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Hotel overview
Location
On-site at Universal Orlando Resort™Property information
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Hotel details
Hotel advisories
General policies & fine print
General Information:
Room taxes are included in vacation price. Minimum night stay restrictions may apply. Reservation changes may not be permitted unless authorized by the hotel.
Please note:
Dockside Inn and Suites does not provide the benefit of Universal Express Unlimited™ passes.
Benefits (restrictions may apply):
-Early Park Admission to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter™ and Universal’s Volcano Bay™ one hour before the theme park opens. (Valid theme park admission required.)
-Complimentary transportation to all three theme parks and Universal CityWalk™
-Resort-Wide charging privileges with room key
-Complimentary delivery of merchandise purchased throughout the resort to your hotel
-Complimentary club-to-club access to select Universal CityWalk™ venues (age restrictions apply)
Ratings & reviews
TripAdvisor traveler rating
2551 reviews
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Aug 28, 2023Horror Nights
The hotel does its purpose for the Universal parks. The bus waits are not long and are on time. We went for Horror Nights so the bus hours were extending as well as the food court at the hotel. I do wish it stayed open a little longer so we didn't rush as much to get back but everything still worked out perfectly. The pizza and wings are amazing. I am currently planning another trip to go back for Horror Nights.
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Aug 27, 2023Not great compared to other stays
The hotel staff were very helpful and had good customer service, which is rare these days. However, the room was missing a pillow and when we notified them about this and asked for two extra it took 2 hours for them to respond. They did apologize and say they would send those up. In five minutes we were told that they ran out. Not great when you are already missing some. Not ten minutes later my husband went to go to the lobby to talk to them in person and ran into someone bringing a pillow. I appreciate they were still trying to help, but they didn't tell us and we could have been asleep when they did this. All of this happened around 11:30pm. We went to the parks the next day and we are old hats at this (been passholders for a decade). However, it was very disappointing to wake up early to go to our two favorite rides (Hagrids and Velocicoaster) and both were broken down. By the time they were up and running the wait times were astronomical. Unfortunately, they didn't stay open for long as they kept breaking down during the day. Also, we tried to order one dessert from the new Minion Cafe through the mobile ordering app to pick up at the window. It was wicked hot and busy so we thought, this will be great. The app didn't work and the restaurant was too busy to order in person. Again, super disappointing when we saved this for the end of the day so it didn't melt. Not great for something that should be working especially with how many people were probably trying to use it.
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Aug 27, 2023
Perfect hotel
Very clean, easy and pleasant stay. Friendly staff and food was great, slightly overpriced but it is a hotel so will be. Quick checkin and check out. Pool was brilliant and it was warm which was good at night for the kids
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Aug 27, 2023
Dockside home
We stayed as a family of six at Dockside. Previously we have stayed at Cabana Bay however we were looking for a larger base. We loved this hotel, it offered everything we needed. You get the experience of universal at a budget price. The rooms are simply decorated and the layout works really. Our room was clean and freshened daily with fresh towels. During our trip there seemed to be lots of Dockside staff cleaning and maintaining the communal areas. The pool area at tower 2 was great, perfect to relax after a day at the parks. It’s fantastic to see so many lifeguards manning one pool- I think there were four. Free towels are provided for the pool area which really helped. There is also table tennis and Jenga at the bar area. The cafe/restaurant is self serve, worked well for us as kids could pick what they wanted. There was a good range of food options with salad and fruit. We thought the prices were very reasonable. Approx $7 for children and $12+ for adults. The pizza is amazing and we may have sampled the peanut butter brownie more than once ! 😍 The gift shop looked ok, we didn’t buy anything as there was more variety at the parks. You can get a Starbucks if you want, however, we bought the Dockside drink package which allowed us to access endless drinks. Bus stop is outside the hotel, excellent service. I don’t think we ever waited longer than a minute to board a bus and it’s minutes from the park. The early entrance to volcano bay and HP was really helpful for us as we wanted to utilise the mornings at the park before it got too hot. The only cons (and they are minor) is the lobby can get busy as it’s a large hotel. We never struggled with the queues but there were occasions I saw people roping around the area waiting to be seen. Also, I did feel from an ‘eco’ perspective the hotel could go further to be sustainable. So much plastic is used (don’t get me started on wrapping individual fruit in shrink wrap) that a brand like universal should go further to reduce, reuse and recycle. We would definitely stay again in the future.
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Aug 26, 2023
Budget hotel
Floors left uncleaned for a few days. Hotel staff seemed overworked and underpaid. The hotel catered to a large number of guests so it was rather impersonal. Everything was overpriced and the food was very average.