Finding accommodations when going to a theme park can be a daunting task! Is it better to stay on-site or off-site? Should you splurge on a room or save some cash so that you can splurge in the parks? What about food options? Transportation? The questions that come up are endless!
For our Orlando Quest, I knew that I wanted to be as close to the action as possible! Orlando theme parks have cleverly set up their parks where guests who stay at on-site hotels (or am an off-site hotel with a shuttle) have the easiest and often cheapest way to get to the fun.
Even though this Quest was going to include a trip to our Home Away from Home (aka Disney), we would be spending the bulk of our trip at Universal Studios Resort. Universal Orlando in partnership with the Loews Hotels and Resorts has several themed on-site hotels to choose from based on your needs and budget.
Their “Prime Value” hotels start around $112.00 a night; the “Preferred” hotels start around $152.00, while the “Premier” hotels start around $244.00. All on-site hotels offer Early Park Admission to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter and Volcano Bay one hour before park opening, transportation to the theme parks and City Walk, resort charging privileges with your room key in the parks, and more.
In our normal daily lives, we place more value on “experiences” than on things and we try to apply this to our travels as well. That made the Cabana Bay Beach Resort the perfect choice for our family!
When we arrived at the Cabana Bay Beach Resort after a wonderfully relaxing day at Clearwater, FL I knew that I had made the right decision. The hotel is retro-inspired from top to bottom and it is done so well I had to remember that we weren’t actually in the 1950s and 60s.
Checking into the hotel had a few hiccups, but the staff member that assisted me was courteous and quickly remedied the situation. Once we had our personalized room keys and a map we were off to find out room!
We were assigned a room in the Bayside building, and once we arrived at our rooms we were pretty exhausted. Because the resort is so large the building is far from the main lobby and the parking lot was full so we had a bit of trek.
However, once we got to our room all of that exhaustion faded and the entire family was pleasantly surprised at the room! It was completely retro themed as well from the color palate to small details like the soap in the bathroom and the clocks.
Our favorite feature of the room had to be the carpet, which is such a weird feature to love, but it was so plush and soft! This was a welcome treat after being on our feet all day in the parks. We hardly ever remove walk around without some sort of footwear when in hotels, but this carpet was immaculately clean and so cushy that we had to break the shoe rule this time.
The room was well appointed with a large bathroom (important for us since there were 5 of us this trip), plenty of space to spread out, a small table and chairs, a dresser with plenty of drawer space, and a mini-fridge. The resort also provided us with a crib for our littlest love!
I only have two main complaints about the rooms, which actually had little to do with the room itself. The first complaint was with housekeeping and the number of towels we were provided. We were only given a set of towels for 2 people initially. The following day housekeeping didn’t make it to our room until after 2, which is completely understandable with how large the resort is, however after requesting additional towels the second day we found ourselves having to ask again throughout our stay, which was frustrating.
My second complaint is the layout of the resort. As I have mentioned, the resort is massive, which is not all bad, except when there are torrential rainstorms and no shelter on the way back to your room. While we were in town Orlando got rain from the bands of Hurricane Harvey and I was in the lobby enjoying some mommy alone time with my coffee and people watching. When the rain started I just assumed it was going to be a normal Florida afternoon shower and pass, but after 20 minutes I knew that wasn’t the case. Meanwhile, our littlest love had woken up from her nap in the room and was looking for me. After I realized this storm wasn’t going to pass, I got a sinking feeling when I realized there was no thoroughfare for the resort and I would have to brave the rain from the lobby all the way back to my room. Let’s just say that once I arrived I was soaked to the bone and was not altogether happy about it.
Although those two gripes hindered portions of our visit, it didn’t sour our stay completely, and overall we were happy with our choice to stay at the Cabana Bay Beach Resort.
Cabana Bay Amenities:
The Cabana Bay Beach Resort can easily be a destination all on its own! There is a full-service food court with bountiful options and fairly reasonable prices.
A Bowling alley for those sweltering hot days or a nice way to keep the fun going. A Starbucks, because as we all know, coffee is life. Plus a Universal Orlando shop to get matching shirts and other great Universal themed goodies, a ticket counter, rental car office, and more.
One of our favorite parts about the Cabana Bay Resort was the pools! There are two massive pools, a waterslide, complete with a lazy river for prime relaxing (insert Instagram link here). Roo loves playing in the sand, so the sand area with games was a hit! If you get snack-ish while doing all of that lounging and playing there are even poolside bars.
In the evening you can gather around the fire pit and roast marshmallows for smores while you enjoy their poolside movie offerings!
Our second favorite amenity of the Cabana Bay Beach Resort was the shuttle to and from the parks. Shuttles are provided complimentary and each time we were ready to start our day in the park there was a shuttle waiting for us. There was an informative video that was played on the way to the park, which was a great distraction for Roo.
But the absolute best part was the shuttle service, in evening, returning from the parks. There are very few things worse than being exhausted from a day of theme park fun, only to have to wait hours for your hotel shuttle to pick-up a few people and then return. The Cabana Bay Resort must have had the same gripe because they provide luxury charter buses to pick their guests up from the park!
This means instead of 50 people getting on the bus, practically everyone in the long line is able to get on the bus. It also meant that we didn’t have to break down our stroller, the courteous driver put it in the cargo bin, locked the wheels, and we were good to go! Before we knew it, we were back at the resort ready to explore and significantly less grumpy then we would have been if we had to wait.
Overall, the hotel was a great choice for us during our Orlando trip. We visited Universal Studios & Islands of Adventure but also used the resort as our home base when we visited the Magic Kingdom for Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party and had an action-packed dinner at Medieval Times. The resort is super close to the highway entrance, and Walmart is about 10 minutes away if you forgot some necessities for your trip.
The Cabana Bay Beach Resort was worth it for the early admission to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, the shuttle bus, and the assortment of activities and fun to be had at the resort itself. When we return to Orlando in the future, I would definitely consider staying onsite again and potentially upgrading to one of the other Loews onsite resorts.
