we stayed at the Clarion universal - it is quite a nice hotel near Wet n Wild, we initially had a smoking room and it was not nice, I requested that we be moved to a non-smoking room and we ened up with a very lovely room, I was amazed at the difference between the 2 rooms, so if you have a crummy room it is always worth complaining.
after we moved, we were very happy, we had a great view of the pool at the back of wet n wild, and were very handy for i-drive, and universal studios. I am not sure I would want to commute to disney from here - we spent one week here doing non-disney things, and then stayed on-site for a week - it is quite far from disney.
there is a small pool outside, and it has a bar/restaurant and a deli/snack shop but that's about all. We mostly ate out of the hotel, but one morning we had breakfast there and Shamu popped in, so that was a nice surprise.
Bev