Universal Orlando Opened Its First Value Hotel Today — Many Nights Under $100
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This morning, June 27, the newest Universal Orlando resort hotel, its seventh, welcomed its very first guests.
The hotel, called Universal's Endless Summer Resort - Surfside Inn and Suites, with 750 rooms, is the very first Value Resort at Universal Orlando. This project is just half of the coming addition as its sister resort, Endless Summer - Dockside Inn and Suites, is set to open its doors next year. In total, the complete Endless Summer Resort should raise availability by 10,000 more guests at one time by the end of next year.
Related: How to Use Points to Save Money at Universal Orlando
Currently, the beach themed resort tower, The Surfside Inn and Suites, is offering guests the option of a dual queen bedroom or a two-bedroom suite for an average price of about $130 (or $85 a night during slower seasons) per room. Families should love that more than half of the rooms at the resort are two-bedroom suites, which is an exceedingly unusual ratio, even for family-centric resorts. (Here's a review of the family suite at the Universal Aventura Hotel.)
As Universal Orlando's first official "Value Resort", the resort was clearly made with value in mind, so food and drink options are generally priced at about $10 or below. Despite the lower price tag than most Universal resorts, guests are still all granted access to Universal Orlando park benefits such as early admission, complimentary resort-wide transportation and the ability to charge items to their rooms. (So, be sure to pay your hotel bill with a card that earns a bonus on travel to rack up bonus points on all things Universal!)
Speaking of, while we don't see this brand new hotel on the Chase Travel booking site yet, unlike at Disney, most Universal Orlando resort hotels are eventually bookable with points earned from the Chase Sapphire Preferred Card or Chase Sapphire Reserve.
The addition of a large resort on the property is, according to Fool.com, a means of "closing the gap" a bit in theme-park resort availability between Universal and their main competitor, Disney World. Right now, there are over 36,000 rooms available at Disney World's on-site resorts. By the end of 2020, Universal expects to have 9,000 total rooms across all its resorts such as the Universal Aventura Resort, Loews Royal Pacific and more.
Universal has quite a few projects ahead of them to catch up to its mouse-centric neighbor, but with the recent opening of the (perhaps too) popular Hagrid-themed Harry Potter ride, filling up the newly added hotel rooms likely won't be an issue. This is especially true if the rumored third true Universal Orlando theme park comes to fruition.
Stay tuned to TPG for a first-hand look of the new resort in the coming weeks.