Free Event · Cirencester · 14 October 2026
The Magic of Orlando
An evening of magic, prizes and treats — and the honest, practical Orlando planning advice that's genuinely hard to find online. Hosted by Travelnam in partnership with Ocean Florida.
- Wednesday 14 October
- 4:00pm – 6:00pm
- Hugh's Coffee Shop, Cirencester
- Free · Limited spaces
The evening
What you'll discover at our Orlando event
Two hours, a coffee shop on Castle Street, and the people who book Orlando for a living. No hard sell, no ticketed seminar — just the conversations that save families money and stop them making the expensive mistakes almost everyone makes on a first trip.
Ask the specialists anything
Travelnam's consultants and the team from Ocean Florida will be on hand for open Q&A — park ticket types, villa versus hotel, which airport to fly from, how far in advance to book. Bring the questions you can't get a straight answer to online.
The Orlando beyond the parks
Kennedy Space Center, the Everglades, working ranch stays, the Gulf beaches two hours west. Most first-time visitors never leave the resort corridor and come home having seen one version of Florida. We'll show you the rest.
Magic, prizes and treats
There's real magic on the bill, games through the evening, prize giveaways and refreshments on us. It's a genuinely enjoyable couple of hours whether you book a holiday at the end of it or not.
Bring your dates and your budget. The single most useful thing you can arrive with is a rough idea of when you'd travel and what you'd like to spend. With those two things we can give you a genuinely specific answer on the night rather than a general one.
Destination
Why Orlando is more than Disney World
Ask most people what's in Orlando and you'll get one answer. Disney World is the reason the city exists in its modern form, and for many families it is the trip. But it occupies a surprisingly small share of what Central Florida actually offers, and the holidays we plan that people talk about years later almost always include something outside the park gates.
Orlando sits roughly an hour from the Atlantic coast and two from the Gulf. That geography is the thing to exploit. A fortnight split between parks and coast is a fundamentally better holiday than a fortnight of parks — you come home rested rather than needing a second holiday to recover from the first.
Kennedy Space Center
Fifty miles east on the Space Coast, and one of the genuinely extraordinary places in the United States. A full day, and if a launch is scheduled during your trip it becomes the thing your children remember above every ride.
The Everglades
A different Florida entirely — airboats, alligators, and a landscape that feels prehistoric. Best reached as part of a wider itinerary rather than a long day trip from Orlando; we'll usually route it into a drive south.
Ranch and Old Florida stays
Working cattle ranches, horseback riding and small-town Florida within an hour or two of the resorts. It's the antidote to the parks, and the part of an itinerary parents tend to enjoy the most.
The Gulf Coast beaches
Clearwater, Siesta Key and Naples are a two-to-three hour drive west, with white sand and calm, warm water. Adding three or four nights on the Gulf at the end of a park holiday is the most common change we make to people's original plan.
Read more in our guide to luxury holidays to Florida, which covers Miami, the Florida Keys, Naples and the Gulf Coast alongside Orlando.
The big decision
Disney World vs Universal Orlando
This is the question we're asked more than any other, and the honest answer is that they are no longer really competing for the same holiday. Universal's position changed substantially when Epic Universe opened in 2025 and gave the resort a genuine third gate. A trip that used to be "Disney, with two days at Universal bolted on" now reasonably splits down the middle.
| Walt Disney World | Universal Orlando | |
|---|---|---|
| Parks | Four: Magic Kingdom, EPCOT, Hollywood Studios, Animal Kingdom, plus two water parks | Three: Epic Universe, Islands of Adventure, Universal Studios Florida, plus Volcano Bay |
| Best for | Younger children, first-timers, anyone who wants the classic Orlando holiday | Older children, teenagers and adults; thrill rides and film franchises |
| Scale | Vast — a self-contained resort roughly the size of a small city. Getting between parks takes real time | Compact. Two of the three parks are walkable from each other and from CityWalk |
| Skipping queues | Paid, per-day systems booked through the app; needs planning and adds up quickly | Express Pass, included free for guests at the three premier hotels — often the single best-value decision on a Universal trip |
| Days needed | Four to five to do it properly | Three to four now that Epic Universe needs a full day of its own |
| Planning burden | High. Dining and ride bookings open on fixed dates and the good ones go quickly | Moderate. Far less advance booking required |
For most families with children under about eight, Disney is still the centre of gravity. Once children hit ten or eleven, we increasingly build the trip around Universal and treat Disney as the add-on. If you can only pick one and the group spans both ends of that range, a fortnight that does both properly is usually worth the extra week.
Trip length
How many days do you need in Orlando?
Fourteen nights is the sweet spot, and we say that having watched a lot of families try to do it in less. The arithmetic is unforgiving: Disney's four parks want four to five days, Universal's three want three to four, and that's nine days gone before anyone has rested, swum, shopped, or driven anywhere. Add a rest day mid-trip — everyone needs one, and if you don't schedule it, day nine schedules it for you.
7 nights
Doable, but choose one resort — Disney or Universal, not both. Expect to feel rushed, and accept that jet lag will take the edge off the first two days. Better suited to a repeat visit than a first one.
10 nights
A good compromise. Enough for one resort in full plus two or three days at the other, or one resort plus a few nights on the coast. The most common length we book for couples and older families.
14 nights
The one we recommend. Both resorts at a sane pace, rest days built in, and room for the Space Coast or the Gulf at the end. The per-night cost also drops, because the flights are spread across more nights.
The jet lag point matters more than people expect. The flight from the UK is eight to nine hours against a five-hour time difference. Children in particular will be awake at 4am for the first two or three mornings. Plan something low-effort for day one — the pool, a supermarket run, an early dinner — rather than burning a park ticket on a day nobody enjoys.
Accommodation
Where should you stay in Orlando?
There are three realistic answers, and the right one depends almost entirely on your group size and whether you're prepared to drive. Nobody choice is better than the others — but choosing the wrong one for your group is the most expensive mistake available on an Orlando holiday.
A private villa
Three to six bedrooms, a private pool, a full kitchen and a games room, typically in the Kissimmee or Davenport communities twenty to thirty minutes from the parks. Unbeatable value once you're a family of five or more, and the kitchen alone saves a fortune on breakfasts.
The catch: you must hire a car, and there's no resort transport.
An on-site resort hotel
Staying inside Disney or Universal buys early park entry, free transport, and — at Universal's Portofino Bay, Hard Rock and Royal Pacific — a complimentary Express Pass for every guest, which can be worth more than the room premium itself.
The catch: costs meaningfully more per night, and rooms are small for five.
International Drive
The central hotel corridor, well placed between the two resorts, with restaurants and shops on the doorstep and a wide price range. A sensible middle option for couples and smaller families.
The catch: none of either resort's guest perks, and you'll still want a car.
Our default recommendation for a family of four or more doing both resorts is a villa for the bulk of the trip, with two or three nights on-site at Universal timed around the Express Pass. It's a slightly more complicated booking to assemble, which is precisely why it's worth having someone assemble it for you.
Timing
When is the best time to visit Orlando?
Late April into May, and September into early October. Those two windows give you the best combination of warm weather, tolerable queues and prices that haven't been inflated by school holidays. If you have the flexibility, this decision is worth more to your holiday than any other single choice you'll make.
April – May
Warm rather than punishing, low rainfall, and queues that haven't yet hit summer levels. Avoid the fortnight either side of US Easter, when American families travel. Our most frequently recommended window.
September – early October
The quietest the parks get all year, with the lowest flight prices. Still hot and humid, and it's peak hurricane season, so take the travel insurance seriously. The Halloween events start in September and are excellent.
Late November – early December
The Christmas overlays are genuinely special and the weather is at its most comfortable — warm days, cool evenings, little rain. Avoid the week of US Thanksgiving, which is chaos.
July – August
Hottest, busiest and most expensive, with a near-daily afternoon thunderstorm. Entirely doable — most UK families have no choice — but plan around it: early park starts, a midday break at the pool, and back out in the evening.
If you're tied to school holidays, the October half term is usually a better trip than August: cooler, quieter, cheaper, and the Halloween events are running. It's the first thing we suggest to families who assumed summer was their only option.
Family travel
Orlando holidays for families
Orlando is the most family-oriented destination on earth, and it is also completely capable of exhausting a family that arrives without a plan. The difference between a brilliant trip and a fraught one is rarely money — it's pacing, and matching the itinerary to the ages of the children actually going.
Planning by age
- Under 4: Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom, half-days only, and a villa with a pool for the afternoons. Height restrictions will rule out much of Universal, so weight the trip heavily towards Disney.
- Ages 5 – 9: The classic sweet spot. Everything at Disney lands, the character experiences genuinely work, and Islands of Adventure opens up. Still build in real rest days.
- Ages 10 – 14: The balance tips. Epic Universe and Islands of Adventure become the highlights, Hollywood Studios and EPCOT hold up well, and Magic Kingdom becomes a single nostalgic day rather than two.
- Teenagers: Build around Universal, add a Gulf Coast beach stay, and give them some independence in the parks. A fortnight of Disney alone with a fifteen-year-old is a hard sell.
We also plan family trips further afield — see our luxury family holidays guide for how we handle airport choice, kids' clubs and school-holiday timing more generally.
First-timers
Planning a first Disney World holiday
A first Disney trip has a specific failure mode: people underestimate how much of it has to be decided months in advance, then arrive to find the restaurants full and the popular rides booked. Disney rewards planning to an almost unreasonable degree. Here is the order it needs to happen in.
The sequence that matters
- 9 – 12 months out: Fix your dates and book flights and accommodation. On-site Disney hotels and the best villas for school holidays genuinely do sell out this far ahead.
- 6 months out: Buy park tickets and decide how many days at each park. Ticket length is easier to get right now than to change later.
- Around 60 days out: Dining reservations open. The signature restaurants and character meals are gone within hours of opening — this is the deadline people miss most often.
- Final week: Download the app, set up everyone's profiles, link tickets, and understand the ride-booking system before you're standing in a park at 7am trying to learn it.
- Day one: Don't make it a park day.
What first-timers most often get wrong
- Trying to see all four parks in four consecutive days. It can be done and it is miserable.
- Underestimating distances. Disney World is not a theme park, it's a region — moving between two parks can take an hour door to door.
- Ignoring EPCOT because it "sounds like the boring one". It's frequently the adults' favourite.
- Not budgeting for the paid queue-skipping system, then buying it reactively at full price on the busiest day.
Universal
Planning a Universal Orlando holiday
Universal is a materially easier holiday to plan than Disney and a much more intense one to experience. Since Epic Universe opened in 2025 the resort has three full theme parks plus Volcano Bay, and it now comfortably justifies four days of a fortnight rather than the two it used to get.
The three parks
- Epic Universe — the newest and largest, built around five worlds including Super Nintendo World, the Ministry of Magic corner of the Wizarding World, How to Train Your Dragon's Isle of Berk and the Monster-Verse, all radiating from the Celestial Park hub. Give it a full day; a half-day is a waste of the ticket.
- Islands of Adventure — the strongest thrill line-up in Orlando, plus Hogsmeade. Where the teenagers will want to spend their time.
- Universal Studios Florida — film-studio themed, Diagon Alley, and the Hogwarts Express connecting it to Islands of Adventure (you need a park-to-park ticket to ride it, which catches people out).
The Express Pass decision is the whole trip. Universal's Express Pass skips the standby queue at nearly every major attraction and can save three hours or more on a busy day. It's included free for guests at the three premier hotels — Portofino Bay, Hard Rock and Royal Pacific — for the whole length of the stay. For a family of four, two or three nights at a premier hotel frequently costs less than buying Express Passes separately, and you get the hotel thrown in. This is the single calculation we most often run for clients, and it's rarely close.
Beyond that, Universal needs far less advance work than Disney. Book the park-to-park tickets if you want the Hogwarts Express, arrive for the 60-minute early entry that every on-site hotel offers, and otherwise you can plan your days as you go.
Booking
Why use a specialist travel agent for Orlando?
Orlando is, genuinely, one of the most complicated holidays you can book. Flights, villa or hotel, two separate resorts' ticket structures, car hire, dining windows, ride-booking systems and insurance — each with its own rules, its own booking window, and its own way of costing you money if you do them in the wrong order.
That complexity is the argument for using someone who books it every week. Not because you couldn't do it yourself — plenty of people do — but because the sequencing is where the value is, and the sequencing is invisible until you've got it wrong.
- No planning fee, ever. We're paid by the tour operator, not by you. The advice, the research and the ongoing support cost you nothing.
- Access to 450+ trusted operators, including rates and room categories that don't appear on public comparison sites.
- One named specialist who plans your trip and stays reachable — not a rotating call queue.
- ABTA (K9413) and ATOL (5534) protected, so your money is covered if something goes wrong.
- Contactable while you're away. If a flight goes or a booking falls over at 11pm Florida time, you have a number that answers.
- Local to you. Our office is at Watermoor Point in Cirencester — you're welcome to come in and plan it over a coffee.
Travelnam plans holidays for clients across the Cotswolds · Bath · Swindon · Cheltenham · Gloucester · Stroud · Witney · Gloucestershire
Join us
The Magic of Orlando — event details
Come and ask us all of the above in person. Free to attend, but Hugh's is a small room and places are limited, so please reserve one in advance.
Can't make the 14th?
That's absolutely fine — the advice doesn't only exist on one evening in October. Tell us roughly when you'd like to travel and what you have in mind, and one of our travel specialists will come back to you within 24 hours. There's no planning fee and no obligation.
ABTA K9413 ATOL 5534 No planning fees 450+ trusted operators Cirencester-based
