PBH ~ Trip Report with Dining *Pics!*

[Cass]

We stayed at Portofino Bay, Club Level August 1st -6th

Who went? Me - Cass (42), Noel, my DD13 and Auntie Fay (52) my big Sister & Noel's Aunt

Flight to Orlando was late and we arrived really late for check in, I was worried we would get a crappy room but everything was great. Room 2404 on the 4th floor, Harbour View, 2 Queens, Sofabed and just a quick elevator ride down to the lounge.

Room 2404

View from our window

Room Location

We had breakfast in the lounge every morning, they had a nice selection of fresh fruit, boxed cereals, juice, coffee, tea, muffins, pastries, hot oatmeal and breads/bagels for toasting.

Lounge

We never had a problem getting a table, but by the time we were leaving there were always people looking for somewhere to sit. The computers were always occupied - I used them a few times mid afternoon when I was passing by the lounge and saw one was available. Many times it was just young kids using them, playing games or something.

Coming up, some random resort photos and dinner at Mama Della's

 

[Cass]

Portofino Bay is a beautiful & uniquely themed resort. We loved walking around and nighttime was especially nice with the music of the night performance. We caught it 3 times and loved listening to the singers from the balcony above the piazza. You can also see the fireworks from City Walk pretty clearly every night around 9:45pm, the best place to see them from is outside Cafe Espresso.

Here are some resort photos

Entrance to Hotel

Check in counter

Lobby

 

[Cass]

Harbour Piazza

Look at that blue sky!

 

[Cass]

Resort at night

Fireworks from City Walk

Noel and her Aunt Fay

Villa Pool (or the Old Lady Pool as my Sister referred to it)

Hot tub & warm tub

Beach Pool (or the Noisy Pool as my Sister referred to it)

Kiddie Pool/slash area by the Beach Pool

We LOVED the Old Lady Pool, it had great music (subtle) and the pads on the chairs were much thicker & more comfy than the Beach Pool chairs. It was much quieter and the ladies room was gorgeous, nicest pool restroom I've ever seen.

We had lunch here at the pool. Here are the menus

I ordered the Splendido Toss Salad with chicken and my sister ordered the Riviera Wrap. We decided to split them, so the waitress was very nice and divided the plates for us.

Here is 'half' the splendido salad and I ate more than half the chicken, cucumber, tomatoes before I remembered to take the pic

and this is 'half' the Riviera Wrap - my sister had her half with fries, but I ordered mine with fruit.

 

[Cass]

Mama Della's We ate here twice.


Reception desk

Interior

Patio

View of the 'Music of the Night' singers from Mama's patio

The first night we ate here - we sat inside and the service & food was excellent. The second time we sat outside and we felt forgotten and neglected, service was very slow and the server kept forgetting to check on us. The food was very good though, no problems there.

Bread & butter, garlic & oil for dipping

Insalata Caprese - Buffalo mozzarella, Beefsteak tomatoes and balsamic reduction $9.75 (there were 4 servings - ate 2 before I took the pic)

Bruschetta - Grilled Tuscan Asiago bread with yellow and red vine ripe tomatoes $8.00 (3 pieces of bread were served)

Insalata Mama Della - Mixed greens with sweet pepper, tomatoes and balsamic dressing

The dressing tasted a lot like what was served on the salad we had at the pool.

Fettuccine Alfredo - Fettuccine pasta and
alfredo sauce $17.50

Noel was a happy camper, she loves her fettuccine. You can get this with chicken or shrimp for small surcharge.

Filetto di Manzo Toscano - Grilled beef tenderloin with caramelized onions and garlic smashed potatoes $33.75

I had them hold the potatoes and only serve my beef with veggies. This was delicious, the meat was fork tender and melted in your mouth, the caramelized onions gave a nice sweetness/tang to the dish.


Pollo alla Marsala - Chicken breast served with roasted potatoes and marsala sauce 24.00

Fay said this had loads of mushrooms and a very nice flavour but she didn't like that everything was swimming in sauce, she would have preferred the veggies out of the sauce.

Then the next time we went back (patio night) Noel had the fettucini again.

Fay had the Pollo alla Parmigiana - Breaded Chicken breast served with cappellini and marinara sauce $25.00 - she enjoyed this dish very much.

I had the Veal Piccatta - Seared veal medallion served with cappellini with lemon capers $29.50. I had asked that veggies be substituted for the pasta (I'm diabetic and can't have pasta unless it's whole wheat) She said she would do that but after waiting over an hour for the entre' it came with pasta. I just ate the veal, which was very tender and the lemon sauce was nice too.

We were sooo full (both nights) we could barely think of eating anything else, with my diabetes I don't take dessert anyway - but Fay ordered the Tira Misu to go and had it in the room later.

On the patio night, the server felt bad about the screw up with my pasta instead of veggies and also that Noel had asked for Garlic bread (not on the menu) and the waitress said the chef would make it, no problem - well nothing ever came but it was on the bill at the end of the night. Anyway, the server felt bad and she brought us some free desserts on a platter, there was biscotti and some other little things, Fay had some but I couldn't have anything sweet so we left most of it;

All and all I liked Mama Della's (we were serenaded the first night with singers and musicians and Mama came to our table to visit) the second time we were forgotton about outside and eventually Aunt Ziti came by and said Mama was too busy.


If you eat here - stay INSIDE!!

Tomorrow I will post pics of lunch at Lombards, lunch at Mythos and dinner at Trattoria del Porto

 

[Cass]

Our first park was Universal Studios, the crowds were low and it was raining pretty hard. We did Shrek, Jimmy, Twister, revenge of the Mummy (twice) and Jaws and then it was time for lunch.

Lombard's Seafood Grill

Because we were wet from all the rain and the air conditioning in Lombards was full blast, we were freezing!! goosebumps on our goosebumps so we ordered pots of hot tea to start.

Our server placed a basket rolls with butter on the table

For lunch Fay had the Grilled Asian Chicken Wrap - Grilled, ginger-soy marinated chicken breast, crispy Asian vegetables with tangy hoisin sauce and crunchy wonton strips wrapped in a chipotle tortilla served with french fries $10.99

Noel had the Lombard's Burger - Grilled your way. Served on our fresh baked sourdough bun. Top with Cheddar, Swiss or American cheese. Served with french fries and Lombard's signature vegetable slaw. $9.99

I had the Chinese Chicken Salad - Shredded Nap cabbage, snow peas, carrots and bean sprouts topped with grilled chicken breast, crispy fried wonton strips and a tangy Asian vinaigrette $10.99 (Delicious by the way)

no dessert for Fay and I, but Noel can always handle a little something - like this gigantic Brownie Sundae

Lunch at Lombard's was great! Coming up, dinner at Trattoria del Porto

 

[SuAnne]

Oh... I know I can count on you for a yummy trip report

 

[Muffy]

Great pictures! We leave next week for Univ and IOA. Mama Dellas is on our list! Thanks for the inside info about dining there!

 

[tlinus]

Wow!! What a great report!!

The view from your room you can see the HRH in the distance....We had a great view of the Portofino Harbor from ours - maybe even the room you had

 

[Cass]

Are some of the photos not loading? I am getting X's for some reason

 

[Cass]

Great pictures! We leave next week for Univ and IOA. Mama Dellas is on our list! Thanks for the inside info about dining there!

Have fun! I'm so jealous, wish I was there right now. Have you decided what to order? The salad comes with dinner, you don't need to order one.

 

[Cass]

We had a great view of the Portofino Harbor from ours - maybe even the room you had

I had the feeling I was being watched

 

[dsmom]

Incredible pictures!! We looked for you this week-end - but never did see you! We were in ground floor - villa pool view. We ate at Mamma Della's on Friday night- isn't the bread and salad wonderful? Thanks for posting all the food pictures- we love to eat in my house!

 

[Cass]

Hi dsmom, we were close! We ate at the Trattoria on Friday - right next to Mama's. I'll be posting some pics of that later tonight.

Glad you had a nice trip, a ground floor room would have been very convenient to everything.

 

[dsmom]

We ate at Trattoria for the breakfast buffet on Sat and Sun. It is our son's favorite resturant. How did you like the dinner? We did the dinner buffet last month and loved it! We loved the ground floor room except for when our neighbors were out on their patio - my son has severe allergies and they were smoking something they shouldn't have been smoking!

 

[LakeAriel]

Wow! Thanks for your report. We will be staying at Universal for the first time in a few weeks and we are so excited! PBR looks beautiful!

 

[Minniespal]

I'm really enjoying your trip report Cass. We are staying at PBH in November and although I've styaed there before I'm really excited about our next trip.

 

[NashvilleTrio]

Awesome report! We stayed at PBH for the first time this past June and absolutely fell in love with it! Thanks for all the great pictures too!

 

[Cass]

Thanks everyone! okay... our next meal was at Trattoria del Porto, which is right next to Mama Della's. This restaurant is a little more casual and you can order from the menu or take the buffet for 29.99.

We enjoyed the food, and there was plenty of selections

Bread & butter (placed on your table)

Cheese Platter (FYI this is an identical platter to what is served in the Club Lounge at 5pm)

Cold Meats (also served in the Club lounge) & marinated veggies

Garden salad & Caesar Salad

The left hand item is large cheese raviolis, and the right side item is roasted vegetables (carrots, mushooms, tomatoes)

The left hand item is a spicy corn salad that was really tasty, the right item was a cold chicken dish with marinated vegetables, also very good.

This is the pasta station, there is a Chef with several kinds of pasta (no whole wheat ) and several sauces and toppings to choose from, they make your custom pasta dish, right there in front of you.

Carving Station - with Roast beef & gravy or horseradish and they also had baked monkfish that they were slicing up

Kids Station, pizza, french fries, chicken fingers, mac & cheese

Fresh fruit platter

Kids Desserts platter

Desserts

They had a dessert chef preparing mixed berries with a sabayon sauce

the chef also had a blow torch and was making creme brule'

I am missing pics of all kinds of other things - there were several more salads & vegetable choices, there was also a hot soup (Chicken with Barley)

Woody Woodpecker stopped by to molest my daughter

and Marmaduke (as my Sister called him!) I had to tell her he was Scooby Doo

Character interaction was just okay, honestly Woody & Scooby are just not as fun a character as say Pluto and Donald Duck, they tried but fell short. I think Spiderman would have been a lot more interesting, and in fact once at the RPR Shaggy and Scooby came through and were lots of fun - Shaggy sat with us and ate our french fries LOL.

All and all this was a very good dinner, good quality food and many choices, my DD loved her pasta and went back a few times. I had loads of fruit and veggies and left feeling satisfied. Fay enjoyed the desserts and had a few different ones! I would recommend the Trattoria del Porto.

 

[martinacris]

Welcome back !!

I'm sure you all had a great time !The photos look great, as well as the food ones. I'm sure you ate well ..but you must have been a "good girl" with all those yummy desserts all around you !

I would love to see more photos and read how the parks were !