Do I really need dining reservations?

[littlejewel]

We'll be at Universal June 6-12, Royal Pacific so EPs are included. I did make a reservation for the Friday night (6/11) as I assume it will be busy. Do I really need reservations for the other nights (M-Th)? Last time we were at Universal was pre-Covid Christmastime and we just walked up to any restaurant and was seated within 20 mins or so. What's the restaurant situation now? For those of you there now, or over the past few weeks, did you feel you needed reservations? Thanks!

 

[DisneyLifePapioNe]

We'll be at Universal June 6-12, Royal Pacific so EPs are included. I did make a reservation for the Friday night (6/11) as I assume it will be busy. Do I really need reservations for the other nights (M-Th)? Last time we were at Universal was pre-Covid Christmastime and we just walked up to any restaurant and was seated within 20 mins or so. What's the restaurant situation now? For those of you there now, or over the past few weeks, did you feel you needed reservations? Thanks!

We leave in a couple weeks to go back, in January the only place that seemed to have a dinner line was Toothsome, and pretty significant, next to that surprisingly was NBC, so it’s hard saying if it’s necessary or not, capacity levels may still be in place

 

[CAPSLOCK]

If you want to eat right at park closing, a reservation is a very good idea.

 

[bchbetha]

We like a lunch reservation and when we were there at a slow time, walk ups were given a return time 2 hours later.

 

[Ross Kratter]

Official language from Universal is that reservations are required for all CityWalk restaurants. Whether or not that's enforced, that is the official policy. Certain places book up well in advance, most notably Toothsome.

 

[MomOTwins]

I thought we’d be fine without reservations because we were at a deluxe hotel and supposedly had preferred walk up restaurant access—supposed to be one of the perks of universal (that it doesn’t need as much planning as Disney). Boy was that a disaster. We tried all our hotel restaurants (Portofino) walked all around City Walk at 6pm and the earliest option we were given was 8:30–most places were after 9 or no availability without a reservation. Granted we were there spring break but next time I will plan better!

 

[Alana20]

We'll be at Universal June 6-12, Royal Pacific so EPs are included. I did make a reservation for the Friday night (6/11) as I assume it will be busy. Do I really need reservations for the other nights (M-Th)? Last time we were at Universal was pre-Covid Christmastime and we just walked up to any restaurant and was seated within 20 mins or so. What's the restaurant situation now? For those of you there now, or over the past few weeks, did you feel you needed reservations? Thanks!

We just returned yesterday. Granted it was peak Spring Break but reservations were a must for most places. The great thing is almost everything except Toothsome had good reservation times for the same evening or next day so we were able to be somewhat spontaneous based on our plans. We overheard a lot of people who just walked up be told that they were “booked for the night” unless you had a reservation. We typically booked a dinner reservation in the morning for that same evening.

 

[CheriePenguin]

Are lunch/dinner reservations relatively easy to cancel? How far in advance do they want/require you to cancel if needed? Is there any credit card reservation up front?

 

[Alana20]

Are lunch/dinner reservations relatively easy to cancel? How far in advance do they want/require you to cancel if needed? Is there any credit card reservation up front?

Yes, very easy to cancel. No credit card required to book the reservation. They do text you a few hours before and ask you to either text back confirm or cancel. The whole process was really simple.

 

[CAPSLOCK]

No credit card reservation and they're easy to cancel. But they're harder to keep track of than Disney reservations. Save your e-mail confirmation for that purpose. I don't recall what the timeframe to cancel is, but as long as you do so by the day before it shouldn't be a problem regardless.

And like @Alana20 said, they do send a confirmation text a few hours before. And another when it is time.

 

[shawthorne44]

A note on the Premier Priority. The order is Reservations First, then Premier guests, then walk-ups. So, Premier doesn't help if the reservations are booked up.

 

[Vacation_Commander]

About half the places we ate at, reservations probably weren't needed, but those were inside the park (like Confisco and Mythos), but in CityWalk, pretty much every place required a reservation without have a really long wait.
Toothsome and Bigfire both would have been long waits for us had we not had reservations.

 

[jods]

Do you get reservations through the app or you call the restaurant directly? This will be my first universal trip and I feel lost lol.

 

[Ross Kratter]

Do you get reservations through the app or you call the restaurant directly? This will be my first universal trip and I feel lost lol.

Unfortunately the app doesn’t have the facility to make dining reservations, but you can get links for each restaurant’s reservation system on the Universal website. The Universal-owned and operated restaurants are all on Zomato; the rest are on OpenTable.

 

[jods]

Unfortunately the app doesn’t have the facility to make dining reservations, but you can get links for each restaurant’s reservation system on the Universal website. The Universal-owned and operated restaurants are all on Zomato; the rest are on OpenTable.

Thank you.

 

[WDW88]

Deleted. Found my answer