a surf themed resort minutes away from the universal theme parks with aggressively low
pricing universals endless summer surf side Inn and Suites has put the entire
market of Orlando Valley resorts on notice not only is it close to parks
you've also got access to a variety of shops and restaurants on International
Drive even if such access has blatantly been made as inconvenient as possible
hi I'm the frugal Brit my mission is to review every Hotel Resort near Disney World and Orlando
and for this video and back on International Drive to provide a breakdown of the good and they're not
so good things about universals endless summer resorts surf slide in and Suites and at the
end I will to provide some hopefully useful tips to help in getting the best out of any
vacation here but before we get into that I'll outline the key features of this popular resort
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which has two separate towers connected by its lobby area sits on the old wet and wild site at
the top of the crossover of International Drive and Universal Boulevard opposite endless summit
dockside in just to clarify despite having the universal name this isn't an on-site resort
given its placement on International Drive but it's pretty close only a 5 minute drive away an
Universal will take care of this drive for you with its complimentary shuttle buses to both the
city walk and to volcano Bay waterpark so heading into the lobby you'll notice the surf and Beach
theming with a starbucks opposite the check-in desk which is open first thing in the morning
and crucially before you'll be heading out for early park admission moving towards Tower 1 you
have the Universal Orlando store where you can grab merchandise and a few things that you may
have left at home moving back into the lobby and over to tower 2 you have the beach break cafe food
court serving the Southern Californian ingredients and a reasonable price heading north in tower 2
you'll arrive at the modest book modern arcade room carrying on in this direction you'll arrive
at the well-equipped fitness center and lastly in tower - you have a guest laundry facilities let's
now take a look at the different room options at Surfside Inn & Suites so your standard rooms
provide two queen sized beds a forty three inch modern smart TV complimentary Wi-Fi a
mini refrigerator an iron and ironing board and in-room safe and a wall-mounted hairdryer the two
bedroom suites provide the same but they also contain two bedrooms and sort of separate bath
and vanity areas a kitchenette area picnic table a microwave and a coffee maker so with pricing that
you can expect to pay around 100 to 120 dollars off season for a standard room but many families
go for the two bedroom suite option which costs between 180 and 180 dollars obviously if you're
staying in the summer months expect to pay a bit more there's no resort fee but if you are bringing
a car with you you'll need to factor in the $14 plus tax per night parking fee this Resort has
a huge fish shaped pool or surf shaped depending on your perspective and you can quench your thirst
at poolside at the sandbar with cocktails frozen drinks smoothies beer and wine at the back of the
pool area you have pleasant views of the huge lake that used to contain a few of the wet and wild
attractions Leslie I should highlight that one of the key benefits of staying at this resort is that
you'll get early park admission to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter and universals volcano Bay
one hour before the parks open assuming you have your tickets purchased to start the section I'm
gonna say that when looking for a value Hotel Resort in Orlando you want somewhere that's
clean has convenient transport to the parks nearby restaurants and under or around $100 a night with
no resort fee but generally you're looking to get three of these to be honest but you get all five
with Surfside Inn and Suites in addition to early park admission so it really is a super impressive
package when you break it down like that so much so that I do believe it has forced Disney
to reconsider the pricing of its own value resort offerings the bright and colorful summer surfing
aesthetic impresses throughout this resort and destroys all competition in this price range and
it's great that the Universal store has plenty of exclusive merchandise for endless summer and the
branded toiletries are a nice touch in your rooms given how new it is the hotel in its current state
is immaculate hopefully this can be maintained but this will obviously become more difficult
over time those who have stayed at the Disney World value and moderate resorts will likely
be familiar with the long walks through the hotel grounds to get to the lobby due to the motel style
layout but you don't get this at Surfside Inn & Suites as the rooms are all accessed internally
it'll take five minutes tops to get to the pool lobby or the pool stops having done some analysis
of TripAdvisor I found the reviews of staff attitude and friendliness to be encouraging with
no recurring themes to be concerned with rooms that Surfside or similar in quality to those at
cabana Bay especially in terms of size for those of you that don't know cabana Bay is a slightly
more expensive resort from Universal which is next door to volcano Bay it's fair to say that
these rooms that serve side are much cooler than the alternatives at this price that's including
your other options on International Drive and Walt Disney World the rooms are well-equipped
with the modern essentials such as a 43 inch Smart TV USB ports including future-proof USB seaports
in my opinion possibly the best thing about this Resort is its shuttle bus transportation to city
wok and volcano Bay which is incredibly efficient this will take it between seven and ten minutes
and these are super frequent so you really don't need to wait long and there's certainly no need
to panic if you see a boss pulling out as the resort is not that far away from the parks it is
walkable but even as someone that always prefers to walk even if it takes longer I really don't
think it's worthwhile here due to the efficiency and convenience of these shuttles of course this
transportation should not discourage you from walking onto International Drive and in particular
at the Walgreens store which many guests do take advantage of the main selling point of
being on International Drive is the restaurants and minor attractions available whilst the surf
side is quite far north on iDrive if you're happy for a long ish walk there are some great dining
options available to you the last things to talk about for this section is the pool area which
helpfully provides towels upon entrance plentiful beach chairs and lifejackets available at no
extra cost one really nice feature here is the underwater speakers in the pool I should mention
the sandbar for offering slightly better value than you would typically expect from a pool bar
so location I absolutely loved the location of this resort but there were some guests who had
booked this Universal Resort expecting to be at Universal not near-universal and not everyone is
a fan of international drive the hotel itself certainly isn't a fan of International Drive
and tries to pretend that it isn't actually there but it's deliberately awkward entrance and fencing
separating you from the sidewalk which probably has nothing at all to do with the fact that I
drive provides guests with more options on how to spend their vacation money can't really blame
them given the ultra-competitive room rates booked you also can't blame those giving less
than favorable reviews online because of this awkwardness there is a less than ideal shortcut
to our Drive and the Walgreens across the street which I'll cover in the tip section but ultimately
this is a not so good thing about Surfside Inn & Suites the main focus with the food at Surfside
Inn & Suites is value so they've priced things twelve dollars and all note which is great but
they're having those that feel the standard of food wasn't quite up to scratch food can
be left out for longer than you'd like which often won't be at the temperature you've won
people are not picking this resort for the quality of the food at the food court and I
would discourage anyone from doing so having said that the pizza is very decent and that delivery
service to your room is super convenient and a much appreciated inclusion the rooms are quite
spacious for the price but they are seriously lacking in the storage space a themed furniture
is cute book it's just decorative like boxes and chests that don't open to store anything and the
wardrobes and three drawers provided won't fit everyone stuff to say the least if you're at
capacity in your room be prepared to keep clothes in your suitcase with the two bedroom suites many
people felt shortchanged given how this is advertised because it really doesn't feel
like two separate bedrooms to be honest more like one bedroom and two other beds in the shared area
of the suite based on my TripAdvisor analysis it seems that noise is a fairly big problem at this
resort what doesn't help is the laminate floor so you'll hear a lot from the room above you it
really is look of the draw I didn't have many issues with this book I would concur that the
walls are quite thin almost as thin as the towels provided can you which were not comfortable but
really not something to die in a ditch over no staying in the standard rooms won't benefit from
having a coffee maker or a microwave which is a bit of a bummer if you're on a budget which
many of you I Drive veterans may have come to expect at this price point last thing I want to
cover with the rooms is the low tide high tide room service giving if you're staying for less
than seven nights your room won't be given a full clean only a light refresh so they'll make your
beds take out the trash replace the soap etc I'll be honest I love this I often find I don't need a
full room clean every day I often use that do not disturb and I think this will have helped keep
the room rates down and ultimately I appreciate the transparency because let's be honest lots of
the other resorts operate in this way off the record cough-cough Disney so for me it's great
that they've been open about it moving on to the swimming pool at Surfside Inn & Suites so it's
only 3 foot deep so maybe not the best choice for teenagers and I would say when compared to
what you get at cabana Bay as well as some of the other pool area amenities the low cost of
this resort may finally start to make a bit of success and unlike cabana Bay you're not able
to do pool hopping at some of the the looks on-site resorts such as the Royal Pacific and
the Hard Rock at Universal for balance I will say the pool area is on par with the allstar
Valley resorts and Disney World I'll finish the section with some minor nitpicking so the $14
parking charge is annoying but less than cabana Bay and can be forgiven in absence of a resort fee
the hotel grounds are not the most interesting giving that the rooms are internally accessed so
don't expect beautifully landscaped gardens like at the moderate Disney World Resort also another
downside to internally access rooms is that you'll have to wait around for elevators to arrive before
I get on to my tips for staying at Surfside Inn and Suites I'm just gonna summarize very
briefly so I think when this resort first opened in 2019 it got a bit of heat from people who saw
the universal name it didn't have appropriate expectations for our value resort in my opinion
yes it can be noisy and the access to I drive is annoying but overall it provides unparalleled
value at this price point with the early admission and the efficient course transportation it doesn't
make the other value Hotel options on iDrive irrelevant by any means you'll save a lot
more money at the value roads and hotels and the advancing resorts closer to all the iDrive action
but Surfside Inn and Suites has justifiably become one of if not the most popular resort
options in Orlando I want to end by saying that if the universal were to significantly increase the
price of this resort that would undermine pretty much every single thing I've said in this review
so the easiest way to access International Drive is through the parking lot it's not
ideal walking through here but a lot quicker than heading out to Universal
Boulevard there is an access gate just outside the lobby but it's locked yeah
there aren't any obviously bad choices with room selection it really depends on what you're looking
for in my opinion though getting a room on the ninth floor of either tower is a smart
way to counter the most common complaint about this resort that being the noise the reason for
this is that there won't be anyone walking above you on those laminate floors and also you'll hear
less noise around a pool area when you're this high the trade-off with the top floor though
is you'll be waiting longer for the elevators some people prefer a poolside view which costs
extra but there are some that felt it was noisy around these sides of the towers especially on
the weekend when they play music until fairly if you won't be staying next to someone you know I
would suggest asking reception that you don't want a room with and connecting doors as noise
does travel more so between these rooms if you want the quickest access to the Walgreens and
International Drive tower to is your best choice but if you'd prefer to be near the
shuttle buses pick up and drop off then I would request a room in Tower 1 as mentioned it is $14
per day plus tax to park at this resort but I have been well informed that if you're staying
for over a week and if you're polite you may be able to negotiate a reduced parking rate good
luck to anyone who gives us a try and please let me know how you get on for anyone getting
an uber or a lift I would recommend arranging for it to pick you up outside the lobby and not
at the ride-sharing pickup which has been known to cause confusion if you headed out to volcano
bait don't forget that you can take a towel from the pool that Surfside and drop it off when you
return speaking of dropping off if you do want to order anything within the Universal Parks you can
understand send it back to you so you don't have to carry it round although my last tip is to check
out the Facebook group named at universal endless summer fans which is a great community provide a
lot of advice and tips and several members have selflessly offered to give away stuff
on their last day like groceries and kettles etc so definitely worth checking this out that's it
for this review thank you so much for watching if you're headed to this resort I hope you have the
most amazing vacation I'm sure you will you may want to check out some of my other international
drive videos and if you're interested in future Orlando vacation content click here to subscribe