Cabana Bay Beach Resort

[buzznwoodysmom]

My kids have been begging to go back to Universal for the new Potter additions. There is a military offer out right now that was too good to pass up. My only hang up is the resort, Cabana Bay Beach Resort. My kids actually want to stay here, and it looks like fun. We are just spoiled by staying at Hard Rock, being walking distance to the parks, and getting express pass.

I was able to book a Tower Poolside Family Suite for a little over $160 a night. Is this a good room category? It's just the 4 of us so looks like plenty of room to spread out. Just wondering if the location is ok? The other option was Courtyard family suite.

How is the bus situation? We've always stayed at Hard Rock and just walked to the parks and City Walk.

How bad will early Aug. be without express pass. I've never been to Universal in the summer months so I don't know how their crowds compare with Disney summer crowds. Will we regret not having Express Pass? I know that I can add it if we feel we need it once we are there.

We actually cancelled Vero Beach in favor of Universal. In the end the kids won! LOL. I was looking forward to the beach, but the kids really wanted to go to Universal instead. They even went so far as to use the recent shark attacks to help their case. LOL. We may still take a day trip to a nearby beach, or stop in Destin for a night on our way home. Hope I don't regret giving up Vero!!!

[AgentC]

The courtyard and the tower are two separate sections at Cabana Bay. The rooms themselves are very similar but the building set up is different.

The courtyard rooms are in the first section that opened. The building is like a traditional motel with outdoor entrances. The tower section is like a traditional hotel. It has inside halls and more floors.

The courtyard section has the pool with the slide and the outside recreational area (a sandy area to play). The tower section also has a pool with a beach area and the lazy river.

We stayed in the tower area last summer. My kids loved the lazy river area. We stayed in a standard room and it was quite small so I think you are right to go with the suite. There was also an excellent quick serve by the pool. We didn't go to the parks at all because we had gone for another event and used to hotel to have a park free fun day. My kids (who are younger than yours) would have been happy to stay all day and hang out at the hotel. In addition to the pool, they loved the arcade and the bowling alley.

[BrerGnat]

I stayed in a Courtyard Family suite. I wish we had been on the tower side, because that is where the lazy river is. However, I think the only pool slide may be on the courtyard side, although I could be wrong about that. You can obviously go to either pool area. Also, the courtyard rooms faced the parking lot or the pool, and the parking lot view was a bit noisy with car alarms and stuff going off.

That said, the room locations are NOT guaranteed. We had actually booked a Tower Standard room and were "upgraded" to the Courtyard Suite. We took the upgrade for the space but I would have preferred the Tower location we had booked.

The hotel itself is rather great. I really liked it a lot. I LOVED the food court. It had an excellent variety of really fresh and tasty food. It was WAY better than any of Disney's food courts, by a mile.

The bus service was fine. It did take awhile to get a bus coming back to the hotel from Universal, and the bus stop location is where all the taxis drop off, so it's quite a walk from the park entrances. It's not much different than coming by car and parking.

[buzznwoodysmom]

All good to know guys! I don't know that we can be "upgraded". I didn't see any rooms priced higher than the poolside family suites in the Tower. Obviously they can still change our view/location. Hoping we actually get what I booked and paid for. At the age of my boys now they would actually prefer the lazy river to the pool slide. I picked tower because I prefer interior halls as opposed to motel like exterior entry to the rooms.

I think the hotel looks great, lots of fun. I have read nothing but positive reviews on the food and drinks. I don't think I've read anything negative about the resort at all, come to think of it.

My main concern is the distance from the parks and citywalk and not having express pass. This is why we usually stay on site when visiting Universal. I did check the military discount for the other hotels and apparently all that's left must be some sort of club level suites because I was getting prices in the $600s per night! Even trying other discounts, the rooms are over double what we are paying for Cabana Bay. Since they boys really want to stay there and I seem to be the only one concerned with express pass I guess we'll give it a try!

[Tink1]

We stayed at CBB last October to try it out. LOVED IT!

Bus was easy and very very frequent.

Food Court was very good and pool area was really nice.

Loved the retro soaps and stuff in the room!

Portofino is still my favorite, but it really was a fun resort.

Nanc

[Wells]

Just a couple of caveats....
Although Cabana bay guests do not get Express pass, they do get the early park access for the Harry Potter area at the studios.
Express passes are not applicable to any of the Harry Potter themed attractions anyway.
The retro theming at Cabana Bay is really cool, especially if you were around when it wasn't retro!

[MNNHFLTX]

We stayed at Cabana bay the first month they were open (in a courtyard suite). We thought the room was very cool; the retro theming was so much fun! The sofa bed was comfortable (for a sofa bed), having two TV's was nice and the fridge in the kitchenette was much larger than your standard hotel fridge. I will say that it was just the two of us staying in the suite, so there was plenty of room, but the space is compact, even by suite standards.

Two amenities we thoroughly enjoyed were the fitness center and the bowling alley. Plenty of stuff to do if you feel like hanging out at the resort for awhile.

When we were at UO in March and staying at Portofino Bay, we did notice that you can now walk from Cabana Bay to the parks, but it is a bit of a hike--about 25 minutes. The buses were a great option as they ran frequently and are air-conditioned. Afoul the only negative is that they drop you off at the taxi and bus stops by the parking garage, which still leaves you with a fair amount of walking to do just to get to the parks.

How long are you staying at CB? You might want to consider buying the Express Pass for one day, so that you and your kids can get their fill of the rides (except for the Harry Potter stuff, of course). That would still cost far less than the prices you are seeing for the more deluxe resorts at UO.

[BrerGnat]

Just FYI when we went to Universal in late October, on a Friday, express pass cost $99/person. So if you really think you may want it, staying at one of the resorts that offers it will probably be cheaper than buying them for a day.

[MizMissy]

Denise!! You have officially crossed all the way over to the dark side! Lol.

We are looking at a Mardi Gras trip next year (going to book early this time!) and the prices for the three express pass hotels are more than I remembered but if you think about express pass being at least $60-70 per person each day, they become more of a "bargain". And, my kids are so spoiled for front of the line access (and me too), I really can't consider Cabana Bay.

What if you booked one night at Royal Pacific? That gives you two days to enjoy all non-HP rides with Express Pass, then move to Cabana Bay for early access to HP and also the hotel amenities.

[eandrsmom]

We went in early August three years ago. We didn't stay on property. The lines were very long, especially with the Brazilian groups. We ended up not riding quite a few things because of the lines and heat. The following year, we purchased the one time ride Express Pass. It was much more pleasant than the previous year. A few weeks ago we stayed on property for the first time. We stayed at Royal Pacific. We've all decided that we will stay at one of the Universal deluxe resorts from now on when we visit. We loved the unlimited Express Pass!