Customer Reviews

Universal Orlando with Kids : Your Ultimate Guide to Orlando's Universal Studios, CityWalk, and Islands of Adventure

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I eagerly awaited my copy of this guide book only to be very disappointed with the actual book. The author does not go into any great depth about any of the rides, attractions, or shows. The maps, what few of them there were, are small and cramped. The restaurant and food places did not contain menus as I expected, but, rather, short blurbs on the general kinds of food served. A better choice for the reader would be Kelly Monaghan's "Universal Studios Escape. The Ultimate Guide to the Ultimate Theme Park Adventure," or the sections on Universal Studios in Rita Aero's "Disny World. The Essential Guide to Amazing Vacations."

I disagree with the review above. I found Wiley's book very helpful. Granted, she didn't print full menus, but as the mother of three kids I care more about the rides and ways to save money and save time than real specific info. I liked the fact the book was small enough to tuck into my purse....her ride descriptions were accurate and gave a lot of information on how scary the rides were. (Very important, since the rides at Universal are much much scarier than anything at Disney!) She was also right about the way Universal sort of tricks you into buying too many souvenirs by where they put the stores.

I've searched for a guide to Universal and up until now have found nothing. The parks are great but information about them is usually squeezed into the back of travel guides. This book is well-researched and through, with information about the rides, area hotels, places to eat. Since I have three kids, ages 3-11, I appreciated the fact she rated the rides by age categories and gave lots of information about what is too wild or scary for very young kids.

I spent two days at Universal last week with my 15 year old son and 3 year old daughter. To put it mildly, they were not interested in doing the same things! This book helped us plan in advance which rides he wanted to ride, places in the parks she would enjoy, and the things we could all do together. By the way she writes, you can tell the author is a mother herself and has realistic ideas about toddlers and teens. My son ended up taking the book and going to some of the roller coaster type rides by himself while I stayed in the play areas. Without a good sense of what to expect, I'm not sure I would have let him split off from us like that, but this book helped us feel like we knew the park before we got there.

This book was helpful as far as hotel info, and attraction info goes, However, there were more than a couple of errors that made it a little frustrating. We ordered this book because we wanted a good idea of what rides would be appropriate for our children's ages and heights, etc. There were a few rides that had one height requirement on one page, and then a different height requirement on another. This book was helpful in some aspects of planning our trip, but the discrepencies with ride information was not a help. I now wish I had ordered something else.

I purchased this book for my grandson so he could plan his vacation in Orlando. I enjoyed reading it too and found some ideas to pass on to him. The book was in excellent condition, shipped promptly and well packaged.

The book was very informative yet didn't include any touring plans for the park. We used the touring plans from the unofficial guide to Disney and had a fantastic trip! I was really looking forward to an expert telling me the ins and outs of the rides as well as how to beat the crowds.