Last month, my family and I had a chance to visit Universal Studios in Orlando with 29 other Macaroni Kid publishers and their families. I had not visited Universal Studios in over 20 years, and had never visited as a mom, and I was really excited to see what they had to offer for families. Universal Orlando Resort consists of 3 amazing theme parks: Universal Studios, Universal's Islands of Adventure and the brand new park that opened in May of this year, Universal's Volcano Bay water park.
Our hotel was a Universal property, Universal's Cabana Bay Resort. This retro-themed resort is colorful, beautiful & fun! Cabana Bay is a 1950's-themed resort, but with plenty of modern amenities to make your stay very comfortable. I loved everything about this hotel. We had an early flight so we arrived before check-in. No worries... we didn't have to keep up with our luggage! The hotel has a handy staffed baggage zone where they will check in and keep your luggage for you until your room is ready. We stored our luggage there while we enjoyed lunch by one of the swimming pools at the Hideaway Bar & Grill. This is a new grill with a great menu including nachos, hummus, Caprese salad, burgers, Cuban sandwiches, and more, and also has plenty of kids' options like Uncrustables and chicken tenders.
We checked into our room and found it to be very clean, comfortable and in a convenient location to the pools, lazy river and the hotel's amazing food court, Bayliner Diner. This resort is perfect for families, with 2 large swimming pools, a really nice lazy river, a mini fridge in each room and a retro style bowling alley. There is a Starbucks for the coffee lover in your family and the Bayliner diner offers a great salad bar, buffets, cook-to-order grill and a handy "To-Go" section great for grabbing a cereal bar, milk, Pop-Tarts and other convenient items on your way out the door.
The best part of this resort is it's convenient location to the parks. Catch one of the many available shuttles to take a 5-minute ride to Universal Studios or Islands of Adventure. For the new park, Volcano Bay, this resort has a sidewalk that you follow just a few steps down to a separate entrance just for hotel guests to the new waterpark. Guests of Universal hotels get admission 2 hours early to each park, which is well worth waking up a little earlier for and beating the crowds. I highly recommend this hotel for your stay. From the excellent and friendly service to the cleanliness and wonderful amenities, it was fantastic and I will definitely stay here again when my family returns to the Orlando area.
After a good night's rest, we ventured out to explore our first park, Universal's Islands of Adventure. Ranked #1 Amusement Park In The World in the TripAdvisor® Travelers' Choice Award 2017, this theme park offers fun for all ages. Obviously one of their most popular attractions right now is Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey, a virtual reality ride where you soar above Hogwarts castle following Harry Potter himself. This ride was a little too intense for my 7 year old daughter, but for older kids and adults, it is a lot of fun, and Harry Potter fans will love it! We really loved the Seuss Landing area of the park, including a fun Cat in the Hat ride perfect for all ages. Both of my girls enjoyed watching a "dinosaur egg" hatch at the Jurassic Park World. With a 2-park pass, you can travel back & forth between Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure on the Hogwarts Express train ride.
The second day, we visited the neighboring park, the original Universal Studios Orlando. We loved the rides, the kids play areas and the character appearances in this classic theme park. Whether you like Depspicable Me Minions, pets from The Secret Life of Pets (including a wonderful Pet Actors live show), the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, or the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, you'll find something for everyone in your family at this huge theme park. We really enjoyed the magic Wizard wands, which you can purchase prior to your trip or in the park. My girls are 11 and 7 and had the best time using the map that came with the wand to find areas of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter that interact with their wand "spell". The employees were really helpful for kids like my youngest who had a little trouble with figuring out the motions of the spell, and the delight you see on the faces of kids once they get the spell to work is great!
My husband and I are both kids of the 80's so we loved seeing the Back to the Future DeLorean car and loved taking the kids on the original E.T. ride. The Curious George Goes to Town Playground was so much fun for our 7 year old and she talked about it for days. Fievel's playground is also fun for the little ones.
Universal Studios has provided Child Swap areas in each park. To me, this is one of the most genius ideas a theme park could ever offer. Worried about not being able to ride much because your baby or toddler is too young? Child Swap will solve that problem for you. Each ride has an indoor, air-conditioned Child Swap area, with a diaper changing station and a cartoon playing for the kids. These zones allow one member of your party to wait with the children in a comfortable, fun environment while the rest of the group rides. After the ride, the adults can switch places, without having to wait in long lines, so everyone gets a chance to ride. How great is that?
Our last, but definitely not least, park to visit was Universal's new Volcano Bay. With the motto "Water is life. Life is joy", Volcano Bay is a Polynesian-themed park surrounding an incredible man-made (but very realistic!) volcano, Krakatau Volcano. This 200-foot tall volcano spews fire and water and the park makes a circle around it. Volcano Bay is a 53 acre park with four zones: Wave Village, River Village, Rainforest Village and Krakatua, which includes the volcano. Yes, there is a ride ON the volcano and thrill-seekers will love it. Those brave enough can climb the steps to the top of the volcano and get in a tube which plunges you hundreds of feet within seconds down to the foot of the volcano where you land in a water slide.
Volcano Bay has a system new to theme parks that allows you to skip the long lines by choosing your time for the ride. Every guest is issued a TapuTapu wearable wrist device, and with the power of the TapuTapu™ wearable, there’s no standing in long lines, carrying rafts around the park, nothing between you and a full day of fun.
We really enjoyed the lazy river and the not-so-lazy river rapid lazy river. The beach area was a perfect place to relax after a busy day, and having the early entrance to the park had given us plenty of time to stake out some beach chairs and umbrellas.
We had a wonderful vacation at Universal Orlando Resort and can't wait to go back soon. Universal has done a really good job of making sure their parks offer something for everyone, and staying in a Universal property gives you so many perks you won't have otherwise. I highly recommend this for a vacation with your family.
Disclosure: I received complimentary park tickets for myself and my family to facilitate this review. No additional compensation was received and all opinions are my own.
