If you've read our Resort Guide Basic Overview, and think a Premier Resort might be right for you, but you're still undecided, this guide post is a must read. If you have no idea where to even start with booking a room, read our Basic Guide to Universal Orlando Resort before reading this. If you are ready to book your Universal Orlando Vacation, reach out to Jillian at Destination Dreaming Travels for a FREE travel agent to handle all of the details for you.
Every single Universal Resort guest will have access to enter one of the theme parks 1-hour before official park opening. The specific park will change throughout the year, so make sure you check the app or official Universal Orlando website for you dates. If driving, there is a parking fee at every resort. Free EV charging is available with your paid nightly parking fee. Free shuttle bus transportation is offered at all resorts to and from the parks and City Walk. If flying, you must make your own arraignments to get from the airport to the resort.
The Basics
This category is the top tier at Universal Orlando. This is also the category where we have the most experience with stays. Resorts included in this category are Lowes Portofino Bay Hotel (PBH), Hard Rock Hotel (HRH), and my all time favorite, Lowes Royal Pacific Resort (RP). We stay at RP the overwhelming majority of our trips.
There are two big perks to staying at this level of resort. As realtors say, it's all about location, location, LOCATION. They are the closest resorts to the parks and City Walk. It's a very short walk from both HRH and RP. The walk from PBH is bit further, but still completely walkable. With this category, you're not necessarily paying for a nicer room per se. You're paying for convince in access to the parks. They also have water boat taxis and shuttle buses. There is absolutely no reason to ever take a shuttle bus at these three resorts, because the distance in walking from the resort to the parks is the same distance as walking from the bus drop off location to the parks. I honestly didn't even know buses were an option from these resorts until I checked the Universal website while doing research for this article.
The number one reason we, and many other people stay at this category of resort, is because you get FREE Unlimited Express Pass (EP) for everyone in your room included when staying at a Premier Resort!!! This is Universal's skip the line system. Since this is the unlimited version that's included, you can ride the same rides over and over again while skipping the lines. If you were to just add Unlimited EP onto your day and pay for it out of pocket (say you're staying at a value resort but want to skip the lines), it starts at $125 per person per day and can get as high as $379 per per person per day (according to their website) to add Unlimited EP! Getting this included for free is definitely worth the extra cost in nightly room rate if you have 3-4 people in your room. If it's just one or two people, you might come out cheaper buying it separately. If the cost is worth it will also greatly depend on the time of year you go. We have been there in the off season and most of the lines were less than 20-minute wait. We didn't really need EP since the stand by lines were so low, and probably could have saved money and stayed at a less expensive resort. The nightly room rates are lower during these times, and buying EP out of pocket will be lower as well. We LOVE having the included Unlimited EP during busier times when it might cost you around $269 per person. Room rates will be significantly higher, but no where near the extra cost of buying EP separately. We were there Easter weekend this year and defiantly took full advantage of those Express Passes. The use of EP will start the day you check in (even if your room isn't ready yet) and it will be good through park closing the day you check out. Essentially, one night will get you two days of free EPs. Keep in mind that the more expensive the rack rate of EP, the busier the parks will be.
Chances are that if you check in early, your room will not be ready yet. No need to worry, the resort will issue you a "key" that you can use in the parks to still get entrance to the EP lines. These temp cards will not give you access to your room since you don't have a room assigned yet. Once your room is ready, head back to the front desk and they will reissue you a new key that will unlock your room.
The Rooms
For the extra cost, the rooms are nothing fancy, and still don't have balconies (except a very select few at PBR). Remember, you're paying for Express Passes and location. There are some thoughtful touches in the rooms. I love that the sink knobs at HRH are shapped like music notes and the art work is made from painted drum sticks.
Standard Queen rooms will sleep four and standard King rooms will sleep two (or three with a rollaway bed for an extra fee). At this level of resort, you do have the option of booking a Club Level room. The room itself will be the same, but you will have access to a private lounge. In the lounge you will find food and drinks throughout the day. If you are planning on spending the majority of the time inside the parks, the extra fee for Club Level is probably not worth it. However, if you plan on spending partial days in the parks with a significant amount of time at the resort, these rooms might be a good option for you because you will save money on food costs.
These resorts also have upscale suites that are not affordable for, well, the overwhelming majority of people. Hospitality Suites, Governatore, and Presidente Suites at PBR all start over $2,000, so I won't even be covering those on here. I will say that if you have the means to afford these, all of the Hospitality and up (except at HRH) have two separate bathrooms. That is a huge perk. However, it is more financially affordable to simply book two adjoining rooms if having more than on bathroom is the main reason you want a suite.
They all offer Kid's suites which start just under $900 per night. At PBR, these are cutely themed Minion Suites. At HRH, they are rightfully named "Future Rock Star Suites". At RP, their family suites are themed to Jurassic World. All of these family suites do only have one bathroom.
The Cost
Royal Pacific is typically the least expensive room in this category, although we have found room rates cheaper at Portofino Bay before, which is usually the most expensive. Starting price for RP is around $405/night, HRH around $450/night, and PBR around $485 per night. These are the cheapest prices I could find on line during the weekday in early September. During summer, winter break, fall breaks, spring break, etc., the prices can double. This category usually has pretty good discounts for Florida state residents and UOAP (Universal Orlando Annual Passholder) rates. We just booked a room at RP in mid September for $295 per night with our UOAP discount, and on the weekend too! The same week PBR has Passholder rates for $380. Ask me why it pays to be a Passholder....
The Food
We love to eat! Heck, I think eating is the main reason my husband goes on vacations. When you step up to Premier level resorts, the food is also elevated. Our favorite foods are actually found at the resort restaurants! Jakes American Bar is The Kiddos favorite Universal restaurant. We usually eat here more than once per trip. It's found at RP Resort. We've eaten the majority of the menu items and I can tell you that their Mediterranean appetizer platter and homemade pretzel rods are two of my favorites. I actually did NOT order either of those on our trip last month, and instead tried the Prosciutto and goat cheese flatbread. I now have a new favorite meal!!!
If you want a super fancy meal, check out The Palm at HRH. Ok, so I know this is technically a chain restaurant, and I never recommend eating at a chain while on vacation. It's a small upscale chain that got its starts in Manhattan. When you eat here, you'll notice caricatures drawn all over the walls. This is a nod to the original restaurant where famous cartoonist would dine and draw on the walls of the restaurant. We really enjoyed searching the walls for people we recognized. The food here is wonderful. Just know that this is going to be an expensive meal. Our meal for four people was over $700, and that was a few years ago. I imagine that same meal would be closer to $900 now with sharp rise in food costs. A good chunk of that was The Kiddos $200 lobster (which she ate in its entirety). She asks to eat here ever single trip. The answer is always "no". For a more reasonable meal, The Kitchen has wonderful food and we really liked its rock n roll theme.
Portofino Bay is an Italian food lovers dream. Bice is their upscale restaurant with handmade pasta and fresh Italian desserts made in house by their pastry chef. This is also a chain restaurant with location all over the world (and several in Florida). Our favorite restaurant at PBR is actually a quick service restaurant called Sal's Market Deli. The Kiddo and her friends ate a pizza from here every single day of our Girl's Trip. They even asked to leave the parks just to go back to the resort and eat Sal's pizza. I devoured their calzones. They were soooo good. The sandwiches were also amazing. Since this is a quick service, it's nice to be able to pick this up and eat it at the pool.
The Pools
Ok, hear me out. I know this doesn't seem like a big deal, but it is really awesome. HRH is all about the music, right? The theming continues into the pool area with underwater speakers inside the pool! My favorite thing to do at a pool is just lay and float on my back in the water (I can't sink if I try). The Kiddo likes to pull me around by the leg while I float along like a dead body, lol. It really is awesome to just be floating along listening to music. At all of the resorts, you will find these giant Connect Four boards, ping pong tables, and hula hoops. There are also usually Team Member lead activities. All of the main pools at these resorts have a sand area and feature zero-entry. HRH and PBR both have waterslides.
The pool bars now have a way to order food and drinks by scanning a QR code attached to your chair or table and have the food and drinks brought right to you. That's right, no more searching for a waitperson walking around or having to get up and ruin a perfectly good tanning session to get a blended drink anymore. Your chair/table number is attached to the QR code for simplicity. This is a total win!
While we're talking about pool bars, some of our favorite foods are found at pool bars. Bula at RP has some of our favorite nachos ever! We actually got these and took them back to our room to eat a few weeks ago. They were much heftier of a serving than I remembered from previous trips. We didn't eat all of them.
I will say though, that we found getting around PBR to be quite difficult. We got lost several times and there were lots of different sets of stairs we had to use to get to the pool main pool (they have three separate pools). There were ramps for accessibility, but it was still like a maze. The Kiddo and one of her friends wanted to leave the pool early one day and go back to the room. They got completely lost and I had to go find them.
Around the Resorts
Take some time to simply walk around the resorts. You might notice that Hard Rock Hotel is designed to look like the Beverly Hills Hotel, which was the actual front cover artwork of The Eagles Hotel California album. Portofino Bay, from a distance, looks exactly like Portofino, Italy. Royal Pacific is beautiful with its Polynesian flora and theming.
Again, Portofino Bay is not the easiest resort to navigate. It is also the furthest away, which can make a difference when walking in the summer when it's hot. However, it does have a spa, which none of the other Premier resorts have. While we're talking about PBR, I will mention that they have live musicians performing every evening from a balcony, true Italian style. They sing classic opera and something they have dubbed "popera", which I can only assume is modern pop songs sung in classic opera style (it sounds super fun). We have never seen this as the last time we stayed here was in 2021 and much of the entertainment had not yet returned from where the resorts closed down during 2020.
All of the resorts have arcades, jogging trails, shopping. Those amenities are pretty standard at any resort in Orlando. I want to talk about what sets Universal's Premier Resorts apart from all of the others. This distinction can really be seen at HRH. I've mentioned before that Hard Rock Hotel is all about the music. One of the really awesome features at this resort is The Sound of Your Stay program. There are three different services under this program. tracks® is a music streaming service where celebrities personally picked their favorite songs to go onto this playlist for you to listen to. picks® is a feature where you can rent one of 20 different Fender guitars to play in your room. If playing/learning to play guitar isn't your thing, you can check out a real turntable and records through their wax® program.
Continuing with the awesome perks at HRH is their Velvet Sessions. This is a periodic concert series that includes the show, appetizers, and cocktails. This is specifically a 21 and up event. Tickets are sold separately, and to the best of my knowledge, you do not have to be a resort guest to buy tickets to these events.
If concerts and guitars aren't you thing, then check out the luau at Royal Pacific. This separately ticket show happens every Saturday night. Your ticket includes an all you can eat buffet of Polynesian style foods. There is also the live entertainment that most of us think of when we hear the word luau. If this still isn't enough options for you, RP also has a biannual beer festival featuring over 50 drinks by local breweries.
In Summary
When it comes to convince, nothing beats staying at a Premier resort. The theme parks and City Walk are a short walk away through beautiful walking paths. These resorts are also beautifully themed. For people like us who LOVE riding all of the rides, the included Express Unlimited Pass is the number one reason we always stay Premier.
I hope this helps to give you a starting point when trying to plan your Universal Orlando Vacation. For help booking a room and park tickets check out Jillian with Destination Dreaming Travels. She's a FREE travel agent waiting to help you book your most magical vacation ever.
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