Universal Aventura Hotel

This hotel was a very nice place to stay during our trip. Let's start with the good, this hotel has a lovely location, located very close to the sapphire falls resort and you can also share some of the amenities of that resort, which is a plus. It is within walking distance to volcano bay, as well as about a 10-15 min walk via the garden path to Citywalk. In terms of transportation, the buses come frequently and the bus stop is very close by and convenient with buses coming about every 10-15 min for both parks. In this section allow me to note the following: Adventura shares a shuttle service with Cabana Bay across the street. I'd love to see this place have its own shuttle service eventually for exclusively this hotel as I found most of the time my fiance and I, who don't prefer children, we're sharing a bus that was extremely cramped at times with many many more passengers and visitors of Cabana Bay than our own hotel. The stop is prior to ours and thus the bus is almost always full by the time it swings to us/also picks people up before even dropping you off at the end of the day. Minor, but worth noting I felt for those with a similar mindset. I will say other than that, this hotel was very quiet in terms of atmosphere, offering a more adult oriented, modern feel which I did enjoy and it was comfortable and I found everything about the hotel and it's processes easy to understand, including the layout. Food was lack luster in terms of offerings in our opinion. It wasn't bad, but we felt that other resorts/hotels from universal had many more options and food stations. My biggest complaint here is that there is only ever one checkout line for convenience items...meaning if you just want a drink you may have to wait like 10-15 for it if there is a big line or large families ordering food. (which is also done at the checkout, please do that somewhere else universal!) The pool, amenities and bars were all great, no complaints there other than the singular fire pit, would like to see more since there are only four chairs for it and it isn't very large. Moving to the rooms, they are very comfortable and sleek. I felt as though we got what was promised/what we paid for in terms of the room. The iPad to control things had me skeptical at first, but I did enjoy the convenience of controlling everything from one place that is also a mobile device, like adjusting the heat from my bed. Lots of storage and the usual suspects from a hotel/resort room, a small safe, a mini fridge, coffee station, television with channels and app connectivity, plenty of outlets and USB ports, a hairdryer, an ice bucket and an ironing board. No microwave, but would like to see that included eventually. The employees and front desk staff here were all amazing and extremely friendly, everything I think could be improved is more on a systematic, material level, I enjoyed every interaction here with people who worked for the hotel. My final note which is not the employees fault, is that the power went off while staying here for us multiple times. I was okay the first time as it was 11pm and I was just in bed. But the next time or two was throughout the next day or two and was just utterly random. It would work, then stop, then come back, then stop with basically no communication on what was going on and or an estimated fix or even what the actual problem was because we had no inclement weather during our stay. This also affected the hot water supply briefly and overall just made for a slightly irritating experience in the middle of our stay. Due to this factor alone, my fiance is iffy about staying here again, but I'd still consider it a nice, budget friendly option, I just hope they add on eventually and maybe include some more individual services specific to the hotel like more food and its own bus that's not shared with Cabana Bay. Between that and the sharing everything nice with sapphire falls like the water taxi, adventura feels like an afterthought to universal. But the employees made this a great experience anyways.