V-Flyer

Can anyone offer advice from experience as to what hotels to investigate near to BG?

I'm hoping to emulate the Universal Royal Pacific or Disney Animal Kingdom Lodge/Grand Foridian WDW type of thing, whereby the park is reachable either by very regular transport, is not far away, or even better can walk there like Royal Pacific.

I would be looking in the moderate to delux range...

Finally, are there any perks with particular hotels? Uni Royal P for example, you get the Express Pass perk, which is fantastic etc.

Thank you very much in advance

The only hotels that are right by BGT are a Holiday Inn Express, a La Quinta Inn, a Days Inn and a Quality Inn.

Busch Gardens though is an easy drive from Orlando so you could easily make a day trip from it and then treat yourselves to a Quick Queue pass once inside the park - it would work out cheaper than paying for an expensive hotel and then not spending any time in there due to being in a park all day.

http://commerce.4adventure.com/estore/s ... Queue.aspx

Are you also aware that the Universal Express Passes do not include access to the Potter ride or to Rip Ride Rockit?

Thanks Tinks - unfortunately, none of us drive, and taxis can get a little expensive as well:D

Universal Express - yes, thanks for that, I was aware of that, although I'm not at all impressed by the Harry Potter ride - nor the land in general. It seems more set up for merchandise than anything else.....I've commented before that I think HP land is an oportunity missed...

Rip Ride Rocket - though, now there's a great ride, if you pick your times carefully, you can normally get on within 15/20 minutes I find...

We generally travel down from Orlando and do it in a day, as TB had said it's very easy!

We did stay in the hyatt once when we were staying down for 2 days. It is only 5 mins from the park and does have a shuttle which runs there.

http://tampabuschgardens.place.hyatt.co ... /index.jsp

The universal hotels are great! I've also known of people who have used their room key for express queue on HP and rip rocket although not officially allowed.

Busch gardens is my favourite park!

Luke

Concorde RIP wrote:Thanks Tinks - unfortunately, none of us drive, and taxis can get a little expensive...

Is that because you don't generally or won't in US?

It's very easy and seriously worth taking the plunge if possible, as it would open up so much more...

The other option is to head Tampa coast way for a change, but again you'll need transport...BA as an alternative also fly direct to TPA

NH

We were at Busch Gardens 2weeks ago. We got a really good internet deal dirct from the BG web site for park tickets - getting adult at kid prices $69.99 with 2nd day free. They do a quick-queque system which means you pay an extra $32pp approx which gets you to the front of each queque line. We didn't do that. 2nd day free was brilliant.

We stayed at the new Holiday Inn Express on East Busch Blvd. They say its walking distance to the park (long walk in my opinion) but hotel runs a shuttle. It was a really nice hotel, good sized rooms and with free breakie. It did cost considerably more than the Days Inn next door, but it wasn't hard to understand why.

BG is a great park and totally my favourite.

The Universal parks do offer an express queque system. A few years ago we stayed at the Royal Pacific, Universal and yes the room card worked as an express lane fast pass system at no extra cost.

Hope that helps.

Thanks all - NH, none of us actually drive at all, zso it's not an option.

I'll take a look at the two hotels recommended here.

I've been looking forward to trying BG, it's only now that my daughter is getting tall enough to ride the "big" rides, and as there seemed so many at BG, I've left it for a little while.