I was sitting at a bar the other weekend, where the football fan next to me was talking about “taking an AI course, as that’s the future”. As someone who considers themselves semi-tech literate, it piqued my interest. Why was this random man talking about AI like it was a career milestone and not just a tool? I have many thoughts on generative AI, “AI” companies, LLMs, and companies that are trying to operate only on AI, but that’s not why we’re here today. Today, we’re taking inspiration from Chrissy’s recent blog post on ChatGPT planning a Disney vacation using a prompt most uninformed guests would use, and applying it to Universal Orlando! Buckle up, this is a long one.

The ChatGPT Experiment

The Prompt

“Plan a trip to Universal Orlando, December 15, 2025 – December 19, 2025. One park per day. Two adults with no Dining Plan. Show daily itineraries with meals, rides, and holiday entertainment.” I copied Chrissy’s prompt word for word with only minor tweaks to location and anything that isn’t available at UOR. I ran the prompt twice to see if anything changes in ChatGPT’s recommendations (spoilers: there is, and I’ll get to it later) and to give it a fair chance.

The Results

ChatGPT gave me general tips each time I ran the prompt, so let’s over over what is at the top of the results. It was rough:

Ok, let’s go line by line here:

⭐️ Universal’s Holiday Celebrations runs November 21 through January 4, 2026. ChatGPT’s output saying it ends on December 31 is wrong, even considering that it was extended to January 4 this week. This highlights how ChatGPT doesn’t take in new information quickly, something important for theme park touring.

⭐️ The Magic of Christmas at Hogwarts Castle is NOT in Universal Studios (Florida), it’s in Islands of Adventure. We’ll get back to this soon.

⭐️ What about the big nighttime show in Hogsmeade or the CineSational lagoon show in USF?

⭐️ Grinch breakfast dates are wrong, and the venue is Circus McGurkis, not split at Confisco (this was an old change when Circus was closed a few years ago.)

⭐️ The Holiday Tour does not include behind-the-scenes access and only has one priority access attraction.

⭐️ TouringPlans compiles attraction closures and downtimes for you.

⭐️ “Most meals will be quick service, snacks, or table service.” That’s all the dining options. Thanks, ChatGPT!

⭐️ Arrive half an hour early? At least! You want to be at the park before Early Entry (if offered) at least 30 minutes before Early Entry. If you are rope-dropping Hagrid or the Ministry of Magic, you want to be at the gates at least an hour before Early Entry.

⭐️ Nighttime is the only time to see the projection and fireworks shows, but don’t skip out on riding rides at the end! It’s among the best times to ride the popular attractions that you couldn’t ride in the morning.

Day 1

We start at Universal Studios Florida! Oh boy!

So far, so good, right? We have a plan broken up by rough time frames with helpful suggestions on places to eat. At a glance, it seems to pass a sniff test, but look closer and you’ll notice some issues.

⭐️ The plan suggests riding half the park’s dozen rides before noon. While not impossible,  you won’t be able to have a “mid-morning snack/coffee from Today Cafe”. The plan also doesn’t suggest which attraction to start at.

⭐️ Point thee under Afternoon doesn’t make sense as nearly all of Universal Studios Florida’s attractions are indoors, and long lines outside are not

⭐️ Lombard’s is one of the lowest-rated table service restaurants at the resort, with an overall TouringPlans rating of three stars. You can do better in CityWalk or at a quick service.

⭐️ This is the big one. The Magic of Christmas at Hogwarts Castle is a show at Hogwarts Castle in Islands of Adventure. The claim that the projection shows happens in Diagon Alley, too, is not true, or what we old folks call a lie. This is one of my cardinal sins of helping others with vacation planning, and it’s enough for me to give the USF plan an F.

Day 2

Ok, that was a bit harsh. Let’s see if a plan for Islands of Adventure does any better.

Again, so far so good with a quick check. All the attractions are in the right park, but there are some big mistakes and issues with their plan that will cause you frustration:

⭐️ “Arrive early” skips the fact that IOA usually has Early Park Admission, not USF, and you should arrive at the gates at least half an hour before the park opens if you want to ride Hagrid during EPA.

⭐️ We don’t know what they mean by open seating dining in Hogsmeade. The Three Broomsticks frequently has a line before seating, and you are given a seat once you enter. This implies there is more of a market

⭐️ Skull Island: Reign of Kong is listed twice under different parts of its name.

⭐️ There is no “light musical entertainment” in Seuss Landing.

⭐️ Three Broomsticks again?

While better, the plan still misses basic information, creates new things, and can’t create an hour-by-hour plan. Our rankings, ratings, and touring plans do this for you.

The first time we ran this prompt, ChatGPT came out and suggested this:

ChatGPT made up a restaurant with items for my touring plan. This goes beyond being useless and becomes actively harmful to your vacation planning. This second plan gets an F grade.

Day 3

Day 3’s results were more interesting. We saw two different options when prompting ChatGPT. The first one decided to take it easy with a day off from touring to explore the hotels and CityWalk:

This is a fine “off-day” itinerary. I’d appreciate it if they’d suggest pool hours, spa locations (Mandara Spa at Portofino Bay), and Volcano Bay information. It’s fine, I’d rate it a C- for a break day. Now for our day at Epic Universe, Universal’s newest theme park.

Ouch. This is where ChatGPT’s models don’t have data to pull from about the new park. Outside of Mario Kart and Stardust Racers, no other attractions are listed, and the “How to Train Your Dragon area” is a whole land with six attractions, dining, and characters. There is no attraction list, no information on what to hit first, and no information on how to minimize your waits on Battles at the Ministry. This is a D-.

No recommendations for the best restaurants in the central hub (Celestial Park) nor dining recommendations in the lands themselves. Very disappointing.

Again, generic and no information on the shows or “walkthroughs”.

Ok that’s enough of that. I wasn’t expecting much from ChatGPT when it came to Epic Universe. These models were built months ago on older data, data from before Epic Universe opened.

Day 4 & 5

I’m lumping these days together since they’re very similar.

We see a similar template ChatGPT is pulling from, where it suggests several of the attractions as “missed”, say go through a land or two, eat, and shop. What restaurants are the best in the parks? Which attractions to visit and when? What about show times for the parade and Grinchmas show?

Final Tips & Ticket Help

ChatGPT also offered a sample dialy timing summary:

Arriving at 8:00 am to 9:00 am is too late to rope drop USF or IOA. We’d actually suggest dining at 11:00 am as 12:30 pm is an extremely popular time to eat. And how can you “ride repeats” after the park closes? It followed up with its suggestion for its best strategy for tickets and hotels, but the actual suggestions were so bland and uninformative that it’s not worth going over.

What’s Missing?

Among the errors in the plans, there was a lot of information missing:

⭐️ ChatGPT had no details for its Epic Universe plan. TouringPlans offers tested, step-by-step directions to each attraction along with descriptions and the scope of the shows and rides.

⭐️ Early Park Admission is an important offering from Universal that grants you access to the parks before the general admission. ChatGPT doesn’t attempt to list when Early Park Admission is or when to arrive to position yourself at the best spot to rope drop attractions.

⭐️ Dining is expensive and takes a lot of time out of your touring plan. ChatGPT doesn’t offer good suggestions, focusing on popular restaurants and not the highest quality or best value. TouringPlans offers dining ratings from our crack team, plus thumbs-up ratings from our readers. ChatGPT doesn’t talk about popular restaurants like Toothsome, Bigfire, or even Mythos.

⭐️ The plans provided by ChatGPT are unstructured and don’t supply steps for guests to follow. Should you do Minions, Mummy, Gringotts, or Transformers first? All the same to ChatGPT saying you should do it in the “morning”.

Summary of Results

While some information ChatGPT provided was good, it also made up restaurants, misplaced attractions between parks, and didn’t suggest top top-rated restaurants. This isn’t surprising; LLMs like ChatGPT work on a probability model where they guess what the next outputs should be based on the inputs and prior generative information. Think of it like a super special auto-complete (this is very, very dumbed-down). Part of the problem with such models is that they don’t update based on new information unless they’re retrained. And the retraining takes a LOT of money. So when you ask ChatGPT for touring suggestions, you are receiving information that’s months, if not years, old. You can see play out with the Epic Universe touring plans with its lack of details and attraction information, as it wasn’t open when the model was formed. “What about guidebooks? They use outdated information!” That’s true, but guidebooks don’t make up false information like the Triwizard Cafe or mistake what attractions are in each park (if they do, please request a refund).

Do you have any experience using ChatGPT to plan an event or trip? What are your thoughts on our analysis? Share in the comments so we can test out a few new scenarios!