Theme Parks Guide is an independent planning resource for people visiting Orlando’s theme parks. It exists because Orlando is one of the few destinations where most of the important decisions have to be made before you leave home — which ticket tier, how many days, whether to pay for Genie+ or Express Pass, when to book dining, and which of a dozen resort areas to sleep in. Get those wrong in March and you feel it every day in July.
What this site covers
The guides here are built around the parks themselves and the logistics that surround them:
- Walt Disney World — Magic Kingdom, EPCOT, Hollywood Studios, Animal Kingdom, plus Typhoon Lagoon and Blizzard Beach.
- Universal Orlando — Universal Studios Florida, Islands of Adventure, Epic Universe and Volcano Bay, including how Express Pass changes the maths on a Universal day.
- SeaWorld, Discovery Cove, Aquatica and LEGOLAND Florida — the parks that usually decide whether a trip is five days or eight.
- Tickets and passes — date-based pricing, park hoppers, multi-park tiers and the annual pass break-even points.
- Where to stay and how to get around — on-property versus off-property, the resort areas, and whether you actually need a rental car.
- Dining, budget planning and travelling with kids — the three things most first-time visitors underestimate.
- Beyond the parks — the day trips, springs, space coast and non-park Orlando that fill the days between.
How the guides are researched
Every article starts from primary sources: the park operators’ own published park hours, ticket pages, height requirements, ride closures and policy documents. Where a figure moves — and in Orlando almost every figure moves — it is checked against the operator’s own site rather than repeated from other travel blogs.
The parks change constantly. Ride refurbishments, seasonal pricing, park hours, dining availability and the rules around skip-the-line products are all revised through the year, and Epic Universe in particular is still settling into its operating pattern. Guides are dated and revisited rather than written once and left. Where something is genuinely uncertain, the guide says so instead of guessing.
What this site is not
Theme Parks Guide has no affiliation with, endorsement from, or sponsorship by The Walt Disney Company, NBCUniversal, SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment, Merlin Entertainments, or any other park operator. Disney, Walt Disney World, Universal Orlando, Epic Universe, SeaWorld, Discovery Cove and LEGOLAND are trademarks of their respective owners and are used here only to describe the places being written about.
There are no paid placements in the guides. No park, hotel, ticket reseller or tour operator pays to be recommended, and no recommendation here has been bought. Where an article points to an operator’s own site, it does so because that is where the authoritative information lives.
Corrections
Prices rise, rides close and policies change, so some of what is published here will go out of date between updates. If you find something that is wrong, out of date, or that contradicts what you were told at the gate, please get in touch. Corrections are made to the article itself rather than buried in a note at the bottom.