Just got back today from our Universal trip! We did 6 nights at Aventura (Sun-Fri) with park tickets for 5 days (3 park tickets). Below is our review:
Food
Bigfire - we both had the 16oz ribeye. Very good and our best meal we ate (close first).
Toothsome - I had a Rueben and wife had the short rib. Rueben was just okay, not spectacular. Short rib was pretty good!
Mythos - I had a lamb burger and I did not enjoy it, but was because I have never had lamb before. Wanted to try something new at this interesting place. The pita bread and dip was freaking awesome though.
NBC Sports Grill - this was by far the WORST restaurant. We both had the The Combo which was a mix of ribs, briscuit and pulled pork. The ribs were just nasty, the briscuit was dry and pulled pork was way too greasy. Highly, highly disappointed in this place and would tell everyone to stick to a burger there.
Hard Rock - I had the BBQ Burger here and it was descent, but I could not tell the difference between this and Red Robin's version. But we've never eaten at a Hard Rock before so bucket list check
Aventura
The room sort of reminded me of Pop -very modern'ish design. Everything controlled by the tablet is kinda cool. The beds IMO were not the most comfortable and I felt Pop's beds were better. Size wise it was just fine for two people for 6 nights. I wish they had more drawers than only three. Shower was great - good temp and pressure. They had a small bottle of shampoo/conditioner and soap for use. Room was clean and we had no complaints upon arrival.
The food here was just incredibly disappointing and Pop Century has spoiled me when it comes to resort food. I had the breakfast burrito, hamburger, and pizza from here and I am really disappointed in the food quality coming out of Aventura. The only thing my wife (who kept eating chicken fingers and fries because that was all that was good to her) and I kept thinking was how we missed breakfast bagel sandwiches, burgers and pot roast from Pop.
The pool was okay. Really wish these resorts had a hot tub though. We had 3 park tickets so we figured if we wanted to go swim we could hit Volcano Bay. Speaking of, I did enjoy how VB was really just a 5-6 minute walk from Aventura, that was neat.
Parks
It seemed only US was the early park admission, not sure if that is typical or if IoA also gets some early admission some days, but IoA was never early for us this week. The wait times overall were actually not horrible. Before 5 PM, you could usually find Hagrids around 30-35 min wait and Velocicoaster less than that (25 avg). Outside a random spike, it wasn't until later that the wait times went up. Because of HHN, it seemed the HHN crowd would come after 5 and invade IoA before going to US. They had characters at a 'safe' distance only some of the time, other times they would get close.
In hindsight, I think 4 park days was too much. 3 + 1 VB day would of been just fine. Also, it's a toss up on whether I would stay on Universal property again. While taking breaks from the heat efficiently was great, the overall experience at Aventura was very, very lackluster. I don't think I would actually make Universal a long experience like this, but more likely that we tack on Universal to the end of a trip for 2 days.
Overall, the main reason we went on this trip was because I haven't been since I was 18 years old (17 years) and my wife has never been, so it was all new to us for the most part. Also my wife likes Harry Potter! We didn't hate the trip and certainly enjoyed ourselves and the new experiences. I hope someone finds this useful for an upcoming trip they are planning!
Food
Bigfire - we both had the 16oz ribeye. Very good and our best meal we ate (close first).
Toothsome - I had a Rueben and wife had the short rib. Rueben was just okay, not spectacular. Short rib was pretty good!
Mythos - I had a lamb burger and I did not enjoy it, but was because I have never had lamb before. Wanted to try something new at this interesting place. The pita bread and dip was freaking awesome though.
NBC Sports Grill - this was by far the WORST restaurant. We both had the The Combo which was a mix of ribs, briscuit and pulled pork. The ribs were just nasty, the briscuit was dry and pulled pork was way too greasy. Highly, highly disappointed in this place and would tell everyone to stick to a burger there.
Hard Rock - I had the BBQ Burger here and it was descent, but I could not tell the difference between this and Red Robin's version. But we've never eaten at a Hard Rock before so bucket list check
Aventura
The room sort of reminded me of Pop -very modern'ish design. Everything controlled by the tablet is kinda cool. The beds IMO were not the most comfortable and I felt Pop's beds were better. Size wise it was just fine for two people for 6 nights. I wish they had more drawers than only three. Shower was great - good temp and pressure. They had a small bottle of shampoo/conditioner and soap for use. Room was clean and we had no complaints upon arrival.
The food here was just incredibly disappointing and Pop Century has spoiled me when it comes to resort food. I had the breakfast burrito, hamburger, and pizza from here and I am really disappointed in the food quality coming out of Aventura. The only thing my wife (who kept eating chicken fingers and fries because that was all that was good to her) and I kept thinking was how we missed breakfast bagel sandwiches, burgers and pot roast from Pop.
The pool was okay. Really wish these resorts had a hot tub though. We had 3 park tickets so we figured if we wanted to go swim we could hit Volcano Bay. Speaking of, I did enjoy how VB was really just a 5-6 minute walk from Aventura, that was neat.
Parks
It seemed only US was the early park admission, not sure if that is typical or if IoA also gets some early admission some days, but IoA was never early for us this week. The wait times overall were actually not horrible. Before 5 PM, you could usually find Hagrids around 30-35 min wait and Velocicoaster less than that (25 avg). Outside a random spike, it wasn't until later that the wait times went up. Because of HHN, it seemed the HHN crowd would come after 5 and invade IoA before going to US. They had characters at a 'safe' distance only some of the time, other times they would get close.
In hindsight, I think 4 park days was too much. 3 + 1 VB day would of been just fine. Also, it's a toss up on whether I would stay on Universal property again. While taking breaks from the heat efficiently was great, the overall experience at Aventura was very, very lackluster. I don't think I would actually make Universal a long experience like this, but more likely that we tack on Universal to the end of a trip for 2 days.
Overall, the main reason we went on this trip was because I haven't been since I was 18 years old (17 years) and my wife has never been, so it was all new to us for the most part. Also my wife likes Harry Potter! We didn't hate the trip and certainly enjoyed ourselves and the new experiences. I hope someone finds this useful for an upcoming trip they are planning!