The SATURDAY SIX Experiences a VOLCANO VIEW room at Cabana Bay Beach Resort

Last week this fine blog series covered our incredible experience at an Orlando Informer Meetup, and we mentioned that we stayed at our beloved Cabana Bay Beach Resort for the weekend. Not only did we stay at Cabana Bay, but the first time ever we booked a room in one of the towers that overlook Volcano Bay. Today we’re going to look at how the weekend went at one of our favorite onsite resorts and our (hands down) favorite park in Orlando, starting with…

# 6 – Checking Into Cabana Bay

One of the reasons we were having such a big weekend at Universal was that we were celebrating the 10th birthday for a kiddo who was finally tall enough to ride all of the coasters at Universal. When checking into Cabana Bay, the Team Member asked if we were celebrating anything during this trip and I mentioned the birthday. We were given a “Happy Birthday” gift that could be redeemed for an ice cream or an Icee. We went straight to the Bayliner Diner and poured a large blue raspberry Icee for the birthday boy.

While we were at the Bayliner Diner, I noticed that one of the refillable mug designs featured not just  a reference to Cabana Bay, but also Aventura Hotel and both Endless Summer resorts (Surfside and Dockside.) Now, Walt Disney World has been using one refillable mug design for multiple resorts for many years (featuring some E-Ticket designs by artist Sam Carter) but its rare to see something similar at Universal.

When I went back to the front desk to activate the room cards, Despicable Me‘s Gru was out and about meeting guests, and at one point even “helped” at the check-in desk. Cabana Bay has a good amount of unannounced characters meeting in the lobby during all my recent stays at the resort.

Made a quick run upstairs to check out Game-O-Rama and its still one of the best pound for pound arcades at any onsite resort at Universal or Disney. It packs a lot into a relatively small space.

Whole bunch of family friendly games, including multiplayer video games and stuff like skee ball, air hockey, and basketball.

However one thing I did notice is that the arcade is slowly morphing into what I see at places like Dave & Busters. Actual video games are replaced with machines where the object is just to win “tickets” or coin pushing games – something I like to call Degenerate Gambler machines – such as this one themed to Willy Wonka.

Maybe it just a North East thing, but when I was growing up in New Hampshire, a gambler’s lowest point was at the bars when they were popping one quarter after another into machines that drop the quarter onto a play field and the quarters get pushed out. This concept is now seen in ‘kid friendly’ games like the Wonka one above and the Wizard of Oz one featured in the picture below. At Dave & Busters I’ve seen similar machines featuring comic book characters and animated cartoons. Your money/credits go extremely fast and the vast majority of time you get nothing out of it. Not a fan.

# 5 – New Menu at Atomic Tonic

It is shocking what you will get for food at the Cabana Bay pool bars. I’m starting to wonder if Atomic Tonic is a test kitchen for Universal because the menu items are crazy compared to what you see at most value resorts. It wasn’t that long ago that Atomic Tonic was serving stuff like gyros.

However, on this most recent trip I was surprised to see that the Atomic Tonic menu now focuses on BBQ!

Not only that, Atomic Tonic has the best BBQ in all of Universal Orlando (granted, that’s not that high of a bar, but still!)

This was absolutely fantastic and I’m looking forward to trying the other menu items.

# 4 – Honolulu Hot Dog at Hideaway Bar & Grill

Last year on social media I saw a hot dog style guide, and when going through it I noticed the dog from Hawaii. The dog is billed as “Hawaiian sweet bread roll with a hole punched through it, ketchup, mustard, fruit sauces.” It stood out to me, because I remembered seeing a hot dog like that served at Cabana Bay.

So let’s head on over to The Hideaway Bar & Grill, the other pool bar at Cabana Bay. Here you can see on the left there is special signage for the Honolulu Hot Dog.

The Honolulu Hot Dog is an interesting take on the Hawaii version pictured in the style guide. The Hawaiian sweet roll that the pineapple bacon sausage dog is encased in makes it one of the easiest hot foods to snack on while walking the pool area. Instead of ketchup, passion fruit mustard and a lemon garlic sauce are used inside the bun. Definitely flavorful, but I would go for a more traditional hot dog or Italian sausage for future purchases.

One of the most quiet areas at Cabana Bay can be found at the Hideaway Bar & Grill. Take this concrete staircase up…

…and you’ll discover an outdoor seating area on top of the bar and grill.

It overlooks the pool area.

It’s also not a bad place to take photographs of your food. In the background we have Volcano Bay’s Krakatau and Cabana Bay’s Beachside tower. That’s exactly where we stayed during this trip so let’s head on over.

# 3 – Cabana Bay’s Beachside Tower

When you walk through the front doors of the Beachside Tower, you see this amazing retro poster for Volcano Bay. Just absolutely perfect.

Why they aren’t selling this Volcano Bay design as a print or a t-shirt in the Cabana Bay gift shop is beyond  me.

The ground floor contains some shared amenities including bathrooms…

…laundry facilities…

…and vending machines.

The elevator bank has three elevators, and we took one up to the 8th floor. After our great experience last year, I asked at the front desk if we could have connecting rooms. We ended up with Room 8808…

…and 8807.

Each room had the exact same design and features.

The bathrooms were still fully stocked with Zest soap and VO5 shampoo and conditioner. We are truly blessed that Cabana Bay still continues that tradition over a decade since the hotel opened.

Each room had this little table along with a couple chairs, which were perfect for our…

# 2 – Volcano Bay View

I mean look at this. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

Here’s a look from inside Volcano Bay looking up to where our rooms are. I’ll have to confirm with Len Testa, but because of the curvature of the tower building, I think we were in the rooms that were the absolute closest you could possibly be to Volcano Bay.

The pictures seriously do not do it justice. It was AMAZING.

There was a lighting package at Volcano Bay at night that was really cool. This photo was taken by me in the bed farthest away from the window. I thought it was great seeing Spaceship Earth while going to sleep at the Swan Dolphin Reserve, but this blows that out of the water.

Imagine waking up to this?!!!!

This room makes you want to visit Volcano Bay, which was exactly our last stop on our weekend trip.

# 1 – A Day at Volcano Bay

A while back I wrote an article titled Why You NEED a Cabana at Volcano Bay. Now you definitely don’t “need” a cabana because there is plenty of free seating in the park, but there are so many benefits that come with a cabana that I think it’s worth the cost (which, for our trip was $400.) Because we were staying onsite, we had access to the Early Morning Admission at Volcano Bay (9:30 compared to the regular opening at 10:00.) However, if you aren’t staying onsite, but have a cabana, you also get access to the Early Morning Admission. If you are a fan of the AquaCoaster, this is the time of the day where you’ll be able to get in up to a dozen rides with little to no wait. It is vital to get that extra half hour if you want to maximize your AquaCoaster rides.

While you can’t pick your cabana at Volcano Bay, Universal will reach out about two days before your trip and ask if you have any preferences where it is located. There are cabanas all throughout the park. I personally prefer the strip of cabanas that are located on the right hand side of the volcano, so requested that area. When I got to Volcano Bay, that’s exactly the area we were put in.

A big change in the cabana fruit basket, the Volcano Bay cookie has the new logo of the park on it.

Personally, I think the old logo is much better.

The Volcano Bay cookie may be the single hardest item at Universal Orlando to procure. The standard cabanas come with one cookie in their welcome basket, while the park’s family cabanas have a basket with two cookies. The park doesn’t sell the cookie, and as far as I can tell there is no way to even get a single extra one from the cabana area (believe me, I’ve tried. Both in person and on the phone ahead of time.)

Service at the cabanas has always been good, but Volcano Bay has really elevated the experience by letting you text the server directly for not just food or drink items, but to let the attendants know if you need anything else (like new towels.) The response time was immediate.

Food at Volcano Bay is better than it has any right to be at a water park. The coconut shrimp was on point.

Two of the most surprising places for good sushi in Orlando? Volcano Bay and Splittsville in Disney Springs.

There are several items – including the Coconut Shrimp above – that are only available to cabana guests. We also love to get the Island Coconut Crusted Chicken Sliders. Just fantastic.

The Volcano Blossom is the only beer at the park which is exclusive to Volcano Bay.

My favorite drink will always be an ice cold Miller Lite.

With our cabana being right next to the volcano, we were steps away from the walk way that connects our side of Krakatau to the other (which lets out near the popular Ohyah, Ohno slides.)

So after doing Ohno, we took the quick walk back to our cabana…

…through the volcano!

As always, Volcano Bay as a park was fantastic. Because it was about 75-77 degrees outside, it was a little “cold” for local Floridians, so the crowd level wasn’t that high. Outside of the AquaCoaster, almost all the attractions in the park were Ride Now.

The infamous Waturi Fusion ice cream machine was also fully functional.

So there you have it: The SATURDAY SIX Experiences a VOLCANO VIEW Room at Cabana Bay! See you next weekend for the latest installment of the SATURDAY SIX, where we’ll look at something fun from the world of Disney and Universal. If you enjoyed yourself, be sure to check out the THEME PARK ENJOYMENT INDEX, giving a monthly recap of all the theme park news you need to know (and a lot more you don’t need to know, but we’re gonna tell you anyway). You can also follow Your Humble Author on BlueSky (@derekburgan).

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Special Thanks to The Elite Brandon Glover, Digital Maestro Scott Walker, the bio-est of all reconstructs @bioreconstruct, Captain Cruiseline Scott Sanders of the world famous Disney Cruise Line Blog, my personal protege Hunter “Elvey” Underwood, artist @SonderQuest, the mighty maven of merchandise Hedgehog’s Corner, the SAT SIX Fun Squad of Parkscope Joe and “the Dadalorian” Nick, hot shot Michael Carelli, charter member of the Universal Four @Nitro230, the permit princess Alicia Stella, master cartographer Tommy Hawkins, and Hermione Granger’s tutor Megan Stump for their invaluable assistance with this article. Absolutely no help was added by SeaWorld Influencer @SuperWeenieHtJr. The SAT SIX is inspired each week by goofballs Aengus Mackenzie and LitemAndHyde and you Potterheads will  enjoy Meg’s other blog work over at the Central Florida Slug Club.