, unless you’re a true Disney addict — in which case, what are you even reading this article for? You already have your next trip booked anyway.