Dining ?? reservations or no and recommendations please

[cescott]

Go to the vacation planning desk at RPR they will help you out and pre pay it and give you what looks like a park ticket for each person. The good news is you order your food once you get there so allergy and gluten free accommodations are done once you are there. I’m sure the planning desk will be able to help with that as well.

Thanks! Any other dining locations that do the prepay as well? Three Broomsticks? I'm expecting crowds to be pretty heavy when we're there so any of these things I can figure out in advance will save us a bunch of headaches I'm sure! First time to Universal and our Harry Potter loving kids don't know about it yet

 

[BroadwayHermione5]

Thanks! Any other dining locations that do the prepay as well? Three Broomsticks? I'm expecting crowds to be pretty heavy when we're there so any of these things I can figure out in advance will save us a bunch of headaches I'm sure! First time to Universal and our Harry Potter loving kids don't know about it yet

As far as I know no other dining locations do prepay. Mobile order is a thing but not as bid as in Disney. CityWalk restaurants might require a reservation depending on how early you eat dinner.
how many days are you there? I have many strategies but if you’re there for more than two days my biggest thing is do HP and WW the first day. Start at UOR at diagon alley. Ride gringotts and have breakfast then really explore. Grab an ice cream from Florean Fortescues and head to the hogwarts express (need a park to park ticket to do this) and then head to hogsmeade and do everything there.

 

[cescott]

As far as I know no other dining locations do prepay. Mobile order is a thing but not as bid as in Disney. CityWalk restaurants might require a reservation depending on how early you eat dinner.
how many days are you there? I have many strategies but if you’re there for more than two days my biggest thing is do HP and WW the first day. Start at UOR at diagon alley. Ride gringotts and have breakfast then really explore. Grab an ice cream from Florean Fortescues and head to the hogwarts express (need a park to park ticket to do this) and then head to hogsmeade and do everything there.

Thanks again! We've got 2 full days planned in the parks (Sun and Tues) along with a few hours Sat evening after we arrive. Hoping to see the cinematic show Sat night and maybe a few rides in UOR. Then Sun will be pretty HP heavy. Our plan for that morning sounds similar to your suggestions, so seems we're on the right track! Hopefully we can get the kids out the door early and take advantage of the early entry (7am!) that morning. I feel like that even with the expected crowds, since our focus is HP and Christmas events (everything else is "nice to have") we should be able to get to most things. Hagrids is the big question, but I'm not 100% sure our ride-shy kids would do that one anyways!

 

[BroadwayHermione5]

Thanks again! We've got 2 full days planned in the parks (Sun and Tues) along with a few hours Sat evening after we arrive. Hoping to see the cinematic show Sat night and maybe a few rides in UOR. Then Sun will be pretty HP heavy. Our plan for that morning sounds similar to your suggestions, so seems we're on the right track! Hopefully we can get the kids out the door early and take advantage of the early entry (7am!) that morning. I feel like that even with the expected crowds, since our focus is HP and Christmas events (everything else is "nice to have") we should be able to get to most things. Hagrids is the big question, but I'm not 100% sure our ride-shy kids would do that one anyways!

Excellent to hear! Hagrid I have never had the chance to ride, but I know it’s similar to Verbolten in Busch Gardens Williamsburg. Idk if that helps.
move never been to any theme park for holidays so I am slightly jealous lol! Have a lot of fun!

 

[namelessoracle]

You will want to make reservations for Cowfish/Bigfire/Mythos/Toothsome now. When we went you were not getting dinner if you walked up to those places the day of.

You might get away with walks up to other places. The lines for food were longer than the lines for the rides in my experience.

Also prepaying for leaky cauldron seems like a waste of time. You still have to stand in line and wait with everyone else and go to the cash register, you just hand them a voucher instead of your credit card. I have heard its "guaranteed"if they are "full", but im not sure how that works because its a walk up stand in line place.

 

[tiana1989]

If you’re going during the busier holiday period, I would definitely get a few reservations. As others have said, it’s nowhere near as stressful as Disney, but all bets are off once it’s packed. Usually you can find food in Universal without reservations, but last year in the week leading up to New Years the whole place was one giant line. We waited in a line to get into Mel’s for about 20 minutes without it moving when a team member came out and warned us it’d be a 3 hour wait. Luckily we were still able to grab a reservation in the next hour at Cowfish (which I’d highly recommend), so even if you get stuck there should be some options available at City Walk. But if you want to make sure to get into a specific restaurant that accepts reservations, I would play it safe and do that.

 

[cescott]

@namelessoracle and @tiana1989 Thanks! We've got reservations for Finnegans, Mythos, Islands, Cowfish, Confisco, and Toothsome. With all the allergies in our family, we can't easily do a lot of the walk-up places so we're pretty used to examining menus in advance and making reservations. Takes some of the spontaneity out of the day, but nearly as over-scheduled as our last Disney trip!