Months ago, my brothers starting planning a summer trip to Universal. I didn't know Peyton would still be in the UK, or covid would be everywhere (again), but when my mom decided to tag along, I knew we had to go too. We can't be the jerks that live an hour and a half away and are the only ones who don't go. I played around with hotel deals (Why oh why does my family ALWAYS pick the most expensive/hot times of the year to come here?!) and eventually settled on staying one night at Cabana Bay (because it was cheaper), and one night at Portfino Bay (to get free Express Passes with everyone else). We arrived Saturday afternoon and checked in.
We got a family suite- although I think every room is like this unless you're in the tower, though I could be wrong. But, it's nice, because you have some extra space and mini kitchen.
In addition to the pull out couch, you get two queen beds that can be closed off by way of the sliding partition.
There's one bathroom- but everything is seperated. The toilet has it's own room. Theres a shower in another room (with a sink), and another sink out in the open for everyone. A good set up for bigger families.
Calib and Hayden thought the living room set up looked like a psychatrist office. It devolved into maddness, and Hayden trying to diagnose Calib.
The lady at the front desk told us the slide at the pool was closing at 4, so we headed down there because I did not want to miss the slide! Hayden and Calib opted not to swim (they said it was too cold- and to be fair, I'm not sure it was even 80 degrees, a rare cool day thanks to a tropical storm hitting South Florida- in an otherwise warm month). Instead, they played some ping pong.
And the slide was fun!
Back on the psychatrist couch...
Where they killed time while Asa and I made dinner. It's easy to bring stuff from home when you have a microwave too!
At that point, mom had been in the park most of the day with Clint and Jessica. They arrived early Saturday morning. Cort and his family were over at Disney for one more night, but they decided to come over so we could all meet up. Still, there's only 11. Peyton was still in the UK. Last time we were together, for my birthday, we were missing Jess, who had to work. So, I'm not sure the last time we had all 12. 2019, maybe?
Still, I bet this one makes the Christmas card.
After a few rides, mom took us all out for some froyo on City Walk.
Back in our hotel room, Calib decided he'd take the couch. Hayden didn't want to sleep in our room with us though, so he took the floor. I thought that might happen, so I brought along a sleeping bag and he used the couch cushions to make himself a cozy bed. You don't have to be too picky where you sleep when you're 16.
And since Asa and I are used to our king sized beds- and these are only queens, we each took our own!
We got up early on Sunday to check out of one hotel and into the other. We moved to Portfino Bay, a "premire" resort because they came with Express Passes to skip the lines. Since everyone else was staying at Royal Pacific (another premire resort), we needed the passes too if we wanted to hang out. You get them on check in day and check out day, so staying one night would get us two days of Express Passes!
We wanted to stay at the Royal Pacific, but they were all full. And, there weren't any passholder discounts to be had there. But Portfino Bay still had rooms on the passholder discount, so we decided on that one. I'd not been there before, but now it's one of my favorite (if not THE favorite) hotel in Orlando. And that's saying something. The theming of Italy is on point. The only downside is there is a LONG walk from your car to your room. The place is MASSIVE. Gorgeous, but Massive.
Lucky for us, it wasn't just any old room on a passholder discout- it was Club level!
We showed up at the tail end of breakfast, and while usually eating INSIDE is not our thing (and by usually, I mean we haven't really done it much since the pandemic started), the lounge is broken up into rooms and this room was totally empty!
There were cute little booths too!
It was a decent breakfast. They had some hot items, lots of pastries, yogurt.. that sort of thing.
It was only about 10:30 by now, so our room was not ready. We made our way through the resort...
..stopping along the way for some games..
..And to check out the pool... (you know it's a fancy pool when they have cucumber water available)...
..and we made our way to the boat to ride over to the parks. You can walk, but unless there is a line for the boat, it's much faster to just hop on board.
In the parks we met up with all the Sattlers (Check out Garrett's shirt), and went on some rides. Unfortunately for me, Universal has a lot fewer rides I can handle with my motion sickness, so I often ended up holding all the stuff.
A few hours later our room was ready, so we took the quick boat ride back while Calib stayed behind with the Sattler's to ride a few more things...
Plus it was time for afternoon snacks at the club level. We loaded up on veggies and carbs and lots of drinks.
And then headed up to our room. It's a normal room, but slightly larger for the Club level. You come into a nice little foyer and a hallway.
The foyer is complete with a coffee maker.
And the bathroom was pretty fancy.
The room had two queen beds..
And a sitting area..
No balcony for us, but we did have a nice veiw of the pool. The pools are both right next to each other on either side of the hotel. So rooms in our wing faced either the quiet pool or the beach pool. We got the quiet pool. But, we were also the very last room next to the elevator, meaning a trip to either pool was SUPER fast. And since the resort is so big, this was super convienent.
Although, like I said, the parking was way far away. It's an underground garage and it was a trip. When we went back to get our stuff out of the car, we moved closer to the elevators (by telling Hayden to stay there and save a good spot), but it was still a trek.
Luckily on the way down to the car, we ran into Calib coming up in the elevator, so we had an extra set of hands to bring everything up to the room.
And then we took a pool break!!
Hayden opted to stay in the room for some quiet time, and when we came back up he told us they were filming something down by the other pool.
That sign said "hot set". We're basically famous now.
At 5, dinner was served. We didn't really need it, as mom was taking everyone to Cowfish. Initially we went down to get some things we could stick in the fridge for late night snacks, but we could resist sharing a small plate of mac and cheese, salad, and beef tips. It was just a couple bites for each of us, so we were still hungry.
And we had snacks for later!
It started POURING down on our trip over to Citiwalk. Luckily we were pretty covered on the boat, and by the time we arrived it had stopped raining and the sun was out. We sat and waited for everyone else (I insisted we get there early so nobody had to wait on us). Asa, however, stood over in the shade.
There's also a rule in this house I can't watch the Lightning games, because they lose whenever I watch, so Asa and Hayden caught the end on his phone while I had to stay far away.
Hayden wasn't interested, so while they were watching the Lightning win, he shared with me all his notes on Calib's personality.
And eventually we caught up with everyone else, and got ourselves a table on the balcony.
We got some awesome crab dip, and delicious truffle fries for appetizers.
Garrett was having a rough time finding something on the menu he was interested in, but I talked him into sharing food with me and got his spirits up.
Most everyone was ordering sushi, and he was just not into that (though we did get him to try some)
We ended up splitting some seasame chicken wings, and a bento box (which comes with a burger/slider, cucumbers, edamame, a sushi roll and sweet potato fries)
I didn't take a picture of my bento box, because I was busy talking to Garrett, but there's Calib's. Garrett actually did awesome and tried everything- even the sushi. (It was just a California roll). He didn't care for it, but turns out he loves edamame!
After dinner we all headed into the park. Everyone felt bad for me always holding stuff and asked what I could ride.. and basically I can do anything in Dr. Suess land, so we headed there.
(The Lorax has gotten an upgrade, I think. I don't remember him being gold!)
But then everyone was off to ride the new Velocicoaster. I couldn't believe Gwen had talked Hayden into going on it, because he does not do roller coasters. But, peer pressure is a hell of a thing.
Meanwhile, I had some stuff holding buddies.
As it turns out, Hayden loves roller coasters now. He was talking about how he wanted to do them all the next day! He even stayed behind with everyone to do Hagrid's roller coaster, while I made my way back to the hotel room.
Look how pretty it is at night! I did get a little lost trying to get back to the room. I didn't really know the room number, because we were the last door on the end. But there's lots of hallways and towers. I had to text Asa eventually for the room number. But, I did find in a lizard in one of the hallways on my adventures!
It took them about an hour to get on Hagrids. They all liked it, including Hayden. Cort took this picture and sent it along to us. Hayden was already talking about getting up early so he could fit in lots of roller coasters the following day.
When they arrived back in the room, we had about half an hour of pool time left and we had some snacks.
Then we all got tucked in for the night. Hayden again opted for the floor over sleeping with Calib.
Meanwhile, Asa threatened Calib pre-emptively for snoring.
I famously sleep terrible in hotels. It's nothing on them, I'm just not great at it. Still, we were up bright and early the next morning to grab breakfast at Club Level. Asa and I went down to get stuff for everyone in the room.
Asa and Hayden were up and ready to get moving- but Calib took some more convincing.
They went ahead to go on rides, and I packed up the room on my own. It took me two trips to the car, so I had 4,000 steps before I even got to the park! I did drive over to the Royal Pacific after check out to meet up with mom, and then we walked to the park together to see everyone who had been there all morning.
It was also matching shirt day! I made everyone Sattler Family Vacation shirts, and then divided everyone into a house. I mean, it's pretty obvious who is who.
Holly, Clint, Jess and mom headed off for lunch after the family picture- while Cort, Asa, Calib, Hayden, Gwen, Garrett and I went into the park.
And I requested we ride the Suess Carousel. It's one of my favorites!
We also did Posideons Adventure.
And Flight of the Hippogriff before heading back to the Royal Pacific for some pool time.
By then, though, the others were done with lunch and I suggested we all go for dessert. Mom was buying, so we ended up with macaroons, truffles...
...and three giant milkshakes! We got the cookie jar one, the red velvet cake, and the key lime pie (Cort was fine with two until he saw Key Lime pie and then he was all in for three).
These things are something!
We shared the milkshakes, and got some waters before deciding to head to their hotel for some pool time.
A little while later, Gwen went up and brought down all the macaroons and truffles and we ate them in the pool.
Then the afternoon storms came for us. We all went up to Clint, Jess and mom's room for some more snacks, and stories about ass broccoli and slient football.
After the rain cleared, our first stop back in the parks was Rip Ride Rocket. Mom, Jess and I again stayed behind to hold stuff. Everyone just started handing grandma phones and she ended up with a whole lot of them.
Later, I was the sole stuff holding person in Diagon Alley.
And Cort got one more family picture.
We took the train over to Hogsmeade, and had dinner while we decided how to spend the rest of our evening.
Ultimately, after a dinner of burgers and fries Cort, Asa, and the kids decided they could fit in one more trip on the Velicoaster before closing, while the rest of us took the Hogwarts Express back over to Universal to catch the fountain and firework show.
A few minutes before the show was over, Asa texted me they were off the ride, so I said goodbye to everyone and headed back over to the Royal Pacific to catch up with the guys and head home. Asa was not thrilled that we had stayed through closing (he did have to work in the morning), but on the upside it was Monday at 10pm- which meant we could take I-4 the whole way home without any traffic. We made it home in 90 minutes flat! That hasn't happened in years.
Overall, it was a fun weekend. But, exhausting. And, a little nerve wracking. I'm not sure we'll be able to continue to stave off covid (like everyone I know has gotten it at this point), but I was so concerned about getting it so close to our anniversary trip. So, we were careful about masking indoors. So far, no sign of covid. And spoiler alert, I'm writing this the night before we leave for our anniversary so hopefully we are good to go!
Next up: Guess who's back from his three month sabatical?
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