Universal hotels

We stayed at the Royal Pacific last year, and we LOVED it. They have a great pool with this sort of beached cruise ship play thing with water slides and water guns, the rooms are really comfortable, the people were nice (mostly, I did get one kinda rude person at the desk.) I've heard the other two are good also, but it depends what you want. I think the Hard Rock might be the more 'partying' hotel. Just an impression. And I liked the way the Royal Pacific was set back a little from the rest of the resort, you couldn't really hear the screaming from the roller coasters. You can take a boat ride to get to City Walk or Universal, or you can just walk, it's really pretty and you can see some cool birds on the way. I'd go back in a minute, especially since it its TOTALLY worth it to get the unlimited front of the line privledges. I can't tell you how great that was. I kept riding the Hulk over and over, until my FH got bored and I had to leave. He doesn't do coasters. I just hopped off, ran around and got back on again! This was in April, too, although not Easter week, the one before. SO worth it.

The portofino has the biggest rooms, but the last time I was there (2 years ago) they were in need of a little updating. The Portofino is a very relaxed romantic feel. The Hard Rock is also a great hotel (with a great sand bottom pool that pipes the music in under the water) and was alot of fun to walk around becuase of all of the memorabilia. The only difference is that the rooms are slightly smaller than the Portofino. I liked both, but if I were to go back I would recommend the Hard Rock. I've never stayed at the other hotel, my mom did and she liked it, but she liked the Hard Rock better.

The great thing about Universal is that if you stay in their hotels, you show your room key at the lines and 90% of the rides have a separate shorter line that you wait on. I think the longest we waited for a ride was 15 mins.

Hope this helps!