What Orlando Compass is
Orlando Compass is an independent travel-planning guide to Orlando, Florida — the theme parks, attractions, hotels, dining, transportation and Port Canaveral cruises. It exists to help visitors make smarter decisions before they book: how the parks differ, how many days to budget, how tickets really work, where to stay and how to get around. It is a guide, not a booking site — you book on the official or partner sites; we explain the choices.
Who it is for
It is written primarily for first-time and infrequent visitors facing an expensive, complicated trip with a lot of irreversible decisions — which resort, how many days, when to go, where to stay, what to skip. It is equally useful for returning visitors planning a different kind of trip (adding a cruise, doing Universal instead of Disney, travelling off-peak). It deliberately favours decision frameworks over a firehose of detail, because the hard part of an Orlando trip is choosing well, not finding information.
Our editorial approach
Three principles guide every page. Honest trade-offs: we say when something is not worth it, who a park does not suit, and where the free strategy beats the paid one. Evergreen over ephemeral: we explain how things work (date-based pricing, rope drop, line-skipping models) rather than quoting prices and hours that go stale, and we tell you to confirm specifics officially. Reader-first: recommendations reflect what we believe helps the visitor, never what pays us most.
Independent and not affiliated
Orlando Compass is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by The Walt Disney Company, Universal, SeaWorld, LEGOLAND or their parent companies. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Our recommendations reflect what we think helps the visitor — they are not directed or approved by any park.
How we are funded
Some links on the site are affiliate links: if you book through them we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. That funding keeps the guide free and is what lets it stay independent of the parks. Affiliate relationships never change which options we recommend — see the full affiliate disclosure.
How we keep content accurate
Theme-park details — ticket products, line-skipping systems, hours, ride availability — change frequently. We write guidance to be evergreen (frameworks and strategy rather than prices and dates that go stale) and recommend confirming specifics on the official sites before you book. Spotted something out of date or wrong? Please tell us via the contact page — reader corrections are one of the main ways the guides stay reliable.
What we deliberately do not do
We do not sell tickets, hotels or packages; we do not publish daily crowd calendars or live wait-time feeds (the official apps do that better and in real time); and we do not chase every promotion. The site focuses on the planning decisions that are hard to reverse and expensive to get wrong, and points you to official sources for the live, changeable detail. Knowing what a guide should not try to be is part of keeping it genuinely useful.
How to use the guides together
The pages are designed to be read in roughly this order: decide when (best time to visit), decide which parks and how many days (theme parks), understand tickets (tickets), choose where to stay (hotels & resorts) and how to get around (transportation), then layer in attractions, dining and a possible cruise — all pulled together by the trip-planning checklist.