DAY FIVE - Wednesday, June 3rd - No Park/Chill Day
Over the last several Orlando vacations, I have learned to schedule a non-park day. These are always much needed and much appreciated.
On this day, we slept in, which for DW, DD and me, meant 7:30. The three of us went to the breakfast buffet at Islands Dining room while DS continued to sleep. It was very nice and we really enjoyed it. You can order off the menu if you want to but the buffet had every thing we wanted. There is also an omelette station which was very good.
After breakfast, we changed into our swimsuits so we could do some pool hopping. My kids aren’t all that into pool water slides for some reason. They do really like lazy rivers, though. So, I decided we should start with Cabana Bay for our pool hopping excursion.
Now that I’m thinking about it, this was actually where I made my biggest mistake. Not going to Cabana Bay but, rather, not making sure I knew how to GET to Cabana Bay. I knew I’d seen a sign on the path some where that listed Cabana Bay as a place you could use the path to get to. We started by walking over to near the Water Taxis and checking out that path. No sign for Cabana Bay there. Then, we walked to the end of the hotel past Tchoup Chop and where the Pacifica Ball room ends. (not sure how to describe it). From there, we could see the Sapphire Falls construction and could also see Cabana Bay but didn’t see any kind of path or instruction.
Now, let me stop here and say that had we started walking up the road away from the hotel, we would have intersected with the path to Cabana Bay. We would have first walked by the guard shack for the entrance and sign for the Royal Pacifica ball room. Then, had we hung a left, we would have been on the path and it would not have been that long of a walk to Cabana Bay.
What we did instead was walk all the way back to the front of the hotel and I went to the front desk to ask. They told me that if I went out the front door and went left and then left at the path that would get us heading toward Cabana Bay. So, we did this and, true, we did get on the right path and there were signs pointing to Cabana Bay. However, it was a more roundabout way and took longer than I had anticipated. Not to say the front desk was wrong sending us that way. They didn’t know that we’d just come from where we had and I’m sure, for sake of ease and understanding, that was the best way to send us. At any rate, we did finally make it to Cabana Bay!
Cabana Bay is really big. The first area we went into was the pool and slide. The lazy river, though, was in a different section.
A quick word about pool hopping at Universal. (at least based on our limited experience) We never needed to show or even use our room keys. At Royal Pacific, the gates just open when you turn the thing to open them. And no one ever asked to see a key. At Cabana Bay, the gates to the pool areas were wide open so we were able to just walk right in. I don’t know if that is always the case, but that is how it was that day.
We got to the lazy river area and it was really nice. We found a table right next to it and put our stuff there. I went to the Tube Shack and bought a couple of inner tubes. I paid $8 for one and $12 for another. It is my understanding (again, from other Liners) that you can bring your own tubes and they will even blow them up for you. Apparently, you can also borrow floats from Royal Pacific. And you don’t have to have tubes to use the lazy river, I just thought it would be more fun.
We spent a while in the lazy river and we also went into the pool near it as well. After a couple of hours, we were getting hungry. There is a nice quick service food area at Cabana Bay - Bayliner Diner. We thought about eating there but I really wanted to try Jake’s back at the Royal Pacific. We went ahead and got some snacks and drinks for the kids and then walked back to Royal Pacific (lugging the tubes, I might add).
The walk back was quicker because we saw the sign for Royal Pacifica ball room and turned off the path there. That led us right to where we had been earlier that morning and all I could say was “D’oh!”
We dropped the tubes off in the room and changed, then went to Jake’s American Bar.
We really liked this place. First of all, if you like beer, there is a beer flight where you get to select four beers to try. I think it was $10. If you end up ordering one of those beers, they only charge you $5 for it instead of $8.
For the appetizer, I wanted to try the Pretzel Rods. The family made fun of me but it was I who had the last laugh as this ended up being one of our favorite items there.
For entrees, DW got the Buffalo Chicken Pizza and I got the Beef Steak Flatbread (Caramelized Onion, Blue Cheese, Cabernet Glaze). Both were really good. DW liked hers so much that when we went there again the next day, she ordered it. She is loyal like that. 
After lunch, we went back to the room and just chilled out - reading, playing on the DS. Some of us had a bit of a “chat” problem and spent most of the time on their phone relating events of the day through the Lines app…This became known for the rest of the trip as “Daddy talking to his imaginary friends”. 
DD and I also went out at one point to go in the RP pool which was nice.
Around 5 pm or so, we decided to go over to City Walk to eat dinner. When we got there, it was really crowded. Looked like a lot of people were exiting the parks but just generally speaking, there were a lot of people. We walked around a little and went into a couple of the shops. Then, we went over to Bubba Gumps to check on the wait. In the past, this was one of our favorite places to eat in Orlando. We haven’t been to the Orlando one since before Landry’s bought them. We did go to one that opened up in Galveston (owned by Landry’s) which is about an hour south of Houston, and were very disappointed. The appetizers we’d loved in Orlando were more fishy tasting and just not as good.
