Cabana Bay or Coronado Springs?

[Rebsy]

We’re trying to plan a late summer vacation and are trying to decide between these two hotels. We stayed at Coronado Springs last summer and loved it, but I wanted to try to save money this year and was looking at other options. My son, who’ll be 7, loves the pool and water slides, so that’s been our top priority and Cabana Bay looks like it has a nice pool area. My husband is worried the pool area and hotel will be too crowded (Coronado Springs seemed relatively quiet last year) and said we should just pay the extra and stay at Coronado again. If we stay at Cabana Bay, we’ll likely do 2 universal days and one WDW day. If we stay at Coronado Springs, we’ll just do WDW. We’ve never done Universal, so it’s making the decision even more challenging (and my son loves Harry Potter). Any thoughts? Pros, cons?

 

[Koalayum]

While I can't really speak to the summer crowds, I will say that Universal is great for resort hopping. Cabana Bay has two nice pool areas, but there's also Aventura and Sapphire Falls across the street that are easy enough to get to if you want to check out their pool scene as well. Or any of the other universal hotel pools, really. Cabana Bay is also right next to Volcano Bay water park. As far as overall crowdedness goes at the hotels, you may not really spend that much time at the hotel itself to notice, depending on how much time you plan to spend in the parks. Cabana Bay is a pretty large hotel. I've been there a few times and never really felt that it was uncomfortable due to the crowds. If your son is a Harry Potter fan, I think it's definitely worth to visit for that alone.

 

[DisneyLifePapioNe]

We’re trying to plan a late summer vacation and are trying to decide between these two hotels. We stayed at Coronado Springs last summer and loved it, but I wanted to try to save money this year and was looking at other options. My son, who’ll be 7, loves the pool and water slides, so that’s been our top priority and Cabana Bay looks like it has a nice pool area. My husband is worried the pool area and hotel will be too crowded (Coronado Springs seemed relatively quiet last year) and said we should just pay the extra and stay at Coronado again. If we stay at Cabana Bay, we’ll likely do 2 universal days and one WDW day. If we stay at Coronado Springs, we’ll just do WDW. We’ve never done Universal, so it’s making the decision even more challenging (and my son loves Harry Potter). Any thoughts? Pros, cons?

Haven’t stayed at CB, although we have been enough to be very familiar with this resort and others opinions, we have stayed at Coronado for a week over 4th of July, the biggest thing that bothered me at Coronado was the bus service and the long walk to the pool.

I’m willing to bet Coronado would be nearly double the cost of CB.

Universal is a really awesome place.

If I were choosing between these 2 options I would pick CB!

 

[smiths02]

One thing I would consider is your son's height. I would say that Universal can be enjoyed more over 4'0'' (so he can ride Forbidden Journey). If he is a shorter than that and you will be back to Orlando in the next few years, I might stick with Disney this time and maybe just do Universal the next time (I think Disney will be really crowded 2021 for it's 50th, which might be a good time to go to Universal).

 

[bobbie68]

Hi Coronado is on of our favorite disney resorts and Cabana is one of our favorite Univ. resorts. I agree with pp if your son is tall enough for the rides at Univ. I would stay at Cabana. It is an awesome resort. We usually go in the middle of the summer and outside of the hot tub I never felt it was overcrowded. We were able to do everything else. The one thing is you would not get express passes but at Cabana, being at the end of the summer you probably wouldn't need them. We personally like to have express pass so we will do one of the other resorts half of our stay. HP worlds are amazing and I am sure your son will enjoy it.

Cabana is very family oriented atmosphere, as where Coronado is a little less. You can't go wrong with either based on what parks you want to do.

Good luck.

 

[Ksquared]

I agree that you can't go wrong with either resort. I think you need to decide if you'd rather spend the time just at Disney or would you rather focus on Universal this trip and Disney another time. I personally think 3 days is such a short amount of time to split between Disney & Universal. If you think you will be back in the area at some point, why not do all 3 days at one place and go to the other on your next trip.

 

[glocon]

We’ve stayed at both and would stay at both again. In your case I would stay at CB and not buy that WDW ticket just yet. Agree that 3 days is a short time to split between UO and WDW. You may not want to hop over to WDW. Maybe have a resort day or a pool hop day.

 

[Jedimom33]

We love Universal and HP, and I vote for staying on site there at CB, if you're planning on time in US/IoA. We've not stayed at CB though, so no opinions on it, but have heard/read about the pool being great.
Definitely take note of the height requirements for Gringotts/FJ, to make sure your son can ride. If not quite tall enough, I'd wait on a trip to US. There are plenty of other great things to do tho in Diagon Alley, wands, ice cream, etc. but the rides are so much fun.
Staying on site makes it so easy to get back to the room, have pool time, eat on City walk, etc.

 

[nkereina]

Cabana Bay is a fine resort, but if this is your first Universal trip, I would highly recommend express passes. Especially in the summer months. Express passes are not included with stays at Cabana Bay. You can purchase them separately but then the cost ends up being at or near the cost of a stay at a Universal deluxe resort, which DOES include express passes. So planning it to maximize your money can be tricky.

I would probably opt for Coronado/Disney only trip, and then plan a future trip for Universal only where you can stay at a Universal deluxe resort and take advantage of EPs.

 

[Rebsy]

Thanks for the advice! We’ll be there a week - just wanted to have a lot of hotel/pool time since my son seemed to enjoy that as much as the parks last year. We actually decided to “compromise.” We found a package for Portofino Bay with the buy 2 get 2 day tickets that came out to about the same price as Coronado Springs with 3-day WDW tix (and was just slightly more than buying express passes and staying at Cabana Bay - I wasn’t sure we needed the express pass, but my husband thinks they’ll be invaluable in the Orlando summer heat). My son’s pretty tall for his age and loves roller coasters, so I’m not terribly concerned about height restrictions. He’s really excited. Again, thanks!

 

[Disneyfan754321]

We do universal studios one year and Disney the next.
We stay at one of the top lowes hotels so we can use the express pass.
Its a completely diffrent kind of experience. We have boys so universal is there place. Harry potter, spiderman, jurrasic park, transformers ,minions and sponge bob are there jam.
Take him to volcano bay water park

 

[Jedimom33]

Glad y'all will be staying on site! We always get Express Pass, so glad you are doing that. IT will save SO much time, and allow for multiple rides (we usually do MiB about 3-4 times in a row, while the stuff is in the lockers.) Hoping on a future trip we can try Portofino. We've only done Royal Pac and HRH. Please do a review/let us know how Portofino stay goes! Enjoy the trip!!!