if staying at one of the premier hotels onsite

[WINTER]

can you get priority seating for dining? If so, how?

 

[damo]

At some locations, yes. You just show them your room key.

 

[hhoope01]

If you want to know which hotels check out Dining reservations at Universal Orlando – complete guide

 

[cschaaf]

Always worth asking, but we've had very mixed results. A few trips, we were able to cut down long waits to walk ups. One time, we were quoted something like 45 minutes at Mythos. When we showed our room key, it dropped to 5 minutes.

The last few trips, though, it's been useless. Many places said they only start using the Priority Seating when the wait is greater than an hour - of course, we ran into mostly 45 minute waits (week before Christmas), so we couldn't use it. They said if the wait was an hour or more, the Priority would drop the wait by 50%.

Last Christmas, Toothsome was doing Priority and said the same thing. But when the wait was 90 minutes, we showed our key and they dropped it... to 85 minutes. I believe we ended up at Vivo that night where the wait was less than an hour, so we had the full wait.

 

[ghtx]

This is really interesting and I haven't heard of this. So it sounds like "priority seating" is like Express Pass but for dining. Is that basically the idea? Anything else I have to do besides show my room key when I get to a restaurant?

 

[nkereina]

This is really interesting and I haven't heard of this. So it sounds like "priority seating" is like Express Pass but for dining. Is that basically the idea? Anything else I have to do besides show my room key when I get to a restaurant?

The concept isn't unique to Universal, its just meant to give those staying on-site priority for the next available seat at restaurants that offer it. Much like PP, we've had mixed results as well and still find there to be a wait when we've tried to use it (CityWalk), so I don't think they're actually sitting people at the next available table in some instances. But never hurts to ask. No, you don't have to do anything other than show your room key.

 

[cschaaf]

Much like many things at Universal, there are mixed messages. On the Uni site, it shows Priority Seating is available only for the 3 premier hotels. On Loews' site, Priority Seating is listed under the ALL UO Resort Hotels.

 

[Mrsjvb]

IIRC it won’t bump you ahead of anyone with a reservation and won’t give you the next open table if a party already on the list fits it ‘ better’. In other words if a table for 4 opens up, and a walk up family has already checked in, they aren’t going to seat your party of 2 at that 4 top.