What a delightful, pretty, quiet place to stay in the middle of crazy Orlando. We stayed 3 nights with older relatives at the Portofino after staying on the DisneyWorld property for 2 nights. What a difference at Portofino. It is more adult, although there were plenty of families. More reasonable price and better food. MamaDelle's is great. It feels like Italy each morning you see the harbor. We were on the harbor side,near the square. Only hint would be avoid room numbers in the 90's - it's a long walk. and those rooms are away from the square,so you don't have much of a view. Also, not all the restaurants are open each night. Best to make reservations. Nice pool, great paths to walk to Universal Studios, or take a fun water taxi. 20 minutes from DisneyWorld.

My husband and I stayed here for the last night of our honeymoon and booked about a month before. We booked a king garden view room and were upgraded to a bayview king room. We were also able to check in at 10:30am so we could check out the Universal parks. Our room was beautiful and overlooked the bay were the transportation boats go to the parks. The bed was really comfortable and I wanted to steal the pillows!;) The toiletries were really nice and the hotel provided robes for guests. The only negative about the room would have to be that the water pressure in the shower was horrible! he bathtub was large though, at least larger than mine. We ate at Sals Deli for dinner and the Gelatieria for dessert. I found the food and drink prices to be more expensive than even on Disney property, which I found odd. By the way, when we returned from the parks, the hotel had a bttle of champagne and strawberries waiting for us in our room. What a surprise!!! That made the evening too! We plan on visiting again in October and can't wait.

My family and I stayed at the PBH for 4 nights and had a great time. We really enjoyed the hotel and would highly recommend it. Our room was very nice, very clean and the nicely decorated. The staff was very friendly. Everyone we came past, be it the bellman, front desk, housekeeping to the guy serving a beverage in the lobby was always courteous and said hello and smiled. There are three pools on site. The only one we utilized was the beach pool as it's the most kid friendly. The other pools are smaller and seemed more quiet for just laying around and having a drink so would likely expect that to be were more of non kid crowd to be found. In all cases we really enjoyed the pool. I'd like to see that they clean up the kiddie pool a bit (sprayers weren't all working and the soft ground covering used gets extremely hot) but my kids didn't mind and enjoyed their time.

Prior to booking my trip and stay at this hotel I read through several months of reviews and found a few that were negative (service, value, etc.). I can safely say that we did not have those experiences. We truly enjoyed our stayed and would definitely stay again. From a value perspective, this resort is somewhat expensive but value is in the eye of the beholder. The proximity to the parks, the boat transportation, the "front of the line" Express access were big for us. We had a standard Garden view room (with an actual Garden view and not a parking lot!!) and did not do anything from a Club perspective. We also did not really take advantage of the on site restaurants, just the pastry cafe' and bar and both met our expectations and again were, very friendly. On subsequent trips we'd look to spend more time at the actual hotel and take more advantage of the amenities.

The only negatives beyond what I mentioned above (more annoyances than things that would keep me from staying again) - outside of the cafe' they have several tables and chairs setup. It's a great setting overlooking the water and the plaza, however, most of the chairs seemed to have some sort of bird "poop" on them. They may not be able to do much about the birds but may need to more actively clean the tables and chairs. The other annoyance was the $14 (or $20 for valet) parking per night. I don't understand the extra change here as there seemed to be plenty of onsite parking. It just seemed like an extra unnecessary charge but we knew about it going in. It should just be complimentary (at least the self parking). The day we arrived the parking structure elevator was not working which wasn't great when trying to haul all our luggage. We ended up just pulling up to the door and unloading there and then re-parking. Again, the valets at the door were very friendly and accommodating so all it cost me was a tip. No biggie.

Overall, I'd recommend this hotel and would definitely look at staying there the next time I traveled to Universal.

We have stayed at PBH for a long weekend every year for the past 6 years. The resort is very consistent with regard to service and cleanliness. The pools are great and the front of the line access just adds to the appeal. I highly recommend this beautiful resort.