Should You Stay at Dockside Inn? Read My Review First
The Family Suite Wasn’t Enough to Forgive the Bugs and Lack of Hospitality
My family had our first visit to Universal Studios Orlando. We did a 5-day, 4-night stay at their budget, family hotel option, Endless Summer. There are two resorts for Endless Summer: Surfside and Dockside Inns.
These options are located across the street from each other and about a 10-minute shuttle ride to City Walk. Both resorts share shuttle services and have similar layouts and theming.
We chose to stay at Dockside Inn. I opted for the 2-bedroom suite. It provided our child with their own private bedroom and featured a small kitchenette area with a dining table. We booked our vacation through Costco Travel.
First Impressions of Dockside Inn
We arrived on a Tuesday morning. I expected that our rooms would not be ready until the afternoon. I was pleasantly surprised that our room was available when we checked in. I had requested to be away from the elevator to avoid the early and late traffic.
We headed to our room in tower 2, down a long hallway, a reasonable distance from the elevator. When I stay in hotels, the first thing I do is remove the bedding from the corners of the mattress and check for bugs. While my child admired our view of the park in the distance, and my husband scanned the room for cleanliness, I checked each mattress for any sign of bed bugs.
What are bed bugs and how common are they?
Bed bugs are parasitic insects that feed on blood. They tend to be active at night. Their bite can cause skin irritation, such as rashes and bumps, allergic reactions and in some cases, tiredness or fever.
Single-family homes are the biggest source of bed bugs. They are common at hotels because infected guests unknowingly bring them in their luggage either from their home or they are picked up at other locations. A single bed bug can live up to six months without eating. A single bug can lay up to five eggs a day. This makes an infestation easy to occur and difficult to manage.
Having bed bugs does not indicate that a hotel is unsanitary or has poor cleaning processes. It just means that the bugs were brought in and not caught during rotations of hotel guests coming through an infected room. All hotels, no matter what rating they have, are susceptible to bed bug infestations because they are brought in by travelers and often go undetected during several turnovers.
How to check for bed bugs
As a hotel guest, you should always check your room before you settle in. Keep your luggage outside of the room or in the bathtub. Pull back the sheets to expose the mattress. Look in the seams along the corners or on the mattress itself. You are looking for small, dark spots or signs of the bugs themselves. They like dark, warm spaces, so you may need to pull the mattress away from the headboard. You can also run a tissue along the seam of the mattress to see if you get any blood stains. Alert hotel staff if you find evidence of bugs.
This is a practice I have done with all of my travels. Up until this visit, I have been lucky not to encounter bed bugs.
Bed bugs in our first room
Upon inspecting the third mattress, I found staining and dead bed bug bodies in the seam of the mattress. I took pictures of the mattress and left the sheets pulled back with the mattress exposed. We went back to the lobby to let the reception staff know and asked to be moved. Thankfully, the bugs were dead, but I wasn’t taking any chances.
Moving to room #2
The team member at the reception desk was quick to reassign us a new room. She did not acknowledge or apologize for the bugs. We also did not speak to the manager. We received a new room on the same floor and headed up. It was right next to the elevator.
I inspected each of the mattresses in this new room. Thankfully, they were bug free. We dropped our bags and headed off to the park. I was disappointed that our child’s bedroom shared a wall with the elevator and we were the first room right off the elevator bank. I didn’t want to lose any more time messing with hotel rooms.
Two-bedroom suite impression
It was nice to come back to a room where we each had our own bed to decompress and relax. The toilet issue had been resolved and thankfully that was our only maintenance issue. The view from this room was toward ICON Park, but nothing exciting. I was bummed we would miss a chance to catch a fireworks show from our window.Â
I checked my email that evening. I had an email from the security staff asking me to complete an incident form. I completed the form and shared the pictures I took. I thought I would hear more about this from the management team but I never did.
We have had many stays at Disney World resorts. In each, the staff were always welcoming, greeted us whenever we passed by and were approachable when we had an issue or request. I was suprised that we did not have that experience at Universal’s hotel. After our initial interaction at the reception desk, we never spoke to or had interactions with any of the hotel staff during the remainder of our stay.
Day 2, the smoking hallway and disappointing desserts
The mattress was comfortable and the pillows were a bit flat. I was able to get decent rest until the early morning rush for the elevators started. We like to eat breakfast in our hotel room. The fridge, microwave and coffee maker were just what we needed to have some oatmeal, fruit and juice before we headed out.
The walkway to the lobby from the hotel towers passes by a side area that is designated for smoking. In the morning and evening, it was very busy. We had to walk through a smoky breeze whenever we passed through this area.
The shuttle bus access was a short walk from the main entry. The arrival of buses was quick and easy. After a full day in the park, we returned to the hotel and stopped by the food court hoping to cool down with some ice cream. Pier 8 Market is the hotel’s dining option and includes a variety of breakfast, lunch and dinner entrees, as well as grab and go snacks. The only ice cream option it had available was a small freezer of ice cream cups, sandwiches or bars and they were low quality. We grabbed our disappointing treats and headed back to our room.
Final night and departure
The rest of our stay was uneventful, which was fine since we spent most of our time in the parks. On our final night, we returned to our room earlier than usual to pack up our stuff for our transfer to Disney’s POP! Century Resort in the morning. Our child wanted to watch tv in their room, but could not find a remote, so I went in to help them look. We checked all the drawers and closet and I checked at the headboard in case it was stuck between the mattress and wall. I noticed something on the floor so I got out my flashlight on my phone and looked under the bed. There was a dead cockroach but no tv remote. Frustrated that I didn’t see that earlier in our trip, we headed to bed, anxious to move on to our beloved Disney resort.
Wrap up and no return
Once we returned home, I provided a review through Costco Travel about our experience. I am disappointed that no one reached out to us or talked to us about our experience.
Honestly, I don’t fault the hotel for the bed bug issue. I do wish they had handled it better. We did like the layout of the 2-bedroom suite. The price was reasonable compared to the other hotel options. Our entire visit wasn’t enjoyable enough for us to choose to stay there again, nor did we feel like they even cared we were there. Next time, we will choose a different resort.
