Rolling in the Upside Downs - 11th July, Day 8, Universal and moving to Cabana Bay

[Rescuer]

Rolling in the upside Downs - Day 8 - 11/7/22 - Moving on….

Index is here

Plan
Move resorts ✅
Universal✅
Toothsome ✅
Ioa❌
Bowling❌

Upside downs 0

Steps 13k

Weather - another scorcher but cooled down nicely at night.

It was moving day. I’d read loads on social media about the length of check in lines at Cabana Bay so in my usual style I was a bit concerned about that. I thought it might be a good idea to do check in early and send Dh over to do it while I finished organising stuff at dockside and had a shower. I’ll miss this nice view.

Ds decided to go over with him. They caught the bud from the hotel over to the parks and swapped on to a Cabana Bay bus. All very straightforward. They got over around 9.25am and there was no line at check in.

The guy checking them In mentioned it was tricky to find us a room? But that we’d be in the Continental Building on the 2nd floor and they’d text us our room number later. Every other universal hotel we’d checked in too had always sent a welcome text but there was nothing.

In the meantime I’d been trying to call Aer Lingus to add an extra suitcase on the way home but I kept getting cut off.

Ds and Dh had no issues coming back via the parks again. We left before 11 and did our check out online. The reception was pretty busy so it was good not to have to do it in person.

I booked an Uber Xl so we could move all the luggage. The premier universal hotels and I think sapphire falls can move your luggage between resorts but not the cheaper ones. It was $10.

We dropped the luggage at luggage services and the check in desks were quiet so I went to ask about the welcome text and they had had the wrong number. I was so glad that was sorted as I didn’t want to have to join a line at prime time later to ask why we didn’t have a room.

We thought it would be good to have a wee wander to familiarise ourselves with the resort. It was big and bustling. Quite cute though.

We wandered round the pool area and saw the lazy river which looked nice.

We explored the food court and grabbed some breakfast.

Cinnamon buns for Ds and Dh. They loved them. They’d finished off the leftover cheddar biscuits as well.

Some bacon for me. More expensive at Cabana Bay and more expensive than the cinnamon buns. I’d had some cheese and almonds earlier.

There were No refillable mugs available to buy they said they’d run out and they wouldn’t be back in again till Friday, ( it was only Monday) not impressed at all! I’d really loved our stay at Dockside and was very much hoping Cabana Bay would grow on me but for my first impressions I wasn’t loving it.

I really wanted to see how close we were to sapphire and Aventura as I really spending time in both those hotels so we crossed over the road and headed to Sapphire to catch the boat into Citywalk.

I love Sapphire Falls. I truly think this is a deluxe resort without the price tag. It has the most beautiful smell ever. I find it a wee bit difficult to justify the price there though as there’s no express and Aventura next door is normally much less. We will definitely stay there again at some point though.

We headed down to the boat deck and had a lovely wee chat with the 2 guys doing the security who jokingly commented on how we had Dh carrying all the stuff. We explained it sad resort move day and they were asking us about our trip and which of the hotels we liked the best.

Didn’t wait too long for a boat, we were a little early for our Toothsome reservation so we wandered in the legacy store. This is one of my favourite Universal shops. Dh had spent the whole of the Feb holiday eyeing up a Jurassic World hoodie but they didn’t have it in his size. Well it was still there but this time in the size he thought he wanted. He hummed over it for what felt like an age, wandered round, kept wandering back to it and… didn’t buy it? !? Ds and I were slagging him off to no end for this.

I’d never really fancied Toothsome all that much, it seemed a bit style over substance but we’d watched a few vlogs where it was mentioned and came out favourably, I knew well in advance Ds and Dh wouldn’t be up for the crazy milkshakes as Dh said and I quote ‘don’t think I’m having one of those things just so you can write about in your trip report.’ Well that was me told then 😂 It was him that wanted to go…

We didn’t wait too long for our table. I’d really recommend if you’ve booked a table online getting them to check the phone number they have is correct as quite often it never dropped the zero after it put in the +44. We had much less problems with that this trip when I always checked.

We had a look around the shop while we waited. Some absolutely gorgeous looking stuff.

It took about 10 minutes for our table. Ds took himself off to sit outside for a bit as the lobby was fairly busy.

It’s an interesting place, our table wasn’t great, quite near the door but our server was lovely so we were happy enough.

Dh had the shrimp Mac and cheese, he really enjoyed it.

Ds had the shrimp Caesar salad, he thought it was good.

I had the flounder with almonds and green beans and swapped the potatoes for asparagus. I couldn’t decide if this had been dusted in flour before being cooked or not as it had a lovely crisp finish, This was lovely.

As I said they were not interested in the milkshakes but they did fancy the apple pie to share. They really enjoyed it. It was one of their favourite sweet things.

Annual pass discount and paid again with a Mardi Gras card so felt like an extra discount.

While we were at Toothsome we got a text to say our room was ready. It was indeed the 3rd floor in the Continental Building.

Every time we’ve been at Universal we talk about going on a hunt to find the bit of the Berlin Wall that’s around the side of Hard Rock and today we finally did it. Pretty interesting and sparked a really good discussion with Ds.

We decided to have a little park time this afternoon.

And take ourselves in To see the Bourne Spectacular. I have to admit in Feb when I saw it I was a little distracted as I was more interested in getting my hands on Mardi Gras parade spaces 😊. I was keen to see it again as even with my limited attention span I’d thought it looked very good. I was also fairly convinced that might have been where we caught covid in Feb as they pack you in like sardines into the main area before it starts.

It is really well done, a mix of live action, film, special effects and it all blends together fairly seamlessly. Definitely worth a watch. I do have very fond memories of Terminator in there as well.

We had a mill around the shop. I do like all the monsters stuff in there and they had the Blumhouse merch for HhN.

And that was us for park time…

Before heading back to the hotel I fancied a wee treat as the other 2 had had a really nice pudding but not content with their delicious apple pie they decided to have one as well.
No added sugar strawberry and vanilla. The other 2 had dole whip and coconut. $17

We only had a few minutes wait at the stop before a Cabana Bay Bus turned up.

We headed straight to find our room, we went to the start of the Continental Building, level 2 and walked, and walked and walked. We were in the very last section of the building. It was a very long corridor.

The layout of the family suite was ok but straight away we all knew that the layout at Dockside had been better for us. On first impression the room looked way less bright that I expected both in lighting at colours. It looked a wee bit tired. It was maybe just that the colours at Dockside made things look brighter.

Don’t know why I have no pictures of the bedroom bit?

On closer inspection I thought areas of the room were a wee bit tired and grubby. I’m not saying it hadn’t been cleaned I think it had but if my granny had rubbed her finger along some of those surfaces she’d have been doing her dinger! I did buy antibacterial wipes the next day to go over some of the surfaces, first time ever on holiday. Dh said I was just being paranoid.

We had a car park view which to be fair I hadn’t paid for anymore than that so no complaints. I was a bit worried that it might be noisy with car doors opening and shutting but I never once experienced any car park noise.

Was I happy with the location, not so much but it was good for the pool and lazy river just not so good after returning to the hotel if you were tired.

Dh trekked back through the looming wilderness to the lobby to go and collect the luggage and after moaning at me for moaning was complaining himself at the length of distance he has to push the luggage cart on the carpet. Considering we were not travelling light that was probably fair.

We had originally thought bowling might be fun this evening, I’d read somewhere that it opened at 5 for booking, this wasn’t the case and the girl looked at us like mutants from outer space when asked if there were any spaces. Even the cancellation list was full by this point.

If you want to bowl, you need to be at the resort at 1pm when the Galaxy Bowl opens, there’s a line and it seems to sell out fairly soon after that. It’s a shame bit it totally rules out a theme park day and a resort night including bowling.

I was a little Cabana Bay disillusioned at this point I won’t lie. We headed to the food court where there were still no refillable mugs.

The food court is really cute. It reminds me of sci fi diner a bit.

I had the BRAZILIAN BEEF CHURRASCO
Marinated and grilled flat iron steak served with chimichurri sauce and choice of two sides. with mixed veg and cauliflower. It was really good. It was around $15.

Ds and Dh both had the chicken pasta Alfredo and liked it.

Asked again about the cups and what options we had - none till they arrive, I think the staff were as frustrated as the guests that they couldn’t offer anything to be fair. The wee guy on the till took pity on me and gave me a paper cup I could use which was lovely of him. I’d have been happy to pay for the mug now and use paper cups till they came back into stock but that wasn’t allowed.

We had a wander over to the other side of the resort and sat out and had a drink at the fire pit bit. It was a lovely evening, not too hot for once. Ds stayed out for a bit then took himself and his phone back to the room.

The pool bar was cute with a good menu.

Boring for us though. Sorry.
Beer for Dh and a seltzer for me.

A nice end to the evening.

I know I sound a bit negative about Cabana Bay, there were certainly a few things that niggled me. It’s not that I’m saying it’s a bad resort it just wasn’t making its best impression on me.

[Orlandoguy]

I’m sorry your not so keen on cabana bay, but it is a good few years older than dockside so will be a bit more rundown. The cup shortage is very frustrating as it can save you lots of $$$ , the staff at universal sounds great as always, looking forward to the next part of the trip

[mick]

Shame your first impression of Cabana Bay wasn’t very good ☹️

But some nice food today

Joan

[Lily8]

Another great day but disappointed for you about Cabana Bay. I remember you giving Aventura (and Sapphire Falls) such a glowing review, so this must have been disappointing in comparison. I suppose, as Orlandoguy points out, it is quite a bit older and therefore bound to be a bit more worn. I hope it 'grew on you' during the stay a bit more.

[Rescuer]

Originally Posted by Orlandoguy

I’m sorry your not so keen on cabana bay, but it is a good few years older than dockside so will be a bit more rundown. The cup shortage is very frustrating as it can save you lots of $$$ , the staff at universal sounds great as always, looking forward to the next part of the trip

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Thanks. I know and I tried to shake off the negative. Maybe if we’d done them the other way round I’d have felt different. Cabana was the last of the Universal resorts we hadn’t stayed it and I wanted to love it as much as the others but just not the resort for us.

Originally Posted by mick

Shame your first impression of Cabana Bay wasn’t very good ☹️

But some nice food today

Joan

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Thanks Joan, we’d been looking forward to trying Cabana Bay, first time I’ve felt we should just have stayed put.

Originally Posted by Lily8

Another great day but disappointed for you about Cabana Bay. I remember you giving Aventura (and Sapphire Falls) such a glowing review, so this must have been disappointing in comparison. I suppose, as Orlandoguy points out, it is quite a bit older and therefore bound to be a bit more worn. I hope it 'grew on you' during the stay a bit more.

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Thanks Lily. Yes I don’t think I’ve encountered a universal resort up to this point that I wouldn’t be more than happy to stay at. We still had a great time and made the most of the resort but there was certainly stuff that just wasn’t what I expected, I wonder if some of it was the size. We had no major issues and I don’t have any complaints just niggles if that makes sense.

[twogoto]

A shame about your first impression of Cabana Bay. Lucky you didn't have the crazy check-in wait though!

We had a room in the towers which I think you can tell are much newer (they also seem a lot bigger), though that was an even longer walk as we couldn't have been further from the lobby!

We're really looking forward to Sapphire Falls after hearing great things about it (from you ) and can see how Cabana Bay would be a little disappointing after staying at all the other resorts.

Loving reading along!

[Rescuer]

Originally Posted by twogoto

A shame about your first impression of Cabana Bay. Lucky you didn't have the crazy check-in wait though!

We had a room in the towers which I think you can tell are much newer (they also seem a lot bigger), though that was an even longer walk as we couldn't have been further from the lobby!

We're really looking forward to Sapphire Falls after hearing great things about it (from you ) and can see how Cabana Bay would be a little disappointing after staying at all the other resorts.

Loving reading along!

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I wanted to love it but for me I just prefer the others. I fully expected it to be better than Dockside but we’d had such a good experience there that it just didn’t match up despite being more expensive.

I don’t know if you have a thing about smells but the smell of sapphire falls is amazing, they’ve started selling a candle of it in the gift shop, Ds bought it for my friend we went to Florida with for a wedding present as she was obsessed by the smell😂 and I have the bath and body works room spray, frozen lake which is very like it too.

[Goldia]

Oh dear, dirty enough to buy some wipes isn't good. And a very long corridor at the end of the night is a right pain in the backside.

I never knew there was a section of the Berlin wall at Universal! How come?

[Rescuer]

Originally Posted by Goldia

Oh dear, dirty enough to buy some wipes isn't good. And a very long corridor at the end of the night is a right pain in the backside.

I never knew there was a section of the Berlin wall at Universal! How come?

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I wasn’t a fan of that walk for sure. It just felt grubby and a bit dusty, I’m not the fussiest but I wanted wipes before eating or preparing any food in the kitchen area.

I don’t know why it’s there I think it was the Hard Rock Cafe that acquired it rather than Universal, pretty cool it’s there such an iconic piece of history.

[OB1LukeLucas]

We love Cabana Bay but I suppose we perhaps had it when it was more new and lovely. The rooms were always great but I know what you mean about the long corridor walk down to the main hotel. I’m sure one year we had a lift that took us down nearer the pool Volcano Bay entrance….I may have made this up it feels so long since we have been there!
I would have been frustrated like you about the cups and the bowling. We have bowled there and had no problem although it may have been on our travel day home so we rocked up early and ate there before heading to the airport-I feel this is a lie but a quick look over my notes and I can’t find it (I’ve never managed a trip report but always wrote notes just in case ) The only bonus of Cabana Bay last time we stayed was the entrance into Volcano Bay. I always want to stay at Sapphire Falls as I do think it has such a lovely feel.