We stayed at Loews Portofino Bay Hotel - one of the three Universal hotels - a fun Italian themed hotel with a large center piazza complete with vespas and fine Italian cuisine.
First things first: Us gals headed to the spa for relaxing massages and the guys set off for Universal Studios to get started on rides
We had birthday dinner at Bice - oh man! It was SOoooooooo good. Lamb osso bucco with risotto for Kevin, and filled torteloni for me.
It was great staying so close to the parks - hop on the water taxi, catch a pedicab, or walk along perfectly manicured landscaped paths.
Once there, we found out that the week in between Christmas and New Year's is the busiest of the year - whoops! - so the parks were hopping. Luckily, since we were staying on site, our hotel room keys allowed us access to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter portion of the Islands of Adventure park an hour before the park opens + unlimited Express Passes - that allow us to skip to the front of most ride lines. Given the popularity of the parks since Harry Potter opened last year, I would NOT recommend going to the Universal Parks withOUT staying on site. Had we not stayed on site, we wouldn't have even made it into the Harry Potter area of the park (the space was over capacity by 8:30 am - a half hour after the park opened to the general public - and was blocked off to park guests...) + we would have been in super long lines for EVERYTHING all day.
Photos of our park adventures to come!
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