Universal / Cabana Bay Short Review

[jalpert]

I know a lot of the quick and dirty reviews helped me a lot, so I wanted to do one myself. We arrived late on the 17th and left early on the 22nd giving us essentially 4 full days. We stayed at CB and had park to park 4 day passes. Of course, everything didn't go perfectly but we had a great time.

-Cabana Bay looks great. Great theme, clean, just a cool first impression.

-Arrived at 1am on the 18th. Despite calling ahead and informing them of our late arrival, they didn't have our room for us and we ended up in an accessible room in another class. Given 2 meal vouchers, handled very poorly and would have gladly given up the 2 vouchers if we didn't have to be hassled. Move process was horrible, they weren't very flexible at all.

-Actual room we paid for was very nice. Just a standard pool view. However, the one request we had, away from elevators wasn't met. Our room was literally in the elevator lobby.

-Breakfast was horrible. Standard stuff, pancakes, potatoes etc. Probably had something to do with the 10 minute wait to get rung up. Everything was ice cold by the time we had a chance to eat it.

-Pools are is VERY nice. Multiple pools, lazy river, slide, waterfalls, lots of chairs, lots of sun, lots of shade, lots of everything you look for in a pool area.

-Lunch was fantastic. We split a BBQ brisket grilled cheese and it was delicious. Chips too, great.

-Service at the resort on the whole was far below average. Bad service at front desk, luggage services, incorrect information given, sometimes completly ignored.

-Universal was fun, we went primarily for the new Harry Potter land.

-We don't wait in lines, every single ride we did was a walk on.

-Gringots was a 20 minute wait which was too long, so we hit it the next day first thing as a walk on. This ride is probably better than anything Disney is currently doing, but not as good as Forbidden Journey. Forbidden Journey is the best ride in Orlando.

-Transformers was meh. Too many rides at Universal are the same, you can easily save the world 7 or 8 times before lunch. It's not that it wasn't fun, but compared to the Harry Potter stuff, it's a step down.

-We also rode Despicable me, the Hogwarts train, MIB, ET... Fun rides.

-We ate lunch at Cowfish and it was VERY good. The burger had great flavor, great toppings. Service a bit slow, but very forgivable for a good meal.

-We had dinner at Tchoup Chop in the Royal Pacific and it was beyond excellent. Chicken and waffles sushi roll was delicious and creative. Asian skirt streak was PHENOMINAL. Korean fried chicken just good, but back to PHEONOMINAL for the banana cram pie.

-Lunch at Mythos was a bust. Terrible, HORRIBLE service. Waiter slamming the restaurnt, his employer, slow.... food meh. Waiter brought us a free desert, some kind of shooter, and it looked like it was a week old. Gross.

-Dinner at Mama Della was good. Carbonara very solid, service good, anti-pasto not great, but sea bass dinner was good. We got some chocolate bar for dessert which was good as well.

Overall, we had a really good time. Rides were fun if not a bit repetitive. Cabana Bay is seriously on the right track, if they just fix some service issues it would be a very excellent place to stay. Had a lot of great food, just a couple flat out disappointments there.

Feel free to ask any questions.

 

[vatmark]

Thanks for the review. Did you have a reservation for Mamma Dellas? Hmmm now you having me rethinking Mythos. We have eaten there once 2 years ago and it was good. I wonder if things have gone down hill since then.

Ann

 

[jalpert]

Thanks for the review. Did you have a reservation for Mamma Dellas? Hmmm now you having me rethinking Mythos. We have eaten there once 2 years ago and it was good. I wonder if things have gone down hill since then.

Ann

We did have a reservation.... We decided on Monday night that we wanted to eat at Mamma Dellas, tried to get a reservation and nothing. We noticed that reservations were available for Tuesday so we did that and shuffled some things around. Mamma Dellas was really good, but it wasn't better than Tchoup Chop. Their garlic infused oil that they serve with the bread was also crazy good. Also, I wouldn't recommend trying to walk up without a reservation. The place is really small, and it was busy on a Tuesday night.

Since Mythos went downhill early for us, we weren't really in the mood to drop a boatload of cash. Also, for lunch, I just wasn't in the mood for a big heavy meal. The fact that the food wasn't great for us could be the simple things we ordered, except for the dessert, that was nasty. Maybe one of their other dishes are better. Something odd about Mythos being a Mediterranean restaurant, I saw pita and humus on a table on the way in, asked the waiter where it was on the menu.... it wasn't (it was only served with one of their salads). Also, no Gyro and pita or Gyro sandwich either. I thought those were a couple pretty obvious menu items not present for a restaurant of that cuisine.

 

[HM]

Thanks for your review.
I'm sorry CB was a bit of bust for you, especially where service was concerned.

 

[pcstang]

We stayed at CB, in the middle of our week, last year. The biggest difference I noticed was the staff as compared to the deluxe hotels. Front desk was fantastic but, other staff were not very friendly. Something I never experience at the deluxe hotels. I have to say,RPR has the best staff top to bottom.

 

[damo]

Please let management know about your experience. Also let them know that you have posted it on a popular universal website.

Your experience at Mythos is not the norm. I've eaten there for the past 15 years and have yet to have a bad meal. I'm sorry that it was so bad for you as it is usually great. I have never thought of it as Mediterranean. Just Greek God themed.

 

[kbelle8995]

Cowfish has really good sushi and their burgers are delish. Damo is correct please let universal management know about your experience. I would let Cabana bay management know as well.

 

[kjpotter]

I had a great stay at Cabana Bay 2 weeks ago. We did not have any issues with the service. We were in a Family Suite and even with 4 adults and 2 kids we had enough room. Our only complaint was that we could not figure out the phone in the room. We finally just walked to the front desk to ask for more towels.

I never ate at CB, so I can't say much about the food.

 

[jalpert]

Thanks for your review.
I'm sorry CB was a bit of bust for you, especially where service was concerned.

Yah, that's the thing. CB wasn't a bust. It was actually nice. Great room, great pool, great theme. I'm not expecting concierge level service or anything like that, but it was pretty bad. However, they've done all the hard stuff right, if they could just fix some of the easy stuff...

Please let management know about your experience. Also let them know that you have posted it on a popular universal website.

Your experience at Mythos is not the norm. I've eaten there for the past 15 years and have yet to have a bad meal. I'm sorry that it was so bad for you as it is usually great. I have never thought of it as Mediterranean. Just Greek God themed.

I had a feeling my experience at Mythos was not the norm. I do think a lot of the negativity had to do with the waiter, right off the bat. Sometimes, it's hard to overcome an experience when it starts that bad. If it didn't start bad, we'd be in a better mood, might have had drinks, might have ordered more expensive things. When we think a place is going to be a bust, sometimes we just try and get out as cheap as possible and that can compound the issue.