We did a split stay at Universal in order to take advantage of the free Universal Express Unlimited Passes that come with a stay at a Premier Resort. Since the Premier Resorts are more expensive, we opted to spend our first night in a Value Resort. The two on-site value options at Universal are Cabana Bay Beach Resort and Endless Summer Resort, which has two sides – Surfside and Dockside.
I’ll be honest, I didn’t spend too much time on this decision. I knew we’d be arriving around dinner time and checking out first thing the next morning so it was really just a place to sleep. The colorful retro rooms at Cabana Bay looked like they might be a little too intense for me so I focused on Endless Summer Resort and did just a little bit of research to choose between the two sides.
Surfside is the smaller of the two resorts, with only 750 rooms to Dockside’s 2000+. Due to the size difference, Surfside has only one pool while Dockside has two. Again due to the smaller size, the food options and amenities are also fewer at Surfside. But rather than being negatives, these things gave Surfside a slight edge for me. We would only be there for about 12 hours – we didn’t need a ton of amenities and having a smaller resort to navigate (and the associated smaller crowds) was appealing to me.
The lobby of Surfside is bright and airy and adorned with (you guess it!) surfboards. There is a Starbucks and a food court, the Beach Break Cafe. The food court is open from 7am to 11pm, serving breakfast, lunch, and dinner and anything in between. It offers a variety of options, from pancakes and eggs in the morning to sandwiches, quesadillas, pizza, pasta, and grilled items for lunch and dinner, as well as grab-and-go drinks and snacks. The food was decent. Certainly nothing to write home about but the convenience and variety were appreciated.
The rooms were relatively basic but very nice. The decor was tasteful, the room was clean, and the size was good for this class resort (313 square feet). The Universal value resorts’ standard double rooms have two queen beds, which gives them a huge advantage over the Disney value resorts, which only have double beds. With two adult-sized teens, we probably would have gotten cramped if we had stayed multiple nights, but for one night it met our needs perfectly.
Keeping with the resort’s theme, the pool is shaped like a surfboard and the poolside bar is called the Sand Bar. While the pool isn’t huge or filled with exciting extras like waterslides or splash pads, it is nice and wasn’t crowded. It provided the perfect place to relax at the end of a long day of driving. There were plenty of lounge chairs and tables for us to enjoy our drinks from the bar and dinner from the food court.
All in all, I was really impressed with the value of this value resort. We have never stayed at a Disney value resort because they seem too cramped (both in room size and bed size). Surfside has good sized rooms and comfortable queen sized beds. It is clean and bright but not overly busy. I don’t know that we could have stayed here more than 2 or 3 nights but it was certainly a great – and affordable – option for a single night.
