Great value hotel in walking distance of Universal Orlando
18/04/2018 Wayfairing_Man, Buffalo, New York
My adult family stayed 3 nights at the Best Western Universal Inn in Orlando in April 2018. Having been to the Universal Orlando Parks several times before, we wanted to be able to walk to the park fr... more
My adult family stayed 3 nights at the Best Western Universal Inn in Orlando in April 2018. Having been to the Universal Orlando Parks several times before, we wanted to be able to walk to the park from our hotel without parking in the Univer$al garage. We narrowed our search down to several hotels and settled on the Best Western Universal Inn. The Inn, depending on the traffic lights, was roughly a 15 minute walk from the Northside of Major Blvd and then down the Universal Blvd sidewalk until we hit the Valet Parking checkpoint entrance into Universal Orlando. The Universal Blvd sidewalk is nicely shaded and has a view of the Hard Rock café lagoon. Our hotel room was clean, quiet and roomy and the beds were comfortable. Our breakfast was included and had the typical BW fare enhanced by several hot food selections. I would have given out a 5 star rating except for two things. Parking is tight in front of the hotel. Once a spot opened up, we parked our car there for the duration of our stay. When we checked into the hotel about 10 pm, we asked the night manager some questions about getting to Universal and about the Hard Rock café entrance. In so many words he told us in a brusque manner that it wasn't his job to answer these questions and that we would have to wait for the day guy to get the answers we needed. (He did not say he didn't know the answers to our questions which would have been a different story). Given that this BW has Universal Inn in its name, I would have thought that all hotel employees would be team players in doling out Universal information to their guests or at least have a handout.
That said, I would stay at this hotel again. I should note that there is a lot of highway work going on in the Universal area right now that our GPS had a hard time getting us to this hotel on Vineland Road (coming from WDW). Exits that used to exist don't seem to be there now. I would update your GPS maps to assure you have the latest info. less