Is Hotel hopping worth it at Universal?

MAPOrocks · Mar 29, 2015

We always hotel hop at Disney, but would it be worth it to do this at Universal? We are staying for 3 nights at the Royal Pacific Hotel. I am not interested in Hard Rock, but was wondering about Portifino and Cabana Bay. Anything we just MUST see at Portifino? Are we allowed to go over and use the Bowling Alley or Pool at Cabana Bay? I would love to see Cabana Bay, as the theming looks incredible. Or could anyone suggest a place to eat over there that might be a place we could soak up some 1960s atmosphere?

RMulieri · Mar 29, 2015

If you have time its a pleasant way to spend the day.Pool hopping is allowed so that is what we do..Cabana Bay only has the Bayliner diner to eat at and though we haven't eaten there we heard it was just ok.We always stay at Portofino and tend to spend a lot of our time there.We love the pools ( there are 3) and like to play Bocce ball there.The Hard rock pool is a lot of fun too

MAPOrocks · Mar 29, 2015

RMulieri said:
If you have time its a pleasant way to spend the day.Pool hopping is allowed so that is what we do..Cabana Bay only has the Bayliner diner to eat at and though we haven't eaten there we heard it was just ok.We always stay at Portofino and tend to spend a lot of our time there.We love the pools ( there are 3) and like to play Bocce ball there.The Hard rock pool is a lot of fun too

Do you have any photos of the 3 pools at Portofino?

MAPOrocks · Mar 29, 2015

I had not idea that the pools had waterslides. My kids will LOVE that, so it is ok to pool hop to Portifino and Hard Rock's pools if we are staying at Royal Pacific?

klsurfer76 · Mar 29, 2015

Good question! I was wondering about the must do's also. We always hotel hop at Disney too but its our first time staying at universal. The transportation looks easy enough to hop between the others.

schumigirl · Mar 29, 2015

Yes. It is encouraged to pool hop if you so desire.

It's easy to hop on a boat to citywalk then another to whichever pool you want to go to.

bumbershoot · Mar 29, 2015

MAPOrocks said:
Do you have any photos of the 3 pools at Portofino?

Basic info here: https://www.universalorlando.com/Hotels/Loews-Portofino-Bay-Hotel/Recreation/Pools.aspx

Gives you the names of the pools for some googling.

RMulieri · Mar 29, 2015

Royal pacific does not have a slide but a water play area. HArd rock ,Portofino and Cabana Bay have slides.The themed pool at Portofino ( the Beach pool) has a slide hidden in an old aqueduct-style light house.Its a lot of fun.The other 2 pools aren't themed but are great for a quiet or relaxing swim

kelleybean · Mar 29, 2015

We stayed at Cabana Bay last week. DS7 LOVED the 2 pools there. One has a water slide (which he wasn't interested in but the kids I saw were enjoying it) and the other had a lazy river. The lazy river was relatively small but he spent hours in it. One warning about Cabana Bay - It is a bit of a pain to get to and from the pools at the other hotels because you have to take a bus which is in a different area from the boats that serve the other hotels.

Whenever we stay at Royal Pacific and we always make a point to pool hop. All of the hotels have fantastic pools.

One thing that was catching people off guard so I thought I'd mention it. The tubes for the lazy river at Cabana Bay are not included. You have to purchase them (can take them with you after obviously). We happened to read about this before and brought our own which they inflated for us no problem.

Bluer101 · Mar 29, 2015

RMulieri said:
If you have time its a pleasant way to spend the day.Pool hopping is allowed so that is what we do..Cabana Bay only has the Bayliner diner to eat at and though we haven't eaten there we heard it was just ok.We always stay at Portofino and tend to spend a lot of our time there.We love the pools ( there are 3) and like to play Bocce ball there.The Hard rock pool is a lot of fun too

Where do you get your info?

CB has quite a few places to eat.

Bayliner Diner (breakfast, lunch, dinner)
Galaxy Bowl Restaurant
The Hideaway Bar & Grille
Starbucks
Delizioso Pizza

RMulieri · Mar 30, 2015

Bluer101 said:
Where do you get your info?

CB has quite a few places to eat.

Bayliner Diner (breakfast, lunch, dinner)
Galaxy Bowl Restaurant
The Hideaway Bar & Grille
Starbucks
Delizioso Pizza

I apologize.That must be the only place they ate at

Bluer101 · Mar 30, 2015

RMulieri said:
I apologize.That must be the only place they ate at

Lol, it's all good.

I have to say CB has decent food but does not compare even close to the 3 deluxe at all.

Our favorites are,

RPR
Bula
Islands dining for breakfast buffet
Jakes especially if CW is busy
Orchid lounge for quick grabs

HRH
Poolside at beach place
Unfortunately HRH a few years back changed over from Loews

PBH
Sals
Splendido bar and grill
Trattoria del Porto
Have not tried mama dellas gets good reviews but a little to expensive for pasta for us.

CBR

Galaxy bowl restaurant (fun action with bar food)
DW likes the salad bar at Bayliner diner.

Need to stay more to try more. Lol

RMulieri · Mar 30, 2015

We absolutely adore Mama Dellas.Pricey, but very tasty

ThistleMae · Mar 30, 2015

Has anyone stayed at an onsite resort to go to Halloween Horror nights. I'm thinking that Hard Rock is the closest resort to walk back and forth...that event ends late so I want to be able to walk back to the resort. Which resort would be the closest?

yellowfish78 · Mar 30, 2015

I'll be doing one night at Cabana Bay then moving to Royal Pacific. If you plan on doing a split stay and it includes Cabana Bay, they do not offer luggage service between their hotel and the deluxe properties. But hotel hopping is accepted at Universal.

macraven · Mar 30, 2015

ThistleMae said:
Has anyone stayed at an onsite resort to go to Halloween Horror nights. I'm thinking that Hard Rock is the closest resort to walk back and forth...that event ends late so I want to be able to walk back to the resort. Which resort would be the closest?

i always stay onsite for all my visits to the darkside.
staying during hhn is a must for onsite.

hrh has ths shortest path to walk to return to the hotel.
but, it also has the water taxi as the others do.

i have walked back to rpr after hhn.
not a bad walk and have seen many on the walking path at the end of the night.

if i was staying at hrh, walking back to the hotel after hhn would be my option.

ThistleMae · Mar 30, 2015

macraven said:
i always stay onsite for all my visits to the darkside.
staying during hhn is a must for onsite.

hrh has ths shortest path to walk to return to the hotel.
but, it also has the water taxi as the others do.

i have walked back to rpr after hhn.
not a bad walk and have seen many on the walking path at the end of the night.

if i was staying at hrh, walking back to the hotel after hhn would be my option.

Thank you for the info! How far of a walk is HRH from the gate? How far is RPR walk? I have a bit of a knee issue.

macraven · Mar 30, 2015

it is about a 6 minute walk from rpr to the exit by margaritavile.
add another minute to reach ioa.
add a few more minutes to that for reaching the studios gate.

it all depends on the pace that you walk.

the walking path from the studios gate, is only a couple of minutes walk to reach.
the path itself can be done in less than 5 minutes easily.

again, depends on your pace of walking.

if you have knee issues, add some minutes to both walks and just take it slower.

coastgirl · Mar 30, 2015

yellowfish78 said:
If you plan on doing a split stay and it includes Cabana Bay, they do not offer luggage service between their hotel and the deluxe properties. But hotel hopping is accepted at Universal.

Not so, yellowfish...we moved from CBBR to RPR and they moved our bags for us. We left them with bell services at CBBR and then checked in with bell services at RPR when we got there. It did take some prodding to get our bags back, but that was just a service lapse, not a service plan. ;-) I have heard that the deluxes won't move you to CBBR, so it may not work in the other direction--but it worked for us moving TO the deluxe.

We did three nights in a family suite at CBBR and then moved to RPR for one night. The only reason we moved was to get the express passes, so with four nights onsite we had two days of express passes and four days of early entry. We were travelling with two adults and three kids. I actually didn't like RPR nearly as much as I liked CBBR. The CBBR Lazy River was awesome, and the theming is so much fun. But we did enjoy the express passes that only come with a deluxe. YMMV.

macraven · Mar 30, 2015

unless it has recently changed, the deluxe hotels will not do the moving of your luggage to Cbay.

Is Hotel hopping worth it at Universal?

Mouseketeer

DIS Veteran

Mouseketeer

Mouseketeer

Earning My Ears

It's a bit of a roodie doodie word for lady parts

DIS Veteran

DIS Veteran

Mouseketeer

Waiting till vacation comes, oh that's next week!

DIS Veteran

Waiting till vacation comes, oh that's next week!

DIS Veteran

Falling More in Love Every Year!

DIS Veteran

Proud Redhead

Falling More in Love Every Year!

Proud Redhead

DIS Veteran

Proud Redhead

Share this page