Portofino Bay Hotel at Universal, Orlando, USA

This is one of the hotels within Universal Studios. We stayed for one night to get access to the unlimited express passes for the Studios and Islands of Adventure. You get these express passes for the full day of arrival and day of departure - so make the most of them!

We stayed in a Club Level Deluxe double room which was well appointed and had two double beds in it.

The hotel is huge so ask for a room near an elevator and the family pool - otherwise you could have a long walk on your hands!

The Club Level Lounge was good, with a nice variety of snacks and soft drinks available at various times throughout the day. It was very busy though in the evening, when drinks were served.

Lovely pool with water slide and also a baby pool which was very shallow for the tiny ones!

You can get either a boat or resort bus to the parks and to City Walk which is open until the small hours!

The Universal Parks are great fun especially for slightly older children - my seven and nine and year olds loved it!

Make sure you sign up for the Loewes 'first club' before you book and you can choose some free goodies for your room - we chose nuts and white wine, which turned out to be a lovely bottle of good quality Californian wine, which was ready and waiting for us in an ice bucket when we returned from the parks!

There is a children's club but we did not use it.