Thoughts on the hotel: Very nice and I definitely want to stay here again, preferably next time on a "real" vacation. I liked the decor, the pool area was great and I loved the quick walk to the theme parks. We didn't do the parks other than one night of Halloween Horror Nights because we were anxious about what was going on at home and we weren't comfortable boarding the cat since she was already so nervous after the eight hour drive plus being in a new place. We did walk over to City Walk daily just to walk around and it was really nice to have restaurants, etc. so close. We did not take the water taxi, we prefer walking especially since we weren't doing our usual theme park routine of walking 10 or so miles a day : ) The gym was also really nice, I spent some time there. I went swimming every day, in a stroke of good luck, I had never removed one of my swimsuits from the car after my spring trip to Disney World, as I did not think to pack a swimsuit in this circumstance, so that was some stress relief just being in the water.
Traveling with a Cat: Not an awesome experience despite the hotel being so pet friendly. We don't have many visitors to our home so our cat is very set in her ways and used to just my husband and I and the house. I so appreciated that they allowed cats while we were in this situation, but I don't think I would try a vacation just for fun with the cat. She did enjoy the views, our window had a great view of the dog walking area and squirrels so that did keep her entertained, but she was traumatized every time she could hear housekeeping. In fact, I have a European trip planned for next fall and my father is going to fly from Michigan to South Carolina to pet sit so we can go as I decided she couldn't handle being boarded since she was stressed enough being in a strange place with us there. I also found the rules a little confusing - like you aren't supposed to leave the pet alone in the room, but the only penalty is if the pet is loud and disturbs other enough to where they come check the room, it is a $10 fee and if it happens multiple times you will be asked to leave. I totally get that for a dog, but for a cat, I don't see them causing a disturbance so I felt like the rule was less clear for cat owners. I will admit, we left her in the room when we would go have dinner and the one night we went to Halloween Horror Nights. Please don't think me an awful person, she is a 10 year old cat who sleeps about 18 hours a day so she was not bothered by our absence, she was always napping when we would return. I do prefer the Disney rules for pets that you can't leave them alone more than six hours - we probably would have done a day in the parks had that been the rule at Universal, but we didn't want to get in trouble and have to find another place to go while we were evacuated.
Food:
Voodoo Donuts: ODB Donut - Definitely recommend going here, it is just a cool place. The donut was a little sweet for my tastes though, but I'm still glad we went.
Bula Pool Bar: Surprisingly my favorite. The fish tacos are so good! I will go again even if I don't stay at Royal Pacific next time
Room Service: Hawaiian Pizza - not very tasty, kind of bland. We did this our first night since we were too exhausted to do anything else after a night of no sleep and a long drive. Edible, but barely.
Earl of Sandwich at Downtown Disney: We always enjoy their food, hubby got the original and I got the ham & cheese. I take off half the bread and it is so worth the calories
The Chicken Guy at Downtown Disney: I hadn't heard of this prior to this trip, we just stumbled upon it. We both really enjoyed it, we shared an order of five chicken strips and fries and it was more than enough for two people and pretty reasonably priced.
Antojitos: I had the chicken street tacos, my husband had a burrito. We enjoyed this, there was live music while we were there and I thought prices were very reasonable for a sit down restaurant in this area. We wanted to try it since we have been to Bubba Gumps and Margaritaville many times and thought we'd try something different.