A Disney Girl's Take on Portofino...

[littleprincessmom]

A little background...We are very much a Disney family. We've stayed at all of the Disney Deluxes except Yacht Club and 2 of the moderates. As AP holders, we go 2-3 times a year (at least) and my 5 year old knows the rides by heart. Her favorite past time is playing "Guess a Disney character" in the car.

So, when we decided to take a last minute trip for the weekend, I was appalled when my older DD (now almost 8) balked at going to Disney and requested Universal instead. She's been several times, most recently with her cousin this summer. DD5 still wanted Disney. What are we to do?

We decided to try the Portofino since we've never stayed there (we do love HRH). We'd take DD5 to MNSSHP on Friday night and spend the rest of the weekend at Universal enjoying FOTL access.

Here are our thoughts:

1. LOVED the PBH. It is a beautiful hotel with great theming. I always enjoy the Disney hotels for their "Disney" magic and theming but none are truly upscale hotels. I feel disloyal even saying this, but PBH is much nicer.

2. Wonderful service from bell staff, to coffee shop personnel to front desk.

3. Speaking of coffee, the coffee was to die for! Loved the coffee shop downstairs. Disney, are you reading this? GET SOME DECENT COFFEE!

4. Great food and wine.

5. FOTL access is the best perk anywhere.

6. Beautiful pool.

7. Enjoyed having PPV movies (we did not watch any but often do and relax with a glass of wine at night). It was nice to have this option!

Our ONLY complaint was the transportation. 20 minutes is too long to wait for a boat when you are excited to get to the parks or dog-tired at the end of the day! We drive at Disney to cut down on wait times (except to MK) but this is not an option at Universal. If Universal will work on this, we'll never stay anywhere else!

In summary, we LOVED the PBH (and Universal) and will be back soon!

 

[goofy!]

Thanks for sharing! Glad you had a great trip.

We too used to always stay at the Poly. Now we always stay at the PBH. Even when we are going to Disney.

It is such a nice hotel!

How did your 5 year old enjoy the rides at Universal?

 

[Flyin2MCO]

A stay at PBH tends to make it tough to settle for anything less in the future. I've never stayed on-site at WDW and probably won't (although I would like to try Yacht or Beach club simply for the proximity to Epcot). Probably missing out on some of the "Disney magic", but our touring approach to WDW is a bit extreme and we spend little time back in the room, so it's never made sense to stay on-site. Gearing up for my second visit to HRH, but in some ways I'll probably miss PBH.

 

[Texasmomof3]

I agree with you. We love the Portofino and have stayed there 4-5 times. We stayed at the Pacifica on our last visit as we needed an extra room for our college age nieces and loved it too. The pool is much better at the Portofino though. We love the using our room key as a fast pass and that is the only way I would do Orlando in the summer. I do find the Disney hotels to be pretty basic and the Universal hotels more plush. I have even stayed at the Floridian and the rooms are still pretty basic hotel rooms. Of course you can't beat the location. That being said we will be trying CSR for the first time next month because we are just doing Disney this time and really we don't spend that much time in the hotel room any way when we are at Disney.

 

[calgarygary]

Glad you had a great time at PBH. We have always been impressed with the quality of service there. You must have had very bad timing with the boats to have to wait 20 minutes. We have only had a long wait once and that was when a new "captain" had a minor accident and the boat was taken out of service for inspection so we had to wait for the next one. If you are finding the boats slow, remember you can always take the shuttle - drivers often change which hotel they are going to if you are the only people at the stop when leaving the parks.

 

[damo]

Did you know that there is also a bus if you've missed the boat?

 

[Flyin2MCO]

...and there's also your feet and the infamous rickshaws/pedicabs. I'll also admit to being frustrated by the wait times for the PBH boat, but in the grand scheme of things, that's a quality problem!! (i.e., I'd rather be waiting right now for the PBH boat than trying to catch up on all of my unanswered work emails!!!)

 

[Jessieknj]

I totally agree DH and I were at PBH 5 times while we were dating so when it came time to get married even though we live in NJ we had our wedding there. It was wonderful! We got married on the balcony of DelFino at sunset and had our reception in Mamma Dellas.

 

[kathyg]

I have to agree with PrincessMom. We, too, are loyal to Disney having stayed at the Contemporary, Polynesian, Beach Club and Boardwalk Villas. We love Disney. But this past summer was our first stay onsite at Universal at Portofino Bay. We were all blown away! Not only is the hotel gorgeous and oh so comfortable, but front of the line access can't be beat! Our room was right outside the boat dock, so we really never had to wait long. The wait for Disney buses can be much, much longer. The service, the restaurants, the amenities were top notch. My only problem is there's not much to do once you've seen the two parks. Disney has so much more to offer in that regard.

I think if they would combine Universal resorts and front of the line access with the Disney parks it would be incomparable. But like it's been said, number two has to try harder. Front of the line access was in and of itself worth the cost of the hotel.

We are all now Portofino fans!!!

 

[littleprincessmom]

Thank you all so much for the kind responses (and my apologies for being "off-line" for several days!)

Goofy- 5 year old still doesn't do many "big" rides but declares Men In Black is her new favorite ride "in the world." We also let her play carnival games while older DD rode Earthquake and that lucky little duck won a HUGE toy frog that she has shown off everywhere. Older DD7 won a flimsy inflatable toy...go figure! 5 is still young for many Universal attractions, but she enjoyed Shrek, LOVED Jimmy Neutro, ET and MIB and loved Seuess area at IOA.

Flyin2MCO - If you ever try a Disney hotel, try the Boardwalk Concierge Level. It is the closest I can compare to PBH and the Boardwalk itself is wonderful.

We haven't tried the shuttles...perhaps that would help. Where do they pick-up? I think our long waits were largely attributable to bad weather while we were there...I am certainly willing to give PBH another try...loved it!

 

[littleprincessmom]

Goofy -

Awesome video on youtube! Is one of the cheerleaders your daughter? They look great!!!!!