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Universal Orlando Resort: Where to Stay & Play for a Few Days

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My recent stay at Universal Orlando Resort was so much fun and I’m going to share and highlight my favorite moments with you. First and foremost, I stayed at the Cabana Bay Beach Resort on the property which allowed me early access (one hour) to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter™. It was my first time experiencing Diagon Alley™. I took advantage of the complimentary shuttle service to Universal Studios Florida and was able to … [Read More...]

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Navigating Disney World During a Pandemic

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I recently had an opportunity to visit Walt Disney World as part of my Goofy Getaways FAM Training. It was exciting and I was a bit anxious because even though some restrictions are being lifted, guidelines are more relaxed, and travel is starting to … [Read More...]

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Navigating Disney World During a Pandemic

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I recently had an opportunity to visit Walt Disney World as part of my Goofy Getaways FAM Training. It was exciting and I was a bit anxious because even though some restrictions are being lifted, guidelines are more relaxed, and travel is starting to … [Read More...]

Taste the Flavors of St. Thomas USVI

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I am excited to be collaborating with my fellow foodie lover Hannah Victoria on this listing of places to eat in St. Thomas USVI whether you are visiting or local to the island. We are giving you our personal opinions based on our dining experiences … [Read More...]

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How I found a hidden walking path at Disney's Caribbean Beach

The bus dropped us at Caribbean Beach in the late afternoon, and our kid was already asking about the pool, the waves, and whether the parrot in the shop was real. I had been to Walt Disney World a handful of times before, but never to this resort. The lobby felt like stepping into a faded postcard. We were in the middle of a five-week trip that had started in Honolulu, looped through Los Angeles, and would finish with a long-haul Qantas flight back to Sydney.

By day three I had hit that brick wall of tiredness every Australian traveller recognises after a few days in Florida. The sun was relentless, the queues never let up, and a strange hush settles over the parks around 4pm in the arvo. I just wanted half an hour quiet. So I wandered away from our room in the Trinidad section, past the splash zone, toward a patch of scrub I had not really noticed the day before.

That is how I stumbled onto a thin, sandy trail tucked behind the boardwalk, almost invisible from the main path. It felt like discovering a back beach at Jervis Bay but with palm trees and the distant hum of a Skyliner gondola drifting overhead. I did not plan it, did not read about it in any guide, and that is exactly why I want to write it down.

A quieter side of a busy resort

Caribbean Beach is spread out across six colourful "islands" — Caribbean Cay, Barbados, Jamaica, Aruba, Martinique, and Trinidad — and each one has its own pool, bus stop, and cluster of pastel rooms. The main building, Old Port Royale, is where most guests funnel through for food, the shopping arcade, and the Barbados bus loop that links to the Skyliner. From there it is easy to assume the rest of the property is more of the same.

The reality is gentler once you move past the central hub. Step away from the fountain and the manicured lawns and you find a long stretch of shoreline along Bay Lake that hardly anyone uses. There was the odd jogger and a few people walking dogs, but mostly it was quiet. The boardwalk curves around the lake, and just behind it, on the landward side, a soft dirt path runs parallel for about half a kilometre.

It is the kind of place where you finally exhale. After two weeks of Goofy's breakfasts and Lightning Lanes, half an hour under a sea grape tree felt like the best therapy an Aussie parent on holiday could ask for.

The moment I realised what I had found

I was looking at a map on my phone, trying to figure out the shortest route back to the food court for coffee, when I spotted a rusted chain-link fence and a low gate that someone had clearly forgotten to lock. Beyond it, the trail widened slightly and curved toward a lagoon inlet where two herons were staring each other down. The lake here had that brackish, still-water look you get at home in the wetlands around Byron Bay, only warmer and with a backdrop of faux-Caribbean architecture instead of paperbark.

There was no sign, no queue, and definitely no character meet-and-greet. Just a thin ribbon of compacted sand and the soft crunch of bahia grass underfoot. I walked it slowly, eventually working out it is probably a service trail used by maintenance crews. But for the two hours I was out there, it was just mine.

I came back the next morning before brekkie — sorry, before breakfast — with a flat white from the cafe in a takeaway cup and walked the whole length twice. The light at sunrise over the water is something no Disney promotional video will ever show you, which is honestly why I am writing this down.

What the trail actually reveals

Once you commit to exploring, the path opens up a different side of the resort that I had no idea existed. You pass behind the gardens of the Martinique section, skirt the edges of the volleyball court and the Barefoot Bay boat dock, and end up at a small beach area used for the Movies Under the Stars screenings, with wooden loungers and string lights waiting for dusk.

What surprised me was the wildlife. Here, in the brackish shallows, I watched a small alligator sunning itself on a muddy bank while a snowy egret picked its way through the reeds. There were also anoles, butterflies, and a fat-tailed creature I later learned was a Cuban hutia, a rodent the size of a small cat. For an Aussie who grew up wildlife-spotting on weekends in the bush, it was a quietly thrilling little detour.

The walk also loops back toward the Riviera Resort side, useful if you have a dining booking there or want to skip the Old Port Royale crowds for the Skyliner. The whole loop, with a slow wander and a coffee stop, took me about 45 minutes.

A few things to keep an eye out for along the way:

Making the most of a Caribbean Beach stay as an Aussie family

The thing I tell anyone coming from Australia is to plan a quieter morning on at least one day of the trip, even if you have park-hopper tickets. With the roughly 20-hour journey from Sydney to Orlando via Los Angeles, and a time difference that makes your first three nights feel like you are living in a parallel universe, you need somewhere gentle to land. Caribbean Beach, with its spread-out villages and lake-side walking, is built for that.

We paid about AU$510 a night for a standard room in Martinique, including the resort fee and a small midweek discount. That felt fair against a similar family room in Surfers Paradise over school holidays. Food is the obvious budget trap, though. A quick-service breakfast for the three of us was close to AU$90 once you add the bacon and the obligatory Mickey waffles. We kept snacks in our room from a Publix run — muesli bars, strawberries, and a proper flat white I had smuggled in from Melbourne.

The Skyliner connection also makes this an easy base for early rope-drop mornings at Hollywood Studios, especially if you can drag tired kids out the door by 7.45am.

A few small tips worked well for us:

Why this kind of slow exploration matters

After a few years of long-haul family trips, I have come around to the view that the best memories are rarely the ones you queue for. That hidden walking path behind the boardwalk at Caribbean Beach is not on the official maps, has no Lightning Lane points, and you will not find it on a YouTube walk-through. Yet it gave us an hour of stillness in a holiday that otherwise ran on espresso and adrenaline.

Even back home in Sydney I have found myself doing the same thing on weekend mornings, walking the coastal track at Bondi or the bush path near our place before anyone is up. The quiet is where the magic lives, not the queue.

If you are heading to Walt Disney World from Australia and want a bit of breath-space in your trip, leave the parks for half a day. Grab a takeaway drink, walk toward the water, and keep going past where most guests turn back. Take the wrong fork, look at the herons, and give yourself permission to do absolutely nothing for a while. You can always queue for Space Mountain tomorrow.