Strong Water Tavern: Why The Rum’s Gone

Hello and welcome to my runDisney Princess Half Marathon Weekend 2025 trip report! I’m returning to the blow-by-blow diary format for this trip. Today we review Strong Water Tavern at Universal Aventura Hotel. Read all the posts in this report here. Onward!

At this point I have nearly two decades of Walt Disney World experience – but I’m still getting the lay of the Universal Studios land. I must confess that I had never heard of Strong Water Tavern until Becky told me she made us a reservation there. No matter; she’s never steered me wrong before! And as a now six-year resident of Puerto Rico I am no stranger to rum.

Does Strong Water Tavern capture the Caribbean spirit and/or alcohol by volume? My investigation ensues below. Check out the official Universal menu here. (It’s a bit of a wonky site; scroll down to the bottom for the menu sections.)

WHAT’S STRONG WATER TAVERN LIKE?

Strong Water Tavern is located inside Universal’s Aventura Hotel, which is one of the resorts on the walking path. You can take a bus to get there or walk along the path. It’s the second to last resort before the path bottoms out in Cabana Bay.

The restaurant is themed to a Caribbean rum bar, albeit a higher-end one. The restaurant features a bar proper as well as a smattering of low and high tables. You can make reservations in advance if you want to make it a sure thing, but popularity is probably dependent on hotel occupancy. On the night we dined, the location was busy but by no means overrun.

The ambience and decor are fitting for the rum bar aesthetic, with dark woods, rich colors, and low light. I liked the map of the Antilles that adorned the back of the bar, although I still wonder why it was in German. Surely Spanish would’ve made the most sense? You should see the map at the beginning of the Castillo El Morro tour here in PR; those wily Spaniards had it ALL back in the day!

Neither the decor nor the menu cater to children. I mean, this being a theme park resort hotel restaurant, I’m sure you’re welcome to bring children. On the other hand and unlike Disney, Universal Studios does seem to attract more families with slightly older kids – not across the board, of course, but generally. I don’t get the idea that anyone thought about the youngsters in designing this restaurant. I’d find somewhere else to eat if I were toting around a young child.

TOTS

As you might imagine, Strong Water Tavern boasts a strong menu of cocktails, especially as feature rum. Yet I found myself drawn to the “Tots” section of the menu, which featured various beer and infused rum shot combinations.

I selected the “Open Water,” which came with a neat shot of jalapeño-pineapple infused rum and a “beer chaser.” That’s right, my beer was described as… a beer. Which is a fair assessment; it did in fact taste like the platonic ideal of a light beer.

Fine by me, as it was largely intended to act as the ballast for the much more assertive shot of jalapeño-pineapple rum. As a proponent of spicy drinks, I was very much into it! The jalapeño is undeniably present, but only so much as to bring the fire, not burn your tongue to the ground. The pineapple takes a back seat to the arson, but is present enough to provide a balancing touch of sweetness to each sip. If you’re not big on spice, do NOT get the Open Water. If you are, I highly recommend it!

In general, I feel like the “tots” section offers good bang for your buck. I wouldn’t hesitate to nose around this section of the cocktail menu again. Although I’m intrigued by the milk punch. Black tea, you say…?

Oh, and lest anyone else be curious as I was, I looked up the term “tot.” Seems to refers to an English sailor’s rum ration. Not sure where the addition of the beer came in, but I certainly received my Royal Navy-mandated 1/8 of an imperial pint. So I guess I’m a sailor now. I mean, I have been tattooed…

TAPAS AT STRONG WATER TAVERN

The majority of the menu is composed of tapas as opposed to your more traditional appetizers and entrees. I’m a fan of the tapas format, especially when dining with friends, but you may wish to look elsewhere if you’re looking for a big plate of anything.

The tapas in question, however, are not so traditional themselves. Rather than purely Spanish in influence, they range across the Caribbean, with countries like Jamaica, Haiti, Puerto Rico, Mexico, and more finding representation in the kitchen.

We elected to order an assortment of tapas to share because we understood the assignment (and generally share anyway!).

MEXICAN TAPAS

To begin, we enjoyed an entry from the Mexico portion of the menu in the pork belly tacos: mole poblano, cilantro, tomatoes, pickled onions, radishes, serrano peppers, chihuahua cheese, and chipotle mayo.

Okay, I’m probably about to drop an unpopular opinion here, but: I think the pork belly tacos have way to much chipotle mayo and arguably – no really – too much cheese. The creamy elements were so disproportionate they drowned out the pork belly.

The ingredients underneath seemed fresh and well-cooked, but in retrospect I wish I had scraped off most of the mayo and half the cheese. I love cheese as much as the next person, but the pork belly should be the star. That being said, it’s a decently sized portion if you’re looking for a more robust dish.

COLOMBIAN TAPAS

The remainder of our selection was a bit more readily shareable.

We tried two items from the Colombia part of the menu. First, the cheesy arepas: tossed in salsa verde, pico de gallo, fried egg, duck cracklings.

Look, maybe I’m just not particularly well-versed in arepas, but the presentation seemed kinda weird to me. I looked it up, and it seemed like fried eggs are common in arepas, but I can’t seem to get a solid handle on whether it’s normal to get fried eggs on arepas. It felt sort of disjointed to me, as the cheesy arepas were also soft and thus the textures blended together. Could very well be a personal preference thing, but I wasn’t entirely sold.

We also tried the tequeños: queso fresco, sweet ham, puff pastry, and roasted pepper sauce. These little pastry bites reminded me of the sort of passed appetizer you might find at a cocktail party. The dominant flavor was the sweet ham working in congress with the light fry of the puff pastry. The salty-spiced elements of the cheese and sauce did work to cut across the sweet-savory taste of the ham if that’s something you’d be into. I’m not a big ham fan myself, so I subjectively found this one to be just okay.

JAMAICAN-HAITIAN TAPAS

For our final plate, we traveled to Jamaica & Little Haiti with the jerk chicken: bone-in chicken, jerk-marinade, coconut rice, mango chutney.

The chicken was good and had a decent outside char. The advertised jerk spices were present and had good flavor, but I wouldn’t necessarily describe them as spicy. Personally I really enjoyed the coconut rice, which added a fragrant twist. I wouldn’t necessarily describe the jerk chicken here as a must-do or a unique spin, but if you’re craving chicken and like bold flavor it’s a solid pick.

IS STRONG WATER TAVERN WORTH THE TRIP?

To be honest, I found our culinary travels through Strong Water Tavern to be somewhat lackluster. To be fair, some of this could be chalked up to personal preference. There’s certainly a lot of variety on the menu; maybe I just need to make different choices.

My tot, however, struck me as a good value. I got a kick out of the combination with a side of old world Caribbean ambience. So while I wouldn’t necessarily urge you to make the trek to Strong Water Tavern for a meal, I’d say it’s worth the walk for the drinks and the vibes. That goes double if you’re staying at a nearby Universal resort. After all, you deserve your daily allotted rum ration!

Don’t forget, you can follow FRoA on Threads @fairestrunofall and on Instagram @fairestrunofall. If you have any questions or thoughts, leave a comment or email fairestrunofall@gmail.com. See ya real soon!