When it comes to picking accommodations for your Orlando vacay, there are a LOT of choices!
There are so many questions! Where should you stay? On property or off property? Which property — Disney or Universal? How much should you spend? What qualities are important to you when it comes to dining and location?
That’s part of our job here at AllEars — to make this tricky choice a little easier to answer.
We recently stayed at one of Universal Orlando’s resorts, Cabana Bay, and had a fabulous time. Like most resorts at Universal, it’s owned and operated by Loew’s Hotels. This one is considered a “Prime Value,” with rates for a standard room starting under $100 a night in the off-season. But the resort has TONS of amenities at a great price, making it a terrific choice for families visiting Universal Orlando.
Let’s check out the room!
Cabana Bay Room Tour
Cabana Bay rooms come in a variety of styles — some are “motel” style rooms where the door faces outside, and others have hallways and face inside like a standard hotel. Their rooms range from standard two-queen or one king rooms up to family suites that sleep six and two-bedroom suites that sleep eight.
Our room was a standard room (but with a preferred pool view) with two queens.
As you can see, the room’s color palette fits right in with the resort’s retro theme!
While nothing overly exciting design or size-wise, we found it to be a comfortable room with plenty of space.
A small table and chairs make for convenient extra seating next to the retro-themed dresser and TV.
In the dresser, there was a small refrigerator.
And on top there was a coffee maker ready to roll!
And here’s that view we upgraded for:
(To be honest, it was around $5 for the upgrade so it was totally worth it! But not sure I’d pay a LOT just to look at the pool.)
The room had fairly standard hotel amenities — such as a closet with luggage rack, ironing board and iron, and safe.
The bathroom had a vanity with towels and a small hairdryer.
If you have lots of hair, I recommend packing a hairdryer if you use one — this little guy would take forever to dry my hair!
There’s also a separate shower and toilet area to round out the bathroom.
The bathroom featured adorably retro themed toiletries, which were a great touch!
Overall, the room was perfectly clean and comfy — exactly what we needed to rest our weary heads before a day full of spell-casting and raptor-wrangling in Universal Studios! And for under $100 a night!? A STEAL!
Beyond the nice room, we were quite impressed with other amenities at Cabana Bay. For starters, it’s walking distance to Universal’s theme parks, which makes for an easy morning.
The walk took less than twenty minutes and was a very scenic and leisurely way to start my morning! (Bonus: I was walking to Early Park Admission which is when resort guests are admitted an hour early!)
If walking doesn’t appeal to you, they also run buses about every 15-20 minutes to and from the theme parks.
But what if you want to take it easy at Cabana Bay? Well, there is lots to do! For starters, there are two huge pools.
Both have their own pool bars which serve water-side eats and drinks as well as a unique pool feature. The Atomic Pool has a large slide, and the Hideaway Pool has a LAZY RIVER!
There are also firepits where you can enjoy a fire side cocktail — or roast a s’more!
Want to test your luck on the lanes? Then head to the Galaxy Bowl!
This is such a fun and unique addition to a value resort! Guests of this resort only can sign up at opening time to reserve a lane. It’s around $12 a bowler for shoes and bowling for an hour, which makes for a great and economical evening.
Cabana Bay has so much going for it — it may actually be the best value resort in Orlando.
In our experience, Universal’s Cabana Bay exceeded our expectations for a value resort. The rooms were standard (but clean and comfy!), but the amenities such as the Lazy River and Bowling Alley really kick it up a notch! Plus you can’t beat being walking distance to the theme parks. We already can’t wait for another stay!
For a full tour of Cabana Bay, including food reviews, check out this AETV Video!
Have you stayed at Cabana Bay? Let us know in the comments!
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I agree wholeheartedly with this entire review. I’ve stayed twice now at this resort. During my first stay, parts of it were still under construction, but I was still so charmed by it, it topped my list of places to stay a year or two later when I planned a weekend stay for Halloween Horror Nights and the newly opened Volcano Bay. Another very nice perk of this hotel is its proximity to the special resort guest entrance for Volcano Bay, since the water park is right next to it. (Plus, if the hotel accommodates you in your wing of choice, you could be a literal 3-minute walk from your room to the Volcano Bay resort guest entrance, which is especially convenient for taking advantage of early entry. The line to get through security was six people long, and this was on a gorgeously sunny Saturday morning!)
Another nice bonus in my case: Charging everything to my hotel room. In fact, I ended up losing my room key at the water park – most likely sacrificed to the Krakatoa gods – but being directly adjacent to my hotel allowed for a quick remedy to this situation. It took me all of 20 minutes to walk to my resort front desk, explain my issue, get a new room key card, and walk back to my Volcano Bay lounge chair. It would’ve taken even less time if the line to get through security hadn’t grown a bit more by that point – the only potential downside of a Cabana Bay guest trying to leave the water park and return on the same day.
Another pleasant surprise I encountered during my stay: Even though Cabana Bay’s food court doesn’t remain open past midnight, the resort was keenly aware of the demand for late-night cravings among guests returning to their rooms after a Horror Nights event, so a special pop-up pizza cart was set up at one end of the food court, which seemed rather popular when I passed through. I would’ve seriously considered this option myself had I not already been carrying a box of Voodoo Donuts from CitiWalk. (I regret nothing.)
To be honest I would much rather stay at a Disney World hotel, than a Universal Hotel!!!! I like Universal but it is only a one day theme park!!! You can do both Universal parks in one day!!!! While Disney World is at least a week worth of parks maybe even more!!!!